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Balanced Reporting. Trusted Insights.
Saturday, April 12, 2025
Successive presidents have ramped up use of a Depression-era tool, USDA's Commodity Credit Corp., to pour billions of dollars into their policy priorities with limited input from Congress. Republicans, who handcuffed Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack's use of the CCC for years, are less resistant now.
Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announces plans to finance a series of large-scale projects on climate-smart farming and forestry practices. He's also tapping his Commodity Credit Corp. spending authority to promote drought resilience, combat African swine fever, and assist farms and schools with supply chain disruptions.
Congressional Democrats have agreed on conservation and debt relief provisions that would immediately ramp up climate-focused conservation spending, including direct payments for cover crops, while also paying off loans for at-risk USDA borrowers.
USDA is putting $75 million into 15 projects around the country that are led by private organizations or state governments and can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide other environmental benefits.
The United States is asking other nations to join it in a "coalition for productivity growth," an effort emerging — in part — as a counter to the European Union’s Farm-to-Fork strategy that seeks steep cuts in the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
House Democrats are proposing a $35 billion expansion of child feeding assistance as part of their massive tax and spending package, and a lawmaker announced Wednesday that the measure also would include $1 billion in biofuel aid.
House Democrats are forging ahead with writing a massive new tax and spending package with major implications for the next farm bill as well as producers’ finances.
USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the U.S. National Science Foundation have announced a $220 million investment in 11 new Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes that will be led by NSF.
In this opinion piece, Moira Mcdonald with the Walton Family Foundation discusses investing in agriculture through conservation and climate-smart agriculture practices.
The Agriculture Department issued a climate strategy Thursday that heavily focuses on measuring the impact of climate-friendly practices, taking steps to facilitate private carbon markets and ensuring all farmers can benefit financially from addressing climate change.
