USDA allots $1.5 billion to counter supply chain turmoil in school meals
Up to 100,000 schools will get a share of $1.5 billion intended to ease the impact of supply chain disruptions and the pandemic on school lunch and other school meals, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. School food directors said in a recent survey that higher food prices are a significant problem along with shortages of menu items.
California isn’t going green fast enough to meet emissions’ goal
California’s getting greener, but it needs to pick up the pace. The state won’t meet its 2030 emissions goals until 2050 unless it takes aggressive action, according to a recent report by the nonprofit Next 10, called the 2021 California Green Innovation Index.
DOT and USDA tell shipping lines to improve export service
Two cabinet secretaries threatened disciplinary action against a dozen cargo lines if they do not speed up service at West Coast ports quickly. In a letter to shipping executives, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urged the shippers to turn to underutilized ports and to stop bypassing U.S. ag exports.
Today’s Quick Hits
Sen. Boozman vows payback: After being frozen out of drafting the “build back better” bill that he opposes, the senior Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, Sen. John Boozman, says Democrats “have made it far more difficult to work across party lines in the future.” The Arkansas Republican could be committee chairman during work on the 2023 farm bill if Republicans win Senate control in 2022. (FERN’s Ag Insider)
Family fought Covid-19: When all the adults in a meatpacking household in Sioux City tested positive for Covid-19 in 2020, they turned to relatives “to run errands, bring them medicine and distract them from the fact that they had a disease that had killed thousands” in Iowa. (Iowa Public Radio)
‘No’ to California’s humane standards: Seaboard Foods, a hog farmer and pork processor, “will no longer sell certain whole pork products into California” because they do not meet the standards set by Prop 12, said a spokesman; Hormel Foods said it would fully comply with Prop 12. (Reuters)
NYC sugar warnings: The New York City Council voted, 43-5, to require restaurants to put warnings on their menus of foods with high amounts of added sugar. (WNYW-TV)
Missouri farmland soars: Top-quality farmland in Missouri is worth $6,236 an acre, up by 14 percent in one year, according to a university survey of ag lenders, rural appraisers and farmers. (Missouri Extension)
On The Calendar
Tuesday
– Winter solstice, the day with the shortest number of hours of daylight of the year and the start of winter in the northern hemisphere. “The winter solstice holds significance across a variety of cultures, as it signals the changing of the seasons,” says the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Spring begins on March 20, with the equinox, when days and nights are equal length.
– USDA releases monthly Food Price Outlook, 9 a.m. ET. At present, food prices are forecast to rise by higher-than-usual 3.5 percent this year compared to 2020 and by 2.5 percent in 2022. The 20-year average is a 2.4 percent a year increase.
Wednesday
– USDA releases monthly Cold Storage report, 3 p.m. ET.
Thursday
– USDA releases monthly Cattle on Feed and quarterly Hogs and Pigs reports, 3 p.m. ET.
Friday
– Federal holiday for Christmas.
America’s Farm Report will be on holiday break, returning Jan 3, 2021
