Tag Archives: agriculture

San Francisco’s NBC affiliate reports: The impact of Trump’s promise of mass deportation is already starting to show. The California Farm Bureau says fears in the Central Valley have led to migrant farmworkers not showing up for work, which has virtually halted the area’s citrus harvest. Agriculture leaders in the Bay Area are worried about something similar happening locally and …

Florida Politics reports: U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is among the 15 signatories to a U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo letter seeking a “freeze” to the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR). This rate applies to “temporary nonimmigrant workers under the H-2A visa classification,” according to the federal Department of Labor. While Florida’s $14.77 compensation rate for these field workers is among the …

The Associated Press reports: Soy, oat, almond and other drinks that bill themselves as “milk” can keep using the name, according to draft federal rules released Wednesday. Food and Drug Administration officials issued guidance that says plant-based beverages don’t pretend to be from dairy animals – and that U.S. consumers aren’t confused by the difference. Dairy producers for years have …

Roll Call reports: The Homeland Security Department, reacting to what it called an “unprecedented crisis,” will allow farmers facing delays in getting approval for petitions for foreign agricultural labor to hire farmworkers holding H-2A visas and already in the United States. How many farmers this will help is unknown. The temporary final rule announced Wednesday comes after mounting pressure from …

Politico reports: The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department’s acclaimed in-house scientists. The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment — a potentially serious health concern for the …

ABC News reports: Pig prices are plunging – so, too, those of American soybeans. America’s heartland farmers, in states largely supportive of President Donald Trump, say they are starting to feel real financial pain from a tit-for-tat trade war Trump once promised will be “easy to win.” “We have loss of confidence in our products and we have loss of …

Back in May, Agriculture Sec. Sonny Purdue issued a letter allowing the posting of anti-LGBT materials at USDA-inspected plants. This week that policy went into effect. Tony Perkins, of course, is thrilled: The Family Research Council praised policy guidance released today by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service that makes clear the agency will protect religious freedom and will not …

Buzzfeed reports: The US Department of Agriculture has banned scientists and other employees in its main research division from publicly sharing everything from the summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets as it starts to adjust to life under the Trump administration, BuzzFeed News has learned. According to an email sent Monday morning and obtained by BuzzFeed News, the department …

Sonny Purdue, who was elected Georgia governor in 2002 after promising a referendum to reinstate the Confederate battle cross as the state flag, and who once held a public prayer vigil for rain, will be nominated as Secretary of Agriculture today. Via Politico: The decision, which is expected to be announced on Thursday, ends weeks of speculation that Trump was …

The rest are here.

Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack’s message is directed at rural kids. These days he is the Secretary of Agriculture.

Keeping big agriculture and developers in his back pocket, John McCain says that the government should just focus on preventing illegal immigration. The companies that hire those workers? Well, we’ll work on that later once the “danged fence” is built.

A new study that measures the amount of the American food supply and what is actually eaten claims that we throw out 40% of the food we purchase. U.S. residents are wasting food like never before. While many Americans feast on turkey and all the fixings today, a new study finds food waste per person has shot up 50 percent …