Lawmakers spar over farm economy
During a sometimes prickly House hearing on Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urged lawmakers to buckle down and write a farm bill that does not cut SNAP or climate funds. Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee said the Biden administration has overlooked the needs of the large-scale farmers who produce the bulk of U.S. crops and livestock.
EPA order allows sale and use of existing stocks of dicamba
Retailers are allowed to sell and farmers are allowed to use existing stocks of the weedkiller dicamba on this year’s soybean and cotton crops no later than July 30, said the EPA on Wednesday. A federal judge in Arizona overturned the EPA’s approval of three dicamba-containing herbicides last week, potentially disrupting the spring planting season.
Smoke em’ if you have em’…
It no longer makes sense to grow tobacco in the U.S.
Should tobacco be allowed to die a natural death here in the United States? Since the 1950s, the amount of tobacco in a manufactured cigarette has shrunk by 37 percent, and since 1950 the amount of foreign tobacco in those cigarettes has increased by nearly five times, to an estimated 50 percent and probably more. Cigarette companies are not nearly as dependent on U.S. leaf as they might have been once. Tobacco farming has been declining in the United States since the mid-1950s. The number of farms growing tobacco here fell from 512,000 in 1954 to 6,237 in 2017, according to the 2017 U.S. Census of Agriculture. The amount of acreage in tobacco fell, too: In 1954, the United States farmed 1.5 million acres in tobacco; in 2017, it was just 331,552 acres.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
School lunch debt collectors: Four of the largest school districts in Nebraska “use private collectors to recoup unpaid lunch tabs” owed by students, according to an analysis. (Flatwater Free Press)
East Coast is sinking: Overpumping of groundwater is the major factor behind land subsidence along the East Coast and adds to the threat posed by rising sea levels, say researchers. (New York Times)
Nebraska race now a toss-up: Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas “is solidly positioned for a challenger” to Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon, a member of the House Agriculture Committee, and their race is now considered a toss-up, a shift from the previous rating of “leans Republican.” (Sabato’s Crystal Ball)
Equity plan update: Nearly a year after the original version of the plan was released, the USDA presented its Updated Equity Action Plan, which outlines the steps the department will take to improve access to its programs by underserved farmers, families, and rural communities. (USDA)
