House ag reaches deal, sends farm bill to Senate, reports say
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Michael Conaway has backed off dramatic changes to SNAP in the stalled $87 billion farm bill, sealing a deal with ranking Democrat Collin Peterson and sending a version of the bill to the Senate, according to press reports.
FDA and USDA to jointly oversee cell-based meat
freeimages.com
The USDA and FDA will both oversee the production of cell-cultured food products derived from livestock and poultry, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb and USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Friday, ending a dispute about oversight of the nascent industry.
Sen. Grassley heads to finance committee
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley used the power of seniority to claim chairmanship of the tax-writing Finance Committee on Friday, saying he would pursue a pro-growth agenda of “additional tax relief and tax fairness” and making health care more affordable.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Monsanto back in cancer-trial spotlight (Reuters): A California judge last week granted an expedited trial in the case of a California couple suffering from cancer who sued Bayer AG’s Monsanto, alleging the company’s weed killer Roundup caused their disease.
Smithfield pulls out of tariff bailout (Washington Post): Smithfield Foods, a leading pig producer owned by the Chinese conglomerate WH Group, has given up the chance to receive $240,000 under the bailout program set up to help American farmers in Trump’s trade war with China.
Beefing up reporting between the coasts (NY Times): A journalist developed a database, Shoeleather, “aimed at connecting journalists outside the nation’s media hubs — New York City, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco — with editors across the country for the purpose of reporting on their home regions.”
ON THE USDA CALENDAR
Monday
– Deputy Agriculture Secretary Steve Censky speaks to Legislative Action Conference, hosted annually by School Nutrition Association, 2 p.m. ET. The conference opened on Sunday and devotes its final day, Tuesday, to visiting lawmakers.
– National School Breakfast Week, through Friday, “a weeklong celebration of the school breakfast program.”
Tuesday
– House Small Business subcommittee hearing, “Disconnected: Rural broadband and the business case for small carriers,” 10 a.m. ET, 2360 Rayburn
– USDA issues U.S. and Canadian Cattle and Sheep, and U.S. and Canadian Hogs reports, 3 p.m. ET.
Wednesday
– USDA releases monthly Cattle on Feed and Cold Storage reports, noon ET.
Thurdsay
– Thanksgiving Day, a holiday that began during colonial times as a harvest feast and became an annual national holiday by proclamation of President Lincoln in 1863 during the Civil War, “to heal the wounds of the nation” and commend care of “widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife.” Lincoln chose the final Thursday of November. President Franklin Roosevelt advanced it by a week in 1939 to spur the economy during the Depression. In a 1941 statue, Congress set Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday of November. The American celebration of Thanksgiving as a response to the fall harvest “falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia,” says History.com. “Historians have noted that Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on their shores.”
– International Grains Council releases monthly Grain Market Report, London.
Friday
– “Black Friday,” when Americans celebrate shopping deals as the year-end holidays loom.
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