WEST

RSS

Robert Bonnie, President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee USDA’s farm and conservation programs, insisted Thursday that the administration has the legal authority to use the Commodity Credit Corp. to incentivize climate-friendly farming practices.

USDA is making $67 million available to help landowners struggling with heirs’ property resolve ownership and succession issues.

Chavonda Jacobs-Young, a scientist who has been at USDA for nearly two decades, is the Biden administration’s pick to oversee the department’s research agencies.

California‘s Proposition 12 has survived a challenge in a federal appeals court brought by the National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation, which alleged it imposed excessive costs on out-of-state pork producers who will have to comply with the law’s animal housing requirements.

The House Agriculture Committee approved an $8.5 billion disaster bill that would cover a wide range of producers’ losses in 2020 and 2021, with somewhat more generous provisions than the recent relief programs.

Six groups have filed suit against the Agriculture Department over regulations the Trump administration issued last year to streamline the regulation of gene-edited crop traits and allow companies to decide whether their products need USDA approval.

Senate negotiators look to finalize and advance a bipartisan infrastructure bill this week, while the House debates a package of appropriations that would sharply increase funding for USDA, EPA and other departments and agencies important to agriculture.

The Newsom administration is drafting an emergency regulation to curtail senior water rights for thousand of farmers who depend on deliveries through the Delta.