Articles by Steve Davies

House Democrats are focused this week on finishing their proposal for the next coronavirus relief bill, and farm groups and their allies in Congress are working to get priorities addressed in whatever Phase 4 package reaches the president’s desk.

Lawyers for EPA and POET Biorefining squared off in court Monday over whether the agency’s guidance for measuring production of cellulosic ethanol is tantamount to a rule containing requirements that are impossible to meet.

USDA is gearing up to start dispensing the first round of coronavirus relief payments to farmers, even as lawmakers struggle to agree on a Phase 4 stimulus bill that ag groups hope will provide additional funding for more aid.

Vice President Mike Pence will be in Iowa today to meet with a group of food supply chain CEOs, agriculture leaders, and government officials.

USDA and FDA have agreed they need better cohesion in their joint effort to regulate cell-cultured meat, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday.

The Trump administration is expressing confidence that the worst of the meatpacking disruptions is behind us. At a meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue predicted packing plants would be fully operational within 10 days. “I think we've turned the corner,” he said.

The disruptions in U.S. meatpacking continue to ripple through supermarkets and now have reached Wendy’s, which once had one of the most famous retail slogans in America: “Where’s the beef?”

Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are insisting on a “shield” to protect businesses from civil lawsuits in the next COVID-19 relief bill, but Democrats are pushing back hard.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a community advocacy group and a worker at Smithfield’s Milan, Mo., pork plant, finding the company has taken “significant steps … to reduce the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak at the plant.”

The door’s open. For the first time, the Small Business Administration is taking applications from farms for grants of up to $10,000 and low-interest loans through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program.