Tag Archives: USDA

What’s wrong with our government? USDA cannot report reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much US agricultural land is held by foreign persons

US Farmland

Important Takeaways:

  • China Is Buying Up US Farmland, But Just How Much Isn’t Clear
  • Foreign ownership and investment in US farmland, pastures and forests jumped to about 40 million acres in 2021, up 40% from 2016, according to Department of Agriculture data. But an analysis conducted by the US Government Accountability Office — a non-partisan watchdog that reports to Congress — found mistakes in the data, including the largest land holding linked with China being counted twice. Other challenges include the USDA’s reliance on foreigners self-reporting their activity.
  • Outside ownership of US cropland is drawing attention from Washington as concern rises about possible threats to food supply chains and other national security risks. Lawmakers have called for a crackdown on sales of farmland to China and other nations.
  • “Without improving its internal processes, USDA cannot report reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much US agricultural land is held by foreign persons,” the report said.
  • The GAO made six recommendations, including that the USDA share more timely and complete data with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews foreign business deals.

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USDA targets Amish Farmer

Amish-Farmer-USDA

Important Takeaways:

  • Big Government Has Come for This Small-Town Amish Farmer. Here’s How He’s Fighting Back
  • “They came with a search warrant,” softly spoke Samuel B. Fisher, a mild-mannered cattle farmer operating a 100-acre farm tucked away in Virginia’s heartland. Fisher’s bread-and-butter, Golden Valley Farms, carves out the scenic countryside that’s a hop, skip, and a jump away from historic Farmville, a postcard-perfect small Southern town with classical Main Street charm.
  • The father of five had graciously invited us down to his idyllic pasture to rehash the whirlwind of unforeseen events that unfolded over the cruel summer. It was a tumultuous time on the Fisher farm, an upheaval that threatened to upend the man’s livelihood.
  • “Then, they tagged the meat, so that we can’t touch it; we can’t sell it; we can’t feed our family with it,” Fisher told Townhall.
  • What was clear: The state sought to penalize Fisher for selling meat that was not processed by a USDA-inspected facility (U.S. Department of Agriculture). Fisher processes—an industry euphemism for butchering—his farm-raised meat on-site and sells it directly to his customers, feeding about 500 consumers and their families, who are part of a buying club. As members enrolled in the Golden Valley Farms membership program, they’ve bought into Fisher’s herd of 100% grass-fed golden Guernsey cows.
  • Though the future is uncertain, Fisher is considering next steps, including consulting with attorneys, if the state seeks to continue targeting him and Golden Valley Farms.
  • Fisher once sold USDA-inspected meat, but that was before the government-mandated shutdowns, when access to the nearest USDA processor became burdensome during the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, pre-pandemic, the drive was hours away and the cost was hefty, depending on the lot. For example, a trailer load holding four cows and five pigs would be priced at $500, he estimated. It was cumbersome to ship so many animals at one time, process the shipment, and retrieve the meat to have in stock. Hence, it was more practical to process the meat products individually on the farm in order to balance out the inventory and ensure that everything was available, Fisher said. By the time the meat came back from a USDA processor, “you might be running low on certain cuts,” he added. Plus, the pandemic meant “you’d have to schedule your animals around eight to 12 months ahead of time,” making the timing, and how much meat that needed to be processed, hard to predict so far in advance.
  • Golden Valley Farms has since launched a GiveSendGo fundraising campaign to support the Fisher family’s recovery as the farm rebuilds what the government of Virginia destroyed. Fisher approximates that $10,000 in products was confiscated and dumped.

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Government targeting Amish to give up Traditional Farming

Revelations 13:16-18 “Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Amos Miller, an Amish farmer and owner of Miller’s Organic Farm just 150 miles from Washington, D.C., has been under the USDA’s microscope since at least 2015.
  • It was the National Organic Program from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that first launched an investigation in 2015, seeking all the food club’s purchase records and a list of members who pay a premium to get food from an independent farmer who doesn’t process meat and dairy at a USDA facility.
  • Miller has helped organize private food clubs where individuals can purchase produce, dairy, and meat from traditional farmers; the Department of Justice (DOJ) seems intent on stamping them out.
  • While Miller produces and sells organic meat, dairy, and eggs, “experts” are pushing fake junk food for billions in profits, including the current “sustainable, plant-based” consumables that resemble convenience store food more than whole food.
  • Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) meat, dairy, and eggs are also not the answer to a healthy society and environment. There is a better solution and Amos Miller is using it—regenerative farming has a lower carbon footprint than either CAFOs or plant-based products, protects human health, and improves the environment.

