Robert Bonnie, USDA Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation, and USDA Risk Management Agency Administrator Marcia Bunger visited the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau (CIRB) Annual Meeting last week in Scottsdale, Arizona, ahead of this week’s National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS) conference. Bonnie discussed USDA’s commitment to supporting farmers, ranchers, and private forest landowners through Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities. …
Biden Team Hitting the Rural Road
President Joe Biden and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will visit a family farm in Minnesota today to highlight the administration’s investments in rural America and efforts to support local farmers and communities. Biden will travel to Northfield, Minnesota to visit Dutch Creek Farms to lead his Administration’s Investing in Rural America Event Series and highlight investments from the Biden …
USDA Announces Trade and Food Aid
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is providing $2.3 billion to help American producers maintain and develop markets for their commodities and use U.S. commodities to bolster international food aid. Consistent with a bipartisan request from the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, USDA is utilizing funds from the Commodity Credit Corporation …
USDA Lowers Forecast for Corn, Soybeans and Cotton
The October Crop Production report from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) lowered the production forecast this year for corn, soybeans, and cotton. Corn production is forecast at 15.1 billion bushels, down less than 1% from the previous forecast but up 10% from last year; soybean growers are expected to decrease their production 4% from 2022, forecast at 4.10 billion …
USDA Agribusiness Trade Mission Delegation Visits Chile
USDA Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor led an agribusiness delegation to Santiago, Chile this week with representatives from the U.S. food and agriculture sectors and state departments of agriculture. “As we celebrate the 200th anniversary of U.S.-Chile relations, I am honored to lead such an incredible group as we work with Chilean importers on expanding …
USDA Predicts More Corn, Less Soybeans and Cotton
Corn production is up, while soybean and cotton production is down from 2022, according to the latest Crop Production report issued Tuesday by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Corn production is forecast to be up 10% from last year, at 15.1 billion bushels; soybean growers production is down 3% from 2022, forecast at 4.15 billion bushels; and cotton production …
Secretary Vilsack Announces More IRA Funding
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack stopped briefly at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois Wednesday to award $266 million in loans and grants for agriculture producers and rural small businesses to make investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements, made possible in part by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Vilsack used a white board to talk about funding under …
USDA Adjusts Yields in August Report
USDA’s first survey-based forecasts for the season slightly lowered yields for corn and soybeans compared to projections last month. In the August Crop Production report released Friday, USDA puts corn production for 2023/24 at 15.1 billion bushels, down 209 million from the July projection, but ten percent more than 2022 which would be the second highest on record behind 2016/17. …
New Cover Crop Survey Released
The 2022-2023 National Cover Crop Survey Report was released today the challenges assumptions on the role of incentive payments in cover crop adoption. According to the survey, nearly half of the cover crop users participating in the survey reported receiving some sort of payment for cover crops in 2022, and almost 78% of cover crop non-users said incentive payments would …
USDA Crop Report Surprises
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Planted Acreage report released Friday surprised many with an estimated 94.1 million acres of corn planted in the United States for 2023, up 6% from last year, while soybean area planted is estimated at 83.5 million acres, down 5% from last year. “You get a big surprise here I think …