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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare systems in Houston and Salt Lake City will provide veterans with fresh fruit and vegetables as well as nutrition coaching to test whether produce prescriptions can improve the health of people with diet-related health conditions.
Specialty crop producers are looking to the next farm bill to expand crop insurance options and provide increased funding to address a number of challenges facing the sector, including needs for automation and development of new, safer pesticides.
Senators on both sides of the aisle used a farm bill hearing Thursday to call for addressing the rising input costs faced by row crop producers and expanding crop insurance options for fruits, vegetables and other specialty crops.
A Tuesday hearing at a Senate Agriculture Subcommittee illustrated a bipartisan priority to incorporate the concept of "food as medicine" into the upcoming farm bill.
Supermarket prices rose 0.4% in October, their smallest increase since December 2021, as shoppers actually saw price declines in the meat and dairy cases and other areas of the store.
Hurricane Ian caused $1.2 billion to $1.9 billion in damage to Florida agriculture when it tore through the state last month, with one-third of the losses in the citrus industry alone, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services reported Monday.
Supermarket prices rose another 0.7% last month, driven by continued increases in nearly every category in the store, and food costs are now up 13% over the past year.
The White House has launched an effort to get Medicare and Medicaid, and eventually private health plans, to provide medically tailored meals to all Americans, a goal that produce growers hope will ultimately expand consumption of fruits and vegetables.
The Food and Drug Administration is proposing some major rule changes for foods that can be marketed as “healthy," potentially allowing new products to qualify while eliminating others. But few foods are labeled as "healthy" are current rules, and experts say it's not clear how much consumers will care about the proposed new labeling system either.
Gene-edited fruits, vegetables and other specialty crops are likely to hit the market in increasing numbers over the next five years to meet consumer demand for improved traits, according to a report by Rabobank.
