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President Joe Biden’s nominee as chief agricultural trade negotiator, Doug McKalip, gets a Senate confirmation hearing this week, and House Democrats will advance a child nutrition reauthorization bill that would expand eligibility for free lunches and increase meal subsidies for schools.

A new PPIC report investigates alternatives to fallowing large swaths of California farmland under SGMA.

Democrats won House passage of a package of fiscal 2023 appropriations bills that includes new funding for conservation technical assistance and rural broadband Thursday as well as substantial spending increases for EPA and the Interior Department.

Farmers are growing frustrated that public workshops on a new pesticide proposal by the Newsom administration have devolved into aggressive shouting and personal attacks.

At the Agri-Pulse Food & Ag Issues Summit, industry leaders warned of a dire situation for food production but also shared insider perspectives on opportunities ahead for coalition building.

The Center for Land-Based Learning announced it will host a seven-week course created for individuals considering farming.

Governor Gavin Newsom has appointed Kayla Ungar as the special adviser for climate, water, and drought at the California Department of Food and Agriculture and Audrey Denney now serves as the vice president of business development for ag and rural at Pathion Holdings.

California added farms to the plan’s commercial policies last year. But getting approval is still not easy for growers and coverage is limited.

The demise of President Joe Biden’s climate funding plan on Capitol Hill makes it a lot harder, but not impossible, to help farmers ramp up climate-related practices. But the administration retains a powerful tool in the Commodity Credit Corp., and there will be pressure to steer farm bill funds into climate priorities.

The combination of factors that came together within the last two years for California food and agriculture “should be considered a Black Swan event” that was unpredictable yet can have severe impacts, according to a leading analyst.