Month: July 2024

Senate Wildfire Caucus holds inaugural meeting Senators from Arkansas, California, Colorado, and Montana held their first meeting on Tuesday as members of the bipartisan Senate Wildfire Caucus as advocates of disaster relief funding, wildfire prevention, and science-based fire management policies. Wildfires have burned an average of 6.4 million acres, or… Continue reading

Project would accelerate development of bird flu vaccine for humans Drugmaker Sinergium Biotech, based in Argentina, will lead a project to accelerate the development of a human vaccine against the H5N1 avian flu virus, said the World Health Organization and the Medicines Patent Pool on Monday. The project is aimed… Continue reading

Over the last twenty years, two of every three U.S. dairy farms vanished but milk production rose by a third California and Wisconsin still dominate U.S. milk production, accounting for one-third of total output, but the dairy industry went through a substantial restructuring in the past 20 years, said USDA… Continue reading

Already low, food inflation to slow in 2025, says USDA Grocery prices will rise by a scant 0.7 percent in 2025, the smallest increase in seven years, said USDA analysts on Thursday in their first forecast of food inflation in the new year. Grocery price inflation was forecast at a… Continue reading

Post-pandemic, global hunger remains stubbornly high One in 11 people worldwide — some 733 million overall — faces hunger, as global hunger rates have plateaued since the pandemic, said an annual report by five UN agencies on Wednesday. The lack of progress added urgency to warnings that the world would… Continue reading

House Ag chairman blasts ‘one-sided’ farm bill coalition and ‘meddling Senate Democrat’ The farm bill coalition — the rural and urban alliance credited with carrying farm bills to enactment — “is a one-sided talking point,” said House Agriculture chairman Glenn Thompson on Tuesday in insisting on a $53 billion increase… Continue reading

EPA allots climate pollution grants for natural lands and agriculture Illinois will encourage the adoption of no-till farming while Minnesota aims to restore 10,000 acres of degraded peatlands with its share of $931 million awarded to agricultural and natural lands projects by the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday. The money… Continue reading

Agricultural guestworker debate lurks amid GOP plans for mass deportations U.S. agriculture has turned increasingly to short-term guestworkers to relieve a labor shortage in recent years. Farm groups and farm-state lawmakers want to expand the program. The Republican platform does not mention agricultural workers while pledging strong immigration laws. Project… Continue reading

Farm bill prospects nearly nonexistent this year Except for the “lame duck long shot” of a post-election compromise, the slim chances that Congress will pass a new farm bill this year “have become nonexistent,” said farm policy expert Jonathan Coppess on Thursday. The primary reason is the “long-unspecified demand” by… Continue reading

Lower commodity prices darken farm income outlook, says Federal Reserve Farmers are on track to harvest some of their largest corn and soybean crops ever, but the ongoing decline in commodity prices is putting farm income in question, said the Beige Book issued by the Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday…. Continue reading