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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Years of a sluggish farm economy and an unfolding global pandemic have not slowed ag and rural stakeholder dollars from flowing to political candidates seeking federal office in the 2020 election.
There’s interest on Capitol Hill and in the White House in an infrastructure package as part of the coronavirus recovery effort, but that interest will have to overcome the skepticism of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Producers’ support for President Donald Trump has grown despite sluggish exports and their own worries about their financial condition as the economic slowdown triggered by the COVID-19 has developed, according to the latest Agri-Pulse poll of U.S. farmers and ranchers.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who insists he’s optimistic about a farm economy rebound this year, faces a pair of congressional hearings this week where he is certain to face further grilling about trade prospects and future of the Market Facilitation Program.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, who has been the House Democrats’ most influential voice on farm policy for nearly two decades, announces that he’s running for re-election to a 16th term in Congress.
Amid all the uncertainty farmers are facing this spring, they're now getting hit by a drop in crop insurance price guarantees. In response, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue briefly raised the possibility USDA could allow producers to increase coverage.
House Democrats who flipped rural congressional districts in 2018 were bracing for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders to be the party’s nominee, but Joe Biden surged ahead in the delegate count after Super Tuesday.
The biofuel industry is eagerly anticipating a decision from the Trump administration on future small refinery exemptions this week, while Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue heads to Capitol Hill for a grilling on the Market Facilitation Program, food stamps and other issues.
Farmers across the Corn Belt and northern Plains along with producers in California, western Texas, and the lower Mississippi River Valley have been the biggest beneficiaries of the Trump administration’s Market Facilitation Program over the past year, according to data obtained by Agri-Pulse.
Democratic presidential candidates are promising big fixes to the nation’s roads, bridges, and waterways through massive trillion-dollar infrastructure plans but are balking at the idea of raising the federal gas tax.