Articles by Bill Tomson

USDA is moving to make it tougher for members of some large family farm operations to get federal subsidies. USDA is publishing a rule in the Federal Register today that will require people trying to qualify for payments as active managers of a farm to provide either 25% of its management or 500 hours of time. The requirement already applied to members of partnerships.

USDA announces new export sales of 405,000 metric tons of corn and 400,000 tons of soybeans to China for delivery in the 2020-21 marketing year, providing new evidence that Chinese demand remains strong despite tensions between the two countries.

U.S. and Brazilian negotiators are rushing to solve a longstanding trade dispute over ethanol trade, and now U.S. lawmakers are weighing in to press for a resolution that eliminates Brazilian tariffs.

When the U.S. hit Mexico with tariffs on its steel and aluminum exports in 2018, the Mexicans retaliated with their own tariffs on U.S. cheese, pork, apples and potatoes. Now, some U.S. farm groups are warning the Trump administration Mexico will retaliate if the U.S. uses tariffs again – this time to counter Mexican shipments of fruits and vegetables.

Protect Georgia’s pecan and blueberry farmers. That will be one of the requests made by Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black Thursday when he testifies at a U.S. Trade Representative hearing on reining in the expansion of Mexican specialty crop exports.

American rice farmers are counting on a recent $450 million loan from the U.S. Export-Import bank to Iraq to restart the country’s rice imports.

U.S.-China tensions are escalating, but President Donald Trump is expressing new satisfaction with the "phase one" trade deal amid rising Chinese purchases of U.S. corn, soybeans and sorghum.

Mexico isn’t just banning the herbicide glyphosate. It’s also violating agreements under the newly enacted U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and showing signs that the government is following in the footsteps of the European Union and its restrictions on U.S. farm commodities, CropLife America President and CEO Christopher Novak tells Agri-Pulse.

On to September. The Senate has adjourned until after Labor Day, which means we likely won’t see a deal on coronavirus relief this month.

Southern farmers and lawmakers are taking another shot at getting competition protection from the Mexican fruit and vegetables that have been increasingly pouring across the border.