USDA awards $110 million to expand independent meat processing
Five dozen independent meat processors will receive a combined $110 million in grants to go into business or expand their processing capacity, including a new plant in Texas that would create 1,500 jobs, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday.
Senate proposes higher funding than House for WIC and food aid
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a USDA-FDA funding bill on Thursday that would spend $1.6 billion more on WIC and international food aid than the version approved by House appropriators one day earlier. The greatest difference, $1.1 billion, was in funding for Food for Peace, the leading U.S. food aid program.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Low food inflation: Prices for dairy products and fruits and vegetables fell in the past year, helping to hold the U.S. food inflation rate to a modest 2.2 percent, said the monthly Consumer Price Index. (Labor Department)
Welch: ‘Step aside, Biden’: For the good of the country, President Biden should withdraw as a candidate for re-election, said Vermont’s Peter Welch, a Democratic member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. (Washington Post)
Equipment sales slump: Sales of farm tractors were down 11.5 percent and sales of combines were down 17.3 percent in the first half of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, said an industry group. (Association of Equipment Manufacturers)
‘City slickers’ got $2.3 billion: Thanks to farm program loopholes, from 2019 to 2023, roughly 80,000 urban residents — investors and relatives of farmers — received $2.3 billion in farm support payments, or $5,800 per person for each year. (Environmental Working Group)
Raw milk illness outbreak: Newly released state records show that 165 people became ill from salmonella bacteria after drinking unpasteurized milk from a California dairy farm, the largest such outbreak in the country in a decade. (Associated Press)
