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Administration proposes stricter enforcement of SNAP time limit

Food & Environment Reporting Network | Posted on February 5, 2019

Delayed for weeks by the partial federal shutdown, the Trump administration published its proposal to restrict states from allowing able-bodied adults to collect SNAP benefits for more than 90 days if they are not working at least 20 hours a week. The Federal Register notice ignited a campaign to block the proposal, which opponents said is contrary to the 2018 food and farm law. Congress decided against changing SNAP work requirements despite a determined effort by conservative Republicans for broader and stricter work requirements for “work capable” adults aged 18-60 unless they had children below age 6. At present, able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) aged 18-50 are limited to 90 days of food stamps in a three-year period unless they work at least 20 hours a week. States can waive the time limit in areas with high unemployment or too few jobs.Anti-hunger activists say the administration proposal will end benefits for several hundred thousand people. In the Federal Register, the USDA said it is “confident these changes would encourage more ABAWDs to engage in work or work activities if they wish to continue to receive SNAP benefits.”Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, who chairs the House Agriculture subcommittee on nutrition, sent a letter to USDA asking for an extension of the 60-day comment period, ending April 2, that was announced. “This language was vetted in detail for five full months by Members of the 2018 Farm Bill Conference Committee before being struck from the final bill,” said Fudge. She said the proposed rule “does just the opposite” of the new law. The anti-hunger group Food Research and Action Center says the proposal would drive up hunger and poverty rates. In an essay published in late January, Cossy Hough, a clinical associate professor at the University of Texas, said there were 775,000 ABAWDs: “The target group is small but particularly vulnerable, as individuals’ average annual income is about $4,800. Stricter work requirements for SNAP recipients are not the way to help people ‘lift themselves out of pervasive poverty.'”


USDA Awards Agricultural Trade Promotion Program Funding

USDA | Posted on February 4, 2019

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $200 million to 57 organizations through the Agricultural Trade Promotion Program (ATP) to help U.S. farmers and ranchers identify and access new export markets. The ATP is one of three USDA programs created to mitigate the effects of unjustified trade retaliation against U.S. farmers and exporters. USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) accepted ATP applications between September 4 and November 2 – totaling nearly $600 million – from U.S. trade associations, cooperatives, and other industry-affiliated organizations. USDA has released a list of the ATP funding recipients.


Farm subsidies to leap on $9.8 billion in trade aid

Agri-Pulse | Posted on February 4, 2019

Government payments to farmers are forecast to hit their highest level in more than a decade because of the trade assistance being provided to producers this year, and the total could go even higher if Congress, as expected, authorizes a new round of disaster aid. The Trump administration's temporary Market Facilitation Program, launched last fall to compensate farmers for lost exports of soybeans and other crops due to retaliatory tariffs, will pay out $9.8 billion in fiscal 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest projection of farm program costs. The $17.2 billion in total farm program spending that CBO estimates for FY19 doesn’t include additional disaster assistance that Congress is considering for producers harmed by hurricanes and wildfires in 2018. A bill passed by the House would authorize $3 billion in agricultural disaster aid. 

 


After the Shutdown, a Deluge of Major USDA Reports

Successful Farming | Posted on January 29, 2019

With the shutdown behind it, the USDA will begin today to clear out a month’s worth of backlogged data, including major reports that could jolt commodity markets and color farmers’ decisions on crops to plant this spring. Chief Economist Robert Johansson said there will be one exception — the globe-spanning WASDE Report that serves as a monthly crop report for the world.

“We will quickly and smoothly get back to full speed,” said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on social media. Most of USDA’s workforce of around 95,000 were furloughed during the five-week partial federal government shutdown. On Friday, President Trump announced a three-week truce for negotiations over border security, creating the possibility of another lapse in funding on February 15.


Ag Sec switches title to get food safety leader in place

Meating Place (free registration required) | Posted on January 29, 2019

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue named three candidates to leadership positions held up by lack of Senate approval by shifting their titles to those that do not require Senate confirmation, including naming Dr. Mindy Brashears to lead the agency’s food safety efforts. Perdue named Brashears as deputy under secretary for food safety, along with two other unconfirmed appointees --  Naomi Earp as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights, and Dr. Scott Hutchins as deputy under secretary for research, education, and economics, in a statement that pointed said, “These positions do not require Senate confirmation.”All three had been confirmed by the Senate Agriculture Committee to more senior roles, but their nominations expired without receiving confirmation votes by the end of the 115th Congress in early January.  The President has resubmitted their nominations to the Senate in the 116th Congress.Brashears was re-nominated for under secretary for food safety; Earp for assistant secretary for civil rights and Hutchins for under secretary for research, education, and economics.


Farmers, enviros alarmed by USDA’s new wetlands rules

Agri-Pulse | Posted on January 27, 2019

The Natural Resources Conservation Service is likely to receive a decidedly mixed bag of comments on a rule it issued last month that seeks to clarify when producers have wetlands on their farms. Wetland advocates are concerned that NRCS is trying to weaken its highly erodible land protections by allowing faulty maps to be used to determine whether wetlands exist on the landscape. Enacted in the 1985 farm bill, the so-called "Swampbuster" language prohibits farmers who have converted wetlands to cropland from receiving USDA program benefits.The American Farm Bureau Federation, on the other hand, is worried NRCS may be giving itself too much leeway to determine when wetlands exist on the landscape.For its part, NRCS says it is simply trying to make everything clearer for producers trying to figure out what’s on their lands.


