Food

RSS

The leader of the House Agriculture Committee says he wants to see more money go into USDA’s Commodity Credit Corp., but he’s willing to oppose a funding increase without conditions giving Congress more authority over how the money is spent.

Meat and poultry plants should implement social distancing and “consider the appropriate role for testing and workplace contact tracing” in helping to control COVID-19 at their facilities, according to new guidance issued by federal agencies.

The Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Inspection Service is creating a National Incident Coordination Center to help producers who cannot take animals to market as meat processing facilities close due to COVID-19.

Thirteen members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International union who work in meatpacking or food processing have died after contracting COVID-19, UFCW said on a media call today to press for personal protective equipment and testing.

Participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are now getting emergency benefit increases totaling $2 billion a month nationwide that Congress authorized to address the unemployment surge and economic disruption caused by the COVID-19 crisis. 

USDA’s $19 billion COVID-19 aid package for farmers may fall well short of compensating producers for the estimated damage of the pandemic, and the department has an ambitious and novel plan to distribute USDA-purchased commodities to needy people. 

The novel coronavirus is living up to its name, ushering in a new way of life for America’s food companies, most notably the meat industry.

Pork producers across the country are struggling to find a place to take weaned piglets from finishing hogs as processing plants slow or shut down because employees have tested positive for COVID-19.

Expectations for U.S. beef exports to China this year are being tempered by the COVID-19 pandemic, but shipments have already begun and they’re expected to continue strong despite the spread of the virus.

As Americans were first being told to practice social distancing and shelter-in-place last month, many farmers were trying to figure out how to reach consumers who used to come to their farms.