Environment

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Nearly a year after the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill aimed at jump-starting ag climate markets, the bill remains mired in the House Agriculture Committee, raising the possibility the legislation could be punted to the farm bill debate in the next Congress.

Makers of adjuvants and inerts that are added to pesticide active ingredients to improve their performance need to keep a close eye on the growing number losing patent protection in the next few years, speakers told attendees at last week’s conference of the Council of Producers and Distributors of Agrotechnology.

KIND Healthy Snacks used the recent World Bee Day to announce the company is on track to source the majority — 51% — of its almonds from bee-friendly farms by the end of the year.

Farmers are catching up fast on planting, although there continue to be significant delays in North Dakota and Minnesota affecting both corn and spring wheat.

A “stunning” and “dangerous” shift in U.S. policy toward pesticide labeling “poses great risks to our science-based regulatory system and global food systems,” dozens of commodity and other ag groups assert in a letter asking the Biden administration to withdraw a recently filed brief in the Supreme Court.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack heads to Capitol Hill this week to testify before the Senate Agriculture Committee amid growing concerns about the global food supplies and soaring costs for fertilizer and other ag inputs.

The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to a timeline for the publishing of future biofuel mandate blending targets and is expected to soon seek public comment on the proposed schedule.

FDA Commissioner Robert Califf is trying to assure lawmakers that he’s going to prioritize beefing up the food side of the agency.

Drought conditions that have been concentrated in the West and southern Plains are likely to spread in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and South Dakota this summer, according to the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan says the agency is putting a priority on re-evaluating pesticides for their environmental impact under the Endangered Species Act.