Nutrition, conservation advocate Stabenow to retire in two years
Senate Agriculture chair Debbie Stabenow, who rejected Republican attempts to slash SNAP in the 2014 and 2018 farm bills, said on Thursday that she would retire from the Senate in two years — enough time to enact another farm bill. Stabenow, the first woman elected to the Senate from Michigan, is serving her second stint as Agriculture chair and has said for months that “we’re not going backwards” on SNAP in the new farm bill.
McCarthy foes include two aggies
Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois and Andy Harris of Maryland were part of the Republican bloc voting repeatedly against elevating Kevin McCarthy to House Speaker. Harris was the senior Republican on the House Appropriations subcommittee in charge of USDA and FDA spending, and Miller served on the House Agriculture Committee in the past session of Congress.
Chesapeake Bay cleanup hinges on agriculture
A watchdog group gave the bay and its watershed a health grade of D+ for water pollution, habitat, and fisheries on Thursday, the same as its last assessment in 2020. “Overall, the unchanged score is largely the result of failures to make needed changes on farmland to reduce pollution,” said the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Hotter, drier: A new study projects that more than 90 percent of the world’s population will face extreme heat and drought, potentially widening social inequalities and undermining the ability to reduce CO2 emissions. (Nature Sustainability)
Dire warning: On Thursday, dozens of researchers warned the state legislature that the Great Salt Lake will vanish within five years, releasing unprecedented levels of toxic dust into Utah’s largest city. They also said the state has only “months” to fix the problem. (Salt Lake Tribune)
Food shortages to worsen: Unless global leaders intervene, the food shortages of 2022 will worsen this year, said the head of the UN World Food Program, who fears “mass destabilization around the planet.” (Devex)
Farmers back raw milk: The Wisconsin Farm Bureau decided at its annual convention to support the sale of raw milk, a reversal of a decades-old policy in the No. 2 state for milk production. (Food Safety News)
Bipartisan farm listening session: Seven House Republicans and three Democrats are expected to attend an unofficial listening session Saturday at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. The event was arranged by Rep. Glenn Thompson, the House Agriculture chairman-elect. (FERN’s Ag Insider)
