Articles by Steve Davies

A Bayer subsidiary has agreed to pay $7.8 million to further conservation of wildlife, particularly the greater sage-grouse, settling a lawsuit that challenged approval of phosphate mining near Soda Springs, Idaho.

The former chief economist for Republicans on the Senate Ag Committee is moving to Terrain, where he will lead a team of economists and analysts.

House Republicans this week will put a focus on a key part of the Biden administration’s climate policy that former President Donald Trump is promising to undo if he wins the White House. 

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is downplaying the potential impact on agriculture of former President Donald Trump’s proposal to impose across-the-board tariffs on U.S. imports. At the same time, he says Trump’s tariff policy is critical to protecting U.S. industry, and he denies that tariffs would increase consumer prices.

Former President Donald Trump, responding to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, is throwing his support behind increasing commodity price supports and other assistance for producers. But Vice President Kamala Harris notes Trump proposed budgets that would have cut some farm programs. 

Federal health officials say they haven’t been able to pinpoint how a person in Missouri was infected with bird flu, the 14^th case in the U.S. this year but the first that appears not to involve animal exposure.

Leaders of the House and Senate Ag committees are working together to lay the groundwork for passing a farm bill before the end of the year. That’s according to a memo to House Ag Committee Democrats from the panel’s ranking member, David Scott of Georgia.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is making it pretty clear he has no plans to take up a farm bill this year. Schumer on Tuesday criticized House GOP leaders for omitting a farm bill extension from a continuing resolution that’s needed to keep the government funded after Sept. 30.

Federal agencies are leaving landowners in the dark about what they can legally do under the Clean Water Act without violating the law, representatives of agriculture and other industries told lawmakers Wednesday.

Nearly 80 beef cattle died in Wyoming due to a natural occurrence of anthrax, a bacterial pathogen that can survive in the soil for years or even decades, “resulting in sporadic outbreaks which usually occur after periods of drought followed by heavy rain,” the Wyoming Livestock Board said.