All posts tagged "Agriculture"

A member of President Donald Trump's administration has confirmed they may lift a Joe Biden-era policy to fix an ongoing crisis.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has confirmed that a plan to shore up domestic fertilizer production, previously flagged by the Biden administration, is under consideration to fix a current problem. Trump's team is under pressure to deliver an out for the swell of prices caused by the war in Iran, and their fix may come from the previous administration, Politico reported.

The Fertilizer Production Expansion Program was designed by Biden officials as a way to help farmers weather unexpected price shocks, particularly on fertilizer, following the start of the war in Ukraine. ...

Farmers across the country warned they cannot survive for much longer as the Iran war worsens the fuel and fertilizer stocks.

Industry experts said that already tight profit margins are being eaten into as a result of Donald Trump's strikes on the Middle Eastern country, and there does not appear to be a reprieve in sight for the agricultural industry.

Lesly Weber McNitt, vice president of public policy for the National Corn Growers Association, warned that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had massively affected supply and, as a result, farmers are struggling to make ends meet. ...

President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs policy brought Ohio farmer Chris Gibbs into the national spotlight in Trump's first term, when he sent a message asking Trump to consider how his global trade war hurt American agriculture.

After Trump returned to the White House last year and enacted a stream of even more aggressive — if fluctuating — tariffs on global trade, Gibbs felt the need to speak out again.

“It’s such a déjà vu moment,” Gibbs said, “because we're right back in the same situation, right back there, right now, the same doggone thing as 2018.”...

A high-ranking Republican who represents an agriculture-heavy state says the government shutdown is hitting a key GOP voting bloc — farmers — in an "unnecessary consequence."

The USDA's Farm Service Agency offices are closed and currently only available for "emergency scenarios," Politico reports. Thousands of these offices support the agriculture industry and give producers access to loans and other services.

“FSA employees are important to the farmers that we all represent. Again, that’s an unnecessary consequence of the Schumer shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told Politico on Thursday. ...

Farmers are reporting record yields for crops this fall but it's unclear who will buy them.

The ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. is testing farmers' faith in the Trump administration, Politico reports.

“When our members are in the fields harvesting, they will be staring at a visual representation of this economy and this looming farm crisis. They will be looking at literal piles of corn and other row crops,” said Lesly Weber McNitt, vice president of public policy at the National Corn Growers Association, in an interview with Politico. “They don’t know where it’s going.”...

Branford (United States) (AFP) - Bren Smith and his GreenWave organization are helping lay the foundations for a generation of seaweed-growing farmers in the United States, while working to build a network of producers and buyers. Seen from a boat, GreenWave's farm seems unimpressive -- little more than lines of white and black buoys, a few hundred yards (meters) off the Connecticut coast. But beneath the dark Atlantic waters, suspended from ropes tied between the buoys around six feet (two meters) down, seaweed in varying shades of brown undulates.  GreenWave, which uses no pesticides or herb......