Articles Tagged with ''farm bill''

Conservation officials in California have outlined 10 conservation practices with high potential for benefits that will receive priority incentive payments.

A surge of nationwide cheese demand driven at least in part by the Trump administration’s Farmers to Families Food Box program sparked wild swings in dairy markets and fueled a new debate over changes in federal milk pricing policy made in the 2018 farm bill.

The Georgia Democrat and Pennsylvania Republican poised to take the reins of the House Agriculture Committee next year have shared priorities, but different timelines and approaches.

The incoming Biden administration is expected to take a new look at using crop insurance to encourage farming measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect water quality, but the effort will face an old challenge — finding the data to prove that the practices don’t increase program losses.

A nationwide cap and trade program hasn’t been on the legislative horizon since the idea died in Congress in 2010, but government and private market developers are counting on there being a robust demand for carbon offsets from a host of corporations, including energy companies, airlines and even major food companies, that need to offset their emissions.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Pat Roberts has been involved in just about every consequential piece of agricultural legislation in the last four decades. But the bill he thinks may have the most lasting impact is the 1996 farm bill known as Freedom to Farm (or “Freedom to Fail” by its detractors). The bill formally ended the system of production controls and commodity subsidies first imposed during the Depression.

Americans are cutting back on Thanksgiving plans because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the good news for consumers is that prices for the turkey and some of the trimmings will be lower.

The Agriculture Department is ditching a change in commodity program subsidy eligibility rules that would have unintentionally made it harder for some members of family farming operations to qualify for payments, a top official says.

As President-elect Joe Biden assembles his transition teams and looks toward building a better future, he has the opportunity to boost agricultural resilience in ways that improve the health of rural communities and ecosystems.