USDA is due out today with its quarterly forecast for U.S. agricultural trade. We’ll be watching for the trends in exports and the size of the growing trade deficit.
The May ag trade outlook forecast U.S. agricultural exports for fiscal 2024, which ends Sept. 30, at $170.5 billion. Imports for FY24 were estimated at $202.5 billion. The May update also had China dropping to third place behind Mexico and Canada among the top U.S. export markets.
Keep in mind: There are many reasons for the deficit, including falling market prices for key exported commodities such as corn and soybeans. But any increase in that deficit is going to provide new ammunition for GOP critics, who say the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to open new markets for U.S. farm products.
Wisconsin senator urges USTR to fight EU on product names
In a letter that is being sent today, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., is urging the office of the U.S. Trade Representative to create a comprehensive policy protecting U.S. exporters’ ability to use product names like parmesan, chateau and bologna amid concerns about the European Union’s attempts to influence labeling of these products internationally.
In the letter, Baldwin applauds a recent agreement between USTR and the Chilean government, which allows U.S. products to use these food names when selling their products.
"As we’ve unfortunately seen from multiple European Union trade agreements now, geographical indication restrictions on common food and beverages names have veered far off from their intellectual property system origins and now operate in global markets as market access nontariff trade barriers,” Baldwin writes. "The U.S. must treat them as such."
Boozman, Cornyn to travel to Texas’s Rio Grande Valley to discuss water issues
The Senate Ag Committee’s top Republican, John Boozman of Arkansas, and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., are traveling to Texas tomorrow to speak with Rio Grande Valley growers about lagging water deliveries from Mexico under a 1944 treaty.
According to a media advisory, both senators also plan to “call upon Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to take up the farm bill when the Senate reconvenes in September."
House, Senate appropriators push USDA for answers on FDPIR shortages
House and Senate appropriators have joined other members of Congress in seeking answers from USDA on the cause of food shortages under the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations.
Chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, along with leaders of appropriation subcommittees wrote a letter to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack seeking more details about recent shortages in the FDPIR programs.
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Deliveries through FDPIR are sourced through USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service warehouse network in partnership with the Food and Nutrition Service. They are then sent to income-eligible tribal households living in designated areas.
Several Indian tribal organizations have faced disruptions in this program and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, however.
In the letter, appropriators asked the agency for more details on the decision-making and build up to transitioning from two contractors to one in handling distribution. They also ask for more details about how tribes are being impacted by the shortages, and potential solutions.
USDA said last week it was working to resolve the issues.
Google, Arable to monitor irrigation on Nebraska cropland
A new partnership between Google and crop intelligence company Arable intends to deploy irrigation monitoring systems for 25,000 acres of Nebraska farmland.
The companies, through a partnership with the Twin Platte Natural Resources District, intend to help farmers better monitor groundwater use to limit over-pumping, according to a press release. Limiting groundwater use should also help to bolster water levels in the Platte River system.
Google is providing funding for the technology system while Arable will provide training and support for growers, the release says. Participating farmers will be selected by Twin Platte Natural Resource District.
“As a company, our goal is to replenish more water than we consume by 2030 and support water security in communities where we operate,” says Google Data Center Sustainability Manager Susie Shine. "We’re excited to collaborate with leading organizations like Arable to promote water conservation in agriculture and complement our commitment to climate-conscious cooling within our own operations.”
EPA says it will complete rodenticide evaluations in November
EPA has affirmed it plans to release a final evaluation of the impacts on endangered species of four rodenticides in November. That timing would comply with a court agreement reached last year with the Center for Biological Diversity.
The commitment, which is part of developing a rodenticide strategy, was made in a status report filed by the agency on Monday. EPA recently finalized a herbicide strategy outlining ways producers can minimize the effects of herbicides on listed plants and animals and their habitat. It also issued a draft insecticides strategy in July.
Also from EPA: The agency is holding a webinar on Wednesday for people interested in joining its Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Advisory Committee. More information is here.
H-2A worker protections blocked in 17 states
The Labor Department’s attempt to protect farmworkers from retaliation for union organizing has been blocked in 17 states after a federal judge deemed it unconstitutional on Monday.
U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood said the rule issued in April conflicts with the National Labor Relations Act. She enjoined its implementation in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
The other plaintiffs it cannot be enforced against are Miles Berry Farm in Baxley, Georgia, and the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