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Beef is Not for Dinner: US has lowest inventory since 1962

Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

Important Takeaways:

  • The USDA’s biannual cattle report showed that, as of Jan. 1, 2023, there is an 89.3 million head inventory — which is three percent lower than the total from a year ago and the lowest since 2015. Of that number, 38.3 million cows and heifers have calved.
  • Additionally, there are 28.9 million beef cows, which are those explicitly bred for slaughter and meat sales, as of the start of this year — which is down nearly four percent from last year and the lowest the agency has recorded since 1962.

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USDA wants to add your garden to a registry and add it on a map and it’s called the Peoples Garden

Important Takeaways:

  • USDA Opens People’s Garden Initiative to Gardens Nationwide
  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is expanding its People’s Garden Initiative to include eligible gardens nationwide. School gardens, community gardens, urban farms, and small-scale agriculture projects in rural, suburban and urban areas can be recognized as a “People’s Garden” if they register on the USDA website and meet criteria including benefitting the community, working collaboratively, incorporating conservation practices and educating the public. Affiliate People’s Garden locations will be indicated on a map on the USDA website, featured in USDA communications, and provided with a People’s Garden sign.
  • Sooo the Government wants you to register your garden…and will add it on a map … and its called the Peoples garden…Sounds like Communism

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USDA just announced five more outbreaks of Avian Flu

Revelations 6:8 “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.”

Important Takeaways:

  • USDA Confirms Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Massachusetts, Wyoming, North Carolina, Ohio and North Dakota
  • APHIS is working closely with state animal health officials in both states on a joint incident response. State officials quarantined the affected premises, and birds on the properties will be depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease. Birds from the flocks will not enter the food system.

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Northern U.S. Plains drought shrivels spring wheat crop to smallest in 33 years, USDA says

By Julie Ingwersen and Karl Plume

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Farmers in the northern U.S. Plains are on track to harvest the smallest spring wheat crop in 33 years, reflecting the impact of severe drought in the key farming region, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said on Monday.

The shortfall in spring wheat, which typically represents a quarter of total U.S. wheat production, means tighter supplies of the variety used in bread and pizza dough, prized by millers for its quality and high protein content.

Benchmark futures prices on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange surged more than 5% after the USDA slashed its 2021 spring wheat harvest outlook to 345 million bushels, down 41% from a year earlier and the smallest since 1988. Chicago Board of Trade winter wheat contracts followed suit, gaining 3% to 4%.

Soaring U.S. wheat prices will further pinch import-dependent nations that have struggled with food inflation and climbing costs for shipping grain around the world.

A harsh drought in the Canadian Prairies is threatening to pare supplies of the high-protein grain even further. Both nations export the majority of their spring wheat.

“The spring wheat production is a lot weaker than expected and has been heading south. There’s just nothing good to say about this spring wheat crop,” said Jack Scoville, analyst with the Price Futures Group in Chicago.

“Wheat millers are going to pay, and so are we. The good news is that there’s only few cents worth of wheat in each loaf of bread or package of cereal. But even so, it’s going to creep up,” Scoville said.

Spring wheat production losses should be partially offset by a large U.S. winter wheat harvest, but U.S. supplies are still projected at the tightest in eight years, the USDA said.

Late on Monday, the USDA rated just 16% of the U.S. spring wheat crop in good-to-excellent condition, the lowest early-July level since 1988.

(Reporting by Julie Ingwersen and Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Alistair Bell)

U.S. defends minority farmer debt relief despite legal fight

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) is defending efforts to wipe clean government-backed loans to farmers facing decades of discrimination, despite a temporary restraining order on the debt relief plan issued by a U.S. District court last week.

A USDA spokesperson said the agency will be ready to process payments on an estimated $4 billion in debt relief for 17,000 Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Asian farmers once legal battles are resolved. It planned to start the payments in June.

