Rise in commodity prices slows decline in farm income, say bankers
Agricultural lenders expect farm income, which weakened in the spring, to continue to decline this summer, although a recent rally in corn, soybean, and wheat prices will act as a stabilizer, said Federal Reserve banks in Kansas City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis on Thursday.
IPCC report warns that climate change threatens food supply
A United Nations climate report on Thursday warned that the world’s unsustainable use of land is boosting greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change, and threatening future food production. But the report also said that land use, farming, and food consumption can shift in important ways that could help mitigate climate change.
Booker’s plan: Stewardship on 100 million acres, plant 15 billion trees
Presidential aspirant Sen. Cory Booker proposed a climate change program on Thursday on the scale of FDR’s New Deal to underwrite voluntary soil and water conservation on more than 100 million acres of farmland and the planting of 15 billion trees across the country.
TODAY’S QUICK HITS
Monsanto tracked activists, journalists (Guardian): Seed and ag chemical giant Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, operated a “fusion center” to discredit journalists and activists who criticized the company and its Roundup weedkiller, at one point pondering “legal action” against singer and activist Neil Young.
Ketchup collapse (Bloomberg): Kraft Heinz shares hit a record low in the company’s short history this week as the Warren Buffet-backed food manufacturer reported declining sales.
Starting from scratch on six acres (Farm Journal): Gavin Spoor is still a college senior, but he became a first-generation farmer in 2016, starting on his own by renting six acres of land and borrowing machinery to plant and harvest a crop.
USDA okays drought-resistant soybean (Reuters): Bioceres, a biotechnology company in Argentina, said that the USDA has approved its drought-resistant soybean variety, developed jointly with U.S.-based Arcadia, but that it would wait for approval from China before it begins selling the seeds.
E15 meets a sales challenge (RFA): Sales of gasoline with a 15 percent blend of corn ethanol doubled in Minnesota during June — the first month that the summertime sale of E15 was allowed — proof, its backers say, that “the market is already reacting positively.”
