Articles Tagged with ''usda''

Without government relief, some analysts are sharply lowering their estimates of net farm income because of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on agricultural markets, with the livestock sector and corn growers bearing much of the hit.

It’s Monday, the fifth week of the nation’s social distancing to fight the COVID-19 crisis, and one of the big concerns about the food supply chain is starting to develop.

Meat packers need federal inspectors to produce the pork chops, T-bone steaks and ground beef that consumers are counting on to be in grocery stores, but the USDA inspectors on the front line are being told they are on their own when it comes to securing masks to protect against the spread of COVID-19.

President Trump used Thursday’s daily coronavirus briefing to offer some reassurance to farmers.

The Department of Agriculture has confirmed the detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza for the first time since 2017. The H7N3 strain of the disease was detected in a South Carolina commercial turkey flock.

The Department of Agriculture is now giving producers with eligible crops 12 months instead of nine to repay marketing assistance loans.

Demand for cotton around the world is spiraling downward during the coronavirus pandemic, causing the USDA to lower its forecast for global consumption by 6.4% - a whopping 7.6 million bales.

Department of Agriculture officials dropped corn used to produce ethanol by 375 million bushels in this month’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report released Thursday, while raising corn, soybean, and wheat ending stocks.

Farmers could be getting to $15.5 billion in aid to offset the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. That total includes the $9.5 billion in aid earmarked in the Phase 3 economic stimulus bill, plus an additional $6 billion that USDA has remaining in its Commodity Credit Corp. account, according to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

The Department of Agriculture has expanded an existing investigation into pricing practices in the beef industry to also include recent developments brought about by the spread of the coronavirus.