Articles by Philip Brasher

Congress heads into an election year with clouds over two major pieces of legislation that are seen as critical to helping farmers benefit from efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Lawmakers also are expected to begin farm bill hearings this year, and they will have to keep the government funded for the rest of the fiscal year.

The Biden administration is moving ahead with its plan to finance new meat processing capacity.

The new year is here, and that means that historic new disclosure requirements for biotech foods are now in effect.

The Senate returns to work this week with key elements of President Joe Biden’s climate agenda in peril, while the Supreme Court decides whether to hear several cases important to agriculture, including the latest challenge to California’s Proposition 12 standards for hog and poultry production.

The White House on Wednesday announced five new appointments to state-level positions with the Agriculture Department, including the Farm Service Agency's state directors for Kentucky, Missouri and Nebraska.

Massachusetts is delaying implementation of new animal welfare standards until the summer while reworking and expanding the requirements for laying hens.

The Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing further restrictions on over-the-top applications of dicamba, announcing Tuesday that curbs imposed this year had failed to reduce complaints of herbicide drift.

The 2019 version of the Trump administration’s Market Facilitation Program overestimated trade damages and was marked by regional payment disparities among farmers growing the same crops, according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office.

Conservation groups and the Biden administration  are betting big that the promise of direct payments to farmers will supercharge their interest in cover crops, a practice relatively few have tried despite documented benefits to soil health, greenhouse emissions and water quality.

Some $80 billion in climate-related agriculture funding hangs in the balance as President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats try to save at least part of his $1.7 trillion Build Back Better spending package.