President Joe Biden is out with his proposed budget for fiscal 2025, and it includes a significant increase in funding for USDA. The department’s discretionary programs would be funded at $31.6 billion for the year that begins Oct. 1, an increase of about 8% over FY24.
Keep in mind: That funding doesn’t include the cost of commodity programs, crop insurance, school meals or SNAP but does include department operations as well as agricultural research, conservation technical assistance and other programs.
The budget has ideas for helping farmers who need USDA loans and loan guarantees and also takes another stab at getting Congress to make permanent a $5-per-acre subsidy program for cover crops. USDA operated a temporary cover crop program in 2021 and 2022.
Also in the budget: A broad description of the president’s priorities for a new farm bill. They include addressing “climate change by protecting and enhancing investments in conservation, climate-smart agriculture and forestry, and clean energy.”
The White House also wants to aid small and beginning farmers, strengthen local food supply chains, reduce food waste, support small and independent processors, and open new market opportunities for producers.
“In addition, the administration supports improvements to crop insurance, proactively managing risk from natural hazards, including the permanent authorization of the cover crop incentive program,” the budget says.
Western Growers urges Congress to refocus on ag labor woes
Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia says he hopes the report from the House Agriculture Committee’s Agricultural Labor Working Group will “help to refocus” members of the House, “especially those serving on the committees of jurisdiction” on the importance of passing ag labor legislation.
While praising the report in a letter Monday to the group’s co-chairs. Puglia noted if the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which WG supported, had become law, farmers employing H-2A workers would have saved $1 billion in wage costs in 2023 and another $1.8 billion through 2024.
“It remains a highly regrettable lost opportunity that the Senate did not take up this legislation after the House passed it with bipartisan support, twice in successive years,” Puglia said in the letter to Reps. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., and Don Davis, D-N.C.
He also lamented the continuing problems caused by labor shortages and higher wage costs, which force many of his members to use the H-2A program and hire temporary foreign workers.
“America is increasingly dependent on imported fresh produce as the cost structure for domestic production, driven in large part by labor costs, continues to advantage foreign producers,” Puglia wrote. “This and other regulatory factors are forcing farm consolidation, which increasingly results in multi-generational family farms giving way to private equity investors.”
USDA unveils final 'Product of the USA’ rule
The Agriculture Department on Monday finalized a rule limiting voluntary “Product of USA” or “Made in USA” labels to meat from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the U.S.
The agency proposed the rule a year ago after petitions from beef producer groups expressed concern that the labels could be used on meat from foreign animals that are then processed or packaged in the United States.
"The final rule does not establish any mandatory country of origin labeling requirements,” the rule states. "Producers are not required to make these claims. If certain products no longer qualify for a “Product of USA” or “Made in the USA” claim, producers can choose to use other U.S.-origin claims or not to make any type of U.S.-origin claim.”
The labels are voluntary; the U.S. had permanent COOL requirements for beef and pork before 2015, but they were repealed by lawmakers after Canada and Mexico successfully challenged the law at the World Trade Organization and gained the ability to retaliate with tariffs.
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The Canadian Cattle Association called the U.S. standard “the most onerous … in the world,” and said it fails “to give meaningful consideration to other options that would have respected the high level of integration in our North American supply chains and food systems.”
Read more in our story on Agri-Pulse.com.
Farm equipment sales soften
Sales of farm equipment were down significantly in February from a year ago. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers reported sales of two-wheel drive tractors fell 6.7% year over year while sales of four-while-drive models dropped 14%.
Sales last month of self-propelled combines dropped 31.5% to 363 from a year earlier.
Total tractor sales for the first two months of the year are down 14% from 2023, and combine sales are nearly 19% lower.
USDA to take closer look at seed company marketing
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday announced a new website monitoring program, where USDA will hire specialists to evaluate whether seed companies are meeting standards under the Federal Seed Act.
Speaking at the National Farmers Union annual meeting, he said the specialists will also review packaging, pamphlets, PDFs and other marketing materials.
Building on a competition report and USDA’s Farmer Seed Liaison initiative announced last year, Vilsack said he hopes to “hold people accountable” while also making germplasm more readily available to researchers, providing more potential for small seed companies and creating more competition for farmers.
Vilsack said he wants to make sure farmers are “well educated” as they're purchasing seed and understand whether or not the same traits available in brand name seeds can also be found in generic seeds.
“There's a lot of information that's available on the web. And there's a tendency on the part of all of us to say, ‘Well, I read it on the internet, so it's kind of got to be true, right?’ Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't,” Vilsack explained.
He said it: “We hope the work of the ALWG will serve as a bright light of hope for all who worry that policy-focused bipartisan collaboration on difficult and consequential issues in the Congress is a thing of the past.” – Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia in a letter to Ag Labor Working Group co-chairs, Reps. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., and Don Davis, D-N.C.
