Painful ag restructuring if Sino-U.S. trade war persists
If there is no near-term resolution of the Sino-U.S. trade war, the Trump administration will need to spend billions of dollars in additional trade-war payments to farmers and ranchers or watch their income sink, said two economists on Monday.
Majority want more oversight of CAFOs, poll finds
A majority of Americans say they want more stringent oversight of large-scale livestock operations, according to a national poll by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for a Livable Future released Tuesday.
Trumps selects nominee for long-vacant USDA nutrition post
After nearly three years in office, President Trump has a nominee for agriculture undersecretary for nutrition, Brandon Lipps, who has been running USDA’s public nutrition programs since July 2017.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Farmers engaging on climate change (Politico): Profoundly dubious of outside regulation and fiercely independent, farmers are “waking up on climate change” and taking practical steps to mitigate the impact of global warming and to find ways to profit from it.
Ammonia from Maryland’s chicken farms (Chesapeake Bay Foundation): A new study found that poultry farms on the Eastern Shore of Maryland emit an estimated 33.8 million pounds of ammonia each year.
U.S. to meet Mexico on final trade deal details (Reuters): Two senior U.S. officials are to fly to Mexico City to try to pin down refinements of labor provisions in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, potentially opening the way for congressional approval of the “new NAFTA” this year.
RFS coming soon, says EPA (Bloomberg): EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler told biofuel leaders that the agency aims to to issue the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2020 by Dec. 20, three weeks after the statutory deadline, amid complaints the agency is undermining the ethanol mandate by exempting some small refineries from it.
Five new members for organic board (USDA): The Agricultural Marketing Service appointed five new members, effective in January, to the National Organic Standards Board, the 15-member board that represents the organic community and advises USDA on regulatory standards for the National Organic Program.