Study: Tariffs on metals will cost U.S. agriculture billions

UPI | Posted on January 27, 2019

United States tariffs on steel and aluminum will cost the nation nearly $2 billion in agricultural exports each year -- even if a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada is ratified, according to a study from Purdue University. Purdue economists said the trade deal would increase food exports to those countries by about $454 million annually. But if the U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum -- and the associated retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural products -- remain in place, exports to those countries will decrease by $1.8 billion."In terms of exports, it is relatively sizable when compared to the relative benefits we would get from the new trade deal," said Maksym Chepeliev, a research economist at Purdue, who was one of the authors. In the face of those losses, dozens of national agricultural groups joined together to ask the Trump administration to lift the tariffs on steel and aluminum."For many farmers, ranchers and manufacturers, the damage from the reciprocal trade actions in the steel dispute far outweighs any benefit that may accrue for them from USMCA," the groups wrote in a letter to the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.The letter was signed by representatives from 46 groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Corn Growers Association and the National Pork Producers Council.The Trump administration levied a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum from Canada and Mexico on June 1. Canada and Mexico responded with a tariffs on U.S. products, including pork and corn.The USMCA was signed by leaders of the three nations Nov. 30, but it awaits Congress' approval for the U.S. to formally enter into the agreement.


Limit impacts of government shutdowns to those who cause them—the White House and Congress

Ag Policy | Posted on January 24, 2019

From an economic perspective, we call the effects illustrated in these stories negative externalities; the shutdown negatively affects people who are not direct parties to the dispute. The shutdown creates negative externalities for farmers, consumers, fliers, workers and all recipients of the services provided by the agencies affected. By way of contrast, the disputants, Congress and the President experience no direct effects in the short-term. You don’t quickly solve a dispute when the people who are party to the dispute don’t feel the immediate pain. That leads us to a couple of suggestions to change the nature of government shutdowns.If the Senate won’t participate in the negotiations and refuses to act until the House writes legislation that is acceptable to the President, why do we need a Senate at all? They need to roll up their sleeves and do their job.These shutdowns typically involve departmental appropriations or a decision to increase the debt ceiling. The goal of a shutdown is to force the other side to cry “Uncle” and capitulate to the demands being made. We believe we need to establish policies to prevent shutdowns that involve the bulk of the federal workforce. The work they do is too critical to be subject to a shutdown.Instead of subjecting the general public to a shutdown, we suggest that the negative externalities be shifted to the disputants and their direct staff. If either the President or Congress want a shutdown to force the hand of the other, then limit the shutdown to the President and the executive staff of the White House, members of the Cabinet, and members of Congress and their staffs—not including the kitchen staff, the groundskeepers, the cleaning staff and the like.


USDA updates wetland determination guidance to increase consistency, timeliness

Farm Forum | Posted on January 24, 2019

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is improving the process by which it makes wetland determinations, updating guidance to improve consistency and timeliness as well as to responding to feedback from farmers and other stakeholders. The updates do not change the definition of a wetland for USDA program participation purposes, but rather provide greater clarity and uniformity in how NRCS makes determinations nationwide.Updates to the conservation compliance provisions include:Identifying that determinations will rely on precipitation data from 1971-2000. Though data and average rainfall have varied over time, using this specific dataset makes determinations more predictable.Clarifying the certification status of previously completed wetland determinations, including those completed 1990-1996.Adding definitions for playas, potholes and pocosins. These terms are found in current policy, but they are added to the regulation for transparency.Clarifying that determinations do not have to cover the entire farm tract, but only the area of the farm on which a producer is planning to make changes.Establishing that NRCS can now assess offsite, impacts on neighboring wetlands when producers request minimal effects exemptions. For those neighboring wetlands, NRCS can now do the evaluations off-site using aerial photography and other resources.


Abuse of agricultural trade aid costs U.S. taxpayers

Des Moines Register | Posted on January 24, 2019

Payments from the Market Facilitation Program, administered by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency, are also being misused. In 2018, President Trump pledged $12 billion through USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation to provide direct aid to corn, cotton, dairy, hog, sorghum, soybean and wheat producers. Through the Market Facilitation Program, USDA has administered this direct aid to provide short-term relief to producers who are feeling the effects of ongoing trade disputes with foreign governments.In order to participate in the Market Facilitation Program, eligible applicants must have ownership in the commodity; be actively engaged in farming; have an adjusted gross income of less than $900,000 for 2014, 2015 and 2016; and comply with USDA’s Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation regulations.  Yet, a recent report from the Environmental Working Group highlights two major flaws in the way Market Facilitation Program payments are divvied up: Some farming operations are receiving excessive payments because they are able to take advantage of loopholes, like having numerous absentee managers or family members claim “active personal management.” Some of these payments are going to individuals who do not live or work on the farm.


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