Biofuels and climate markets could stem loss of farms
The decades-long decline in the number of U.S. farms can be stanched by adopting climate-smart farming practices and crops, increasing biofuel production, and expanding local and regional marketing, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the largest U.S. farm group on Monday. There are 2 million farms in operation today; the number of farms peaked at 6.8 million in the 1930s.
Production surges for biomass-based diesel fuel
The production of biomass-based diesel, a category that includes motor and aviation fuel, reached 4 billion gallons in 2023 — a 1-billion-gallon gain from the previous year, said the Clean Fuels Alliance America on Monday. “The clean fuels industry achieved what EPA said could not be done – namely continued growth of advanced biodiesel, renewable diesel, SAF [sustainable aviation fuel], and heating oil from sustainably sourced feedstocks,” said Kurt Kovarik, vice president of the trade group
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
European opposition to lab meat: Ahead of a meeting of EU agriculture ministers, a dozen EU nations called cultivated meat a threat to “genuine food production methods that are at the very heart of the European farming model.” (Euractiv)
Bringing back African crops: With a small budget, a State Department official hopes to encourage plant breeders to work on a half-dozen traditional and indigenous crops grown in Africa, such as cassava, cowpeas, and millet, that were overlooked in the drive to boost crop productivity. (New York Times)
ADM down 24 percent: Share prices for Archer-Daniels-Midland fell by 24 percent after the agricultural trader and processor suspended its chief financial officer and delayed the release of its fourth-quarter earnings report amid questions about bookkeeping in its nutrition unit. (Bloomberg)
Five issues for NASDA: Members of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture chose five issues for the group’s primary focus this year: A “unified” farm bill, farm labor reform that addresses guestworkers and undocumented farmworkers, food safety, pesticide regulation, and strategies to address PFAS contamination. (NASDA)
Odds of 190 bushel corn: The U.S. corn crop yielded a record 177.3 bushels per acre in 2023, so a yield of 181.3 bushels per acre seems reasonable this year, said agricultural economist Scott Irwin, who estimates that there’s an 18 percent chance that per-acre yields exceed 190 bushels. (Irwin)
