Brazil’s JBS wins a quarter of Trump-tariff contracts for pork
A Brazilian-owned meat processing company undercut its competition by more than $1 per pound to win nearly $78 million in pork contracts through a federal program launched to help American farmers offset the impact of the ongoing trade war. As a result, JBS USA has won more than 26 percent of the $300 million the USDA has allocated so far for pork purchases — more than any other company, according to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.
U.S. pork producers got creative to fill the gap left by trade war with China
When China raised its tariff on U.S. pork in April 2018, it sent producers scrambling to replace the lost export sales. A year later, the scramble paid off, as U.S. producers replaced a big chunk of the lost sales by striking deals with smaller markets, according to an analysis by Reuters.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
USDA sued over school nutrition standards (Center for Food Safety): In the suit, the Center for Food Safety claims the USDA unlawfully withheld public documents related to its rollback of nutrition standards for children and school lunch.
A vaccine for African swine fever? (AgWeb): Though global experts remain skeptical, Vietnam reports that it has had “initial success” in trials of a new vaccine for the disease that has ravaged its pork industry.
Agricultural drone market set to soar (Yahoo Finance): The drone market, already worth nearly $10 billion, is forecast to grow by more than 7 percent annually through 2024.
Criminalizing the ‘veggie burger’ (Good Food Institute): Upton’s Naturals and the Plant Based Foods Association filed a First Amendment suit to overturn a Mississippi state law that criminalizes using the term “meat” or meat-related terms such as “burger” on labels for plant-based and cell-based foods.
