USDA awards $671 million for pandemic payments to frontline workers
Fourteen nonprofit organizations and the Cherokee Nation will distribute $671 million in pandemic payments of $600 per person to farmworkers, meatpacking employees and frontline grocery workers, said the Agriculture Department on Tuesday.
After a decade of decline, WIC participation rose during pandemic
The number of children participating in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children increased by 8.7 percent during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Food Research & Action Center.
More farmers plant cover crops for higher yields and soil health
America’s biggest farmers are unchanging skeptics of climate change but they slowly are adopting cover crops, mostly to improve crop yields and soil health, said Purdue University on Tuesday. Only one in 20 growers say they planted the soil- and water-holding crops for carbon sequestration.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Expand margin protection tools: The leaders of the Senate Agriculture Committee urged USDA to accelerate the expansion of margin protection tools to more commodities and regions of the country; an aide said the request was separate from work on the 2023 farm bill. (Senate Agriculture)
Imperial Valley under pressure: Farmers in the Imperial Valley of California draw more water annually from the Colorado River than the states of Arizona and Nevada combined, so they are in the center of talks to reduce water usage throughout the river basin. (NPR)
Ian blasts Florida agriculture: Hurricane Ian hit as many as 375,000 acres of citrus, 200,000 acres of vegetables, 180,000 acres of hay and 95,000 acres of sugarcane, cotton, peanuts and other field crops, with reports of significant losses of citrus fruit. (Growing Produce)
Challenge Mexico on corn: The United States should use the USMCA trade agreement to challenge a possible ban by Mexico of imports of GE food-grade corn in 2024, said a corn-growers group.. (DTN/Progressive Farmer)
Squashing U.S. weight records: A pumpkin grown in the Buffalo, New York, suburbs set the national record with a weight of 2,554 pounds, topping the previous record of 2,528 pounds; the world record, set by an Italian farmer in 2021, is 2,702 pounds. (Buffalo News)
