The Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday on implementation of the farm bill, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., announced today. Read More...

Members of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Livestock, Rural Development and Credit used a hearing on the state of the livestock industry today to restate their disappointment that the 2014 farm bill did not address mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) , the California rule on egg production, or the rule governing the Packers and Stockyards Act (GIPSA). Read More...

Two members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee today urged community bankers to support their housing finance reform bill. Read More...

More than 13,000 producers have applied for more than $9.4 million in Livestock Forage Disaster Program payments since the Agriculture Department began accepting applications on April 15 and more than $4 million has already been disbursed, USDA Chief Economist Joe Glauber said today. Read More...

A panel of bee experts told a House Agriculture subcommittee Tuesday that the high death rate of bees is due to a number of factors, while Friends of the Earth issued a report criticizing the pesticide industry for delaying regulatory action on neonicotinoid (neonic) pesticides. Read More...

The Health and Human Services Department is preparing a response to four chairmen of House committees and subcommittees, including House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., about the agency's oversight of state administration of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, an HHS spokesman has told The Hagstrom Report. Read More...

The plans of John Deere, Monsanto and other companies to offer “prescription farming” services for individual farmers will be dependent on continued federal information gathering and statistical analysis, a series of experts said today at a congressional briefing entitled “Increasing U.S. Agriculture’s Competitive Edge: How Do Public Data and Big Data Fit?” Read More...

Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss., made a surprise visit today at the Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics (C-FARE) briefing on public data and big data. Read More...

In one of the most impassioned speeches of his tenure as Agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack tonight told the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund gala dinner that the Agriculture Department is committed to passing immigration reform and that he has tried to clean up USDA’s “sordid civil rights history.” Read More...

The Senate Agriculture Jobs, Rural Economic Growth and Energy Innovation Subcommittee will hold a hearing Thursday titled “The Importance of Regional Strategies in Rural Economic Development,” Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., the chairman of the subcommittee, has announced. Read More...

Lawyers for the Sweetener Users Association and the Mexican Sugar Chamber said today that the case U.S. growers have brought against Mexican sugar imports is meritless and that the International Trade Commission should determine that the U.S. growers have suffered no injury. Read More...

The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology today published a paper on the labeling of genetically engineered foods. Read More...

The Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday on President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget request for the U.S. Forest Service. Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sees an opening to pass immigration reform this year and is taking up the cause this week, with a telephone news conference today and a speech to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund Awards Gala in Washington on Tuesday. Read More...

Following finalization of the farm bill, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack faces different questions than his predecessors, Jerry Hagstrom writes in his National Journal column published today. Read More...

Thousands of people including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited the White House grounds this weekend, including First Lady Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden. Read More...

Love & Quiches Gourmet, a Freeport, N.Y.-based business that sells quiches and desserts to customers around the world, received the Small Business Exporter of the Year award from the Export-Import Bank of the United States on Thursday.
Read More...

Two House Agriculture subcommittees will hold hearings next week, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., announced today. Read More...

The Obama administration’s “Made in Rural America” regional forums to help rural entrepreneurs gain more access to U.S. government export programs will begin in western Pennsylvania in June, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today. Read More...

A senior administration official claimed today that U.S. and Japanese officials made progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during the final hours of President Barack Obama’s state visit to Japan, but offered no details to back up the statement. Read More...

President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe late today issued a joint statement on Obama’s state visit Read More...

President Barack Obama today announced his intention to appoint five people to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, including chef Rachel Ray who has helped First Lady Michelle Obama with her “Let's Move” initiative against childhood obesity and Robert Shepardson, who helped with the marketing and advertising for Let’s Move. Read More...

The Illinois farm owned by Adlai Stevenson, the late Democratic governor of Illinois, presidential candidate and ambassador to the United Nations during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, received landmark status from the Interior Department’s National Park Service on Thursday. Read More...

The Food and Drug Administration will not take actions in its animal feed rule to discourage the use of spent grains, the by-products of alcoholic beverage brewing and distilling that are very commonly used as animal feed, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine Michael Taylor said today. Read More...

Two key farm bill lobbyists said today that the next bill may be more difficult to develop and pass, and urged advocates of all types to begin thinking about how to work together to pass another bill. Read More...

Several members of the Agriculture Workforce Coalition were among the immigration stakeholders who met today with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. Read More...

The American Farm Bureau Federation this week asked its members to resist a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency, saying it will impose unworkable regulations on the nation’s farms. Read More...

Fuels America, a coalition of organizations working to protect the Renewable Fuel Standard, today released a report detailing the value of the renewable fuels industry to each state and congressional district. Read More...

The Inter-American Development Bank and the Global Harvest Initiative today released a report, “The Next Global Breadbasket: How Latin America Can Feed the World.” Read More...

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today scheduled a hearