WASHINGTON, Jan. 4, 2017 - The Agriculture seat in Donald
Trump’s cabinet will be one of the last top positions filled, but the vacancy
isn’t expected to last much longer. It seemed last week that Trump would choose
a Texan for the position – he interviewed former Rep. Henry Bonilla, Elsa
Murano, a former USDA under secretary for food safety and Susan Combs, a former
Texas agriculture commissioner.
But on Monday a source close to the Trump transition team confirmed for
Agri-Pulse that former Georgia
Gov. Sonny Perdue, 70, who interviewed with Trump on Nov. 30, will likely get
the job. Up until Monday, Murano and Bonilla appeared to be the front
runners for the position, but Perdue, a former veterinarian, ag business owner
and member of Trump’s Agricultural Advisory Team, seemed to be the only one on
the glide path toward the nomination.
The new nominee is expected to be announced officially this week.
Democrats and AFL-CIO remind Trump of trade policy promises. Donald
Trump’s successful campaign broke the mold in many respects, but perhaps most
notably on trade policy. Eschewing the general GOP support for profitable
multilateral trade deals, Trump vowed to renegotiate or pull out of NAFTA and
effectively kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). That created some
unorthodox support for the new top Republican.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, was one of the first lawmakers to pronounce the
TPP dead after Trump’s election and she is joining other Democrats and AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka today to try to make sure Trump doesn’t backslide on
his trade promises.
Trumka, DeLauro, Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio and eight other lawmakers are
scheduled to hold a press conference today at 10 a.m. on Capitol Hill “to call
on President-elect Trump to fulfil his promises to make U.S. trade policy
benefit working people.”
Defazio, in a statement, said, “Given Trump has declared he will launch
renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement … within his first
hundred days of taking office, the speakers will outline what changes to the
pact will be required for it to benefit working people.”
Cotton seen squeezing out some corn acres this year. Cotton is looking to
provide a higher return this year than corn, spurring some farmers to make a
switch in 2017, according to USDA Chief Economist Robert Johansson.
“We’re expecting to see an increase in planted cotton area, rising by 5.5
percent (in 2017) to about 10.5 million acres,” Johansson said in an audio posting on
USDA’s web site. “We see cotton prices strengthening relative to corn and grain
sorghum so that’s why we’re seeing a little bit of a switch-over – losing some
corn acres to both (soybeans) and cotton.”
The new forecast from Johansson raises expectations for cotton planting from
10.15 million acres in the latest Dec. 9 publication of USDA’s World Agricultural
Supply and Demand Estimates report.
The December WASDE report did not raise cotton acreage, but did boost the
forecast for yields, production and exports.
USDA reports microloan program activity doubled from 2013 through 2015. A
new study from
the Economic Research Service shows that USDA’s Farm Service Agency issued
$162.2 million worth of credit under its Microloans for Farmers program in
2015. That’s almost double the $88.8 million in loans that came out of the
program in 2013, its first year of existence.
Data from the report paints a success for the program, which is aimed primarily
at assisting beginning, veteran and historically socially disadvantaged
farmers.
“Farmers belonging to targeted groups received 89 percent of all microloans, of
which beginning farmers accounted for the majority … ” the study concluded.
Farms owned by women and racial and ethnic minorities received 35 percent of
the credit under the program and 79 percent of those loans were also for
beginning farmers, according to the study.
Kenya suffers setback in agricultural biotechnology sector. The government
of Kenya, a net food importer and recipient of international food aid, has
thrown a new roadblock in front of biotechnology acceptance, according to a
recently released report from
USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
The Agriculture Committee for Kenya’s National Assembly in December issued an
official recommendation that the country not lift its four-year ban on imports
of genetically engineered food until new food safety legislation is crafted,
the report said.
No biotech crops are grown for commerce in Kenya, but research and restricted
field trials continue for several promising crops, including corn, cotton and
sorghum.
Hunt's responds to non-GMO tomato criticism. The announcement by
Tomato giant Hunt's that "you won’t find a single genetically modified
tomato among our vines" has prompted more than a thousand comments on its
Facebook page, many of which accuse the company of fear-mongering. Prominent
GMO proponent Kevin Folta, who heads the University of Florida's horticultural
sciences department, called Hunt's campaign "deceptive," noting that
"there are no genetically engineered tomatoes commercially
available." Said another commenter: "Your ignorance of science
means I will never buy Hunts again. Heinz has always tasted better
anyway."
Hunt's responded on
Facebook, apologizing for the "confusion." Said the
company: "While it’s true that all tomatoes are non-GMO, there are tomato
products that contain genetically engineered ingredients. We recently updated
many of our tomato products including diced and crushed to meet Non-GMO Project
Verification standards, so look for the seal at shelf."
That did not satisfy one commenter, who said, "The only thing you are
sorry about is that you got caught in a blatant lie and are now trying to back
pedal and reword your lie into something else."
Steve Davies and Phil Brasher contributed to this report.
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