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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Monday, July 15, 2024
The Senate confirmed Bill Northey as USDA’s undersecretary for farm programs after Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, dropped a hold he had kept on the nomination for four months in a dispute over biofuel policy.
A top USDA official was met with boos and derisive laughter when he attempted to sell anti-hunger activists and food banks on the Trump administration’s proposal to convert a portion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits to food boxes.
President Trump takes another stab this week at settling a biofuel policy dispute that has embroiled a key USDA nominee, and his administration will step up its defense of proposals to clamp down on federal nutrition assistance.
Amid depressed farm income, American farmers will produce record amounts of meat, poultry and milk this year while slightly increasing plantings of major field crops, according to the Agriculture Department.
Cotton growers say their new farm program payments will provide badly needed income support without the threat of foreign retaliation that forced them to give up their old policy.
President Trump is proposing to slash crop insurance and other farm programs by $47 billion over 10 years and to dramatically overhaul the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, eventually shrinking its cost to taxpayers by one-third.
Farm-state lawmakers are bracing this week for renewed proposals to cut agriculture spending as President Trump releases his fiscal 2019 budget, and Congress begins an extended debate on immigration policy.
A sweeping budget agreement that will provide new assistance to cotton and dairy producers and expand disaster aid to many other farmers and ranchers received final congressional approval in the House Friday morning.
Lawmakers have reached agreement on new assistance for cotton and dairy producers, potentially clearing the way for House and Senate Agriculture committees to begin moving a new farm bill by spring.