“USDA will continue to forcefully defend its ability to carry out this act of Congress and deliver debt relief to socially disadvantaged borrowers,” a USDA spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The spokesperson said the government cannot appeal the restraining order, which pauses payments until the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin rules more broadly on a lawsuit over whether or not the debt relief program discriminates against non-minority farmers.

For decades, USDA employees and programs have discriminated against socially disadvantaged farmers by denying loans and delaying payments, resulting in $120 billion in lost farmland value since 1920, according to a 2018 Tufts University analysis. The Biden administration’s loan forgiveness program is aimed at addressing those systemic inequities.

The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of 12 white farmers, aims to halt the debt relief by claiming it excludes farmers on the basis of race. It is one of several lawsuits filed after the USDA detailed plans to implement the minority farmer debt-relief provision, which is part of the American Rescue Plan Act that Congress passed in March.

Judge William C. Griesbach, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, granted the temporary restraining order on June 10.

“The obvious response to a government agency that claims it continues to discriminate against farmers because of their race or national origin is to direct it to stop,” Griesbach said in the decision.

Some Black farmers are not surprised the relief has stalled, having seen previous government anti-discrimination efforts underdeliver.

“Talk is cheap. I can’t buy grain with it. I want to know when you’re going to help some farmers,” said Lloyd Wright, a Virginia farmer who served as the director of the USDA’s Office of Civil Rights in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

Wright said Black farmers have been promised relief from federal discrimination in the past, only to be repeatedly disappointed. He suggests eligible farmers continue paying on loans, so they do not end up behind if the program is permanently blocked.

(Reporting by Christopher Walljasper; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Trump administration rolls back U.S. inspection rules for egg products

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The Trump administration said on Wednesday it will stop requiring U.S. plants that produce egg products to have full-time government inspectors, in the first update of inspection methods in 50 years.

Under a new rule that takes effect immediately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allow companies like Cargill Inc and Sonstegard Foods to use different food-safety systems and procedures designed for their factories and equipment.

The change marks the Trump administration’s latest move to ease government regulations over the nation’s food system. Some inspectors and public-interest groups have warned food safety may suffer as a result.

The new rule affects 83 plants that USDA has been inspecting, according to the agency. USDA will also assume oversight from the Food and Drug Administration of additional facilities that produce egg substitutes.

Inspectors will visit plants once per shift, instead of being there whenever egg products are being processed.

The change, first proposed in 2018, makes inspections consistent with those for meat and poultry products, said Paul Kiecker, administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. Inspectors will operate under a “patrol” system, in which they will cover multiple plants each day, he said.

“We feel very confident that, based on the once per shift that we have them there, we’ll still be able to verify that they’re producing safe product,” he said.

Environmental group Food & Water Watch said in 2018 the patrol system may make inspections less effective.

The new rule aims to make better use of inspectors and allow companies to develop new food-safety procedures, Kiecker said.

Companies must implement standard operating procedures for sanitation and food-safety management systems known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points.

“We are giving them more of the responsibility to ensure that they are producing safe products,” Kiecker said.

The coronavirus pandemic disrupted egg product sales this spring, as closures of restaurants, schools and offices reduced demand.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Tom Brown)

Trump says he is speeding help to farmers hurt by coronavirus dislocation

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he has directed his agriculture secretary to expedite help to farmers, especially small farmers, hurt by the economic disruption caused by the new coronavirus outbreak.

On Twitter, Trump also said he expects Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue “to use all of the funds and authorities at his disposal to make sure that our food supply is stable, strong, and safe.”

Trump did not specify what he expected Perdue to do, but farmers are waiting for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to announce how it will disburse $9.5 billion Congress set aside for the industry in the coronavirus relief bill signed by Trump last month.

Farmers are an important part of Republican Trump’s political base as he seeks re-election in November.

Also on Twitter, Perdue said the USDA “is using all financial resources we have been given to develop a program that will include direct payments to farmers & ranchers hurt by COVID-19 & other procurement methods to help solidify the supply chain from producers to consumers.”

The American Farm Bureau Federation said last week that farmers need immediate help and it urged the USDA to make special direct payments to dairy and cotton producers, livestock farmers and cattle ranchers, among others.

The group said certain sectors have been particularly hard-hit, including dairy farmers and specialty crop producers, such as vegetable and fruit farms.

(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Grant McCool)