USDA confirmed the detection yesterday of a New World screwworm in a three-week old beef calf in Zavala County, Texas, about 60 miles from the Mexico border, and today officials laid out plans to keep it from spreading. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins updated the House Agriculture Committee Thursday morning. “It is a vexing challenge that we thought we had …
USDA Launches Great American Cotton Plan
USDA unveiled the Great American Cotton Plan Thursday, an initiative to “strengthen the cotton farm economy, restore domestic textile manufacturing, expand cotton trade opportunities, and increase demand for products made with American-grown cotton.” The announcement comes as cotton producers face a fifth consecutive year of negative returns driven by rising input costs, trade distortions, and increasing competition from synthetic materials. …
2026 National Ag Day
The National Ag Day activities took place in Washington, D.C. today with an impressive slate of speakers, starting with USDA Secretary Agriculture Brooke Rollins announcing a new “Product of USA” consumer campaign. (19:03) Today, on National Agriculture Day, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced the launch of a national public awareness campaign to inform meat, poultry, and egg …
USDA Update at Commodity Classic
U.S. Department of Agriculture leaders delivered an upbeat update to a crowd at the Commodity Classic trade show last week, emphasizing technology upgrades, streamlined programs, and a renewed “farmer-first” focus under the second Trump administration. Undersecretary of Farm Production and Conservation (FPAC) Richard Fordyce opened the session by noting FPAC’s creation during the first Trump term to unite the three …
Secretary Rollins Launches ‘One Farmer, One File’ at Classic
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled USDA’s new “One Farmer, One File” initiative Thursday at the 2026 Commodity Classic, promising a single streamlined digital record that follows producers across all agency systems and slashes paperwork burdens. Rollins described the multi-year modernization as a direct response to decades of fractured IT infrastructure — 500 custom systems managed by 1,000+ contractors at …
Trump Signs Bill Putting Whole Milk Back in Schools
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act of 2025 into law, allowing whole and 2% milk to return to America’s schools where it has been banned since 2012 under President Obama. “This is the first bill signing of the new year, and it will ensure that millions of school aged children have access …
USDA Secretary Addresses Key Issues at AFBF Convention
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins addressed the American Farm Bureau Federation convention for the first time Monday, hitting on key issues being discussed by the nation’s largest general farm organization this week. Rollins started with the bad news. “All of America is under threat when American agriculture is under threat. And there’s no doubt that right now, American agriculture, …
Trump Announces Bridge Payments for American Farmers
During a Monday round table with cabinet members, farmers and lawmakers, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will make $12 billion available in one-time bridge payments to American farmers in response to temporary trade market disruptions and increased production costs. President Trump said the $12 billion represents a relatively small portion of what the United States …
Battle Over Beef
There’s been a lot of back and forth about beef this week between the Trump administration and the U.S. beef cattle industry after President Trump suggested importing beef from Argentina to address high prices. “We would buy some beef from Argentina. If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down,” Trump said to reporters on Sunday. “The National …
MAHA Report Focuses on Science and Research
The Make America Healthy Again Commission released its Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy on Tuesday with more than 120 initiatives to “advance gold-standard science, realign incentives, increase public awareness, and strengthen private-sector collaboration.” “This strategy represents the most sweeping reform agenda in modern history—realigning our food and health systems, driving education, and unleashing science to protect America’s children and …