Articles Tagged with ''usda''

The Agriculture Department will provide larger disaster-aid payments for losses in 2018 than for 2019 and will offer prevent-plant bonus payments of up to 15% for farmers who were unable to seed crops this spring due to the heavy Midwest flooding, according to rules announced Monday.

Lawmakers return from their extended summer recess facing pressure from farm groups to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement and staring at an Oct. 1 deadline to pass a stopgap spending bill and avoid another government shutdown.

I have to drive 20 miles to see a traffic light. To get to an airport from our farm requires a 2-hour drive to Burlington. In other words, life on our dairy farm in Vermont can feel pretty remote. That was especially true before we gained access to broadband, back when it seemed like we faced a red light at the on-ramp to the information superhighway. Now that broadband finally has come to our country home—the red light has turned green—my family can enjoy the benefits of rural living along with the connectivity that keeps us in touch with the whole world.

The Agriculture Department sharply increased commodity payment rates for its 2019 trade assistance package, boosting the corn rate by 14-fold and quadrupling cotton’s, based on higher estimates of the trade damage that farmers have suffered.

Brandon Lipps and Pam Miller have new roles at the Department of Agriculture, and USDA will have another mission area led by deputy undersecretary rather than a Senate-confirmed official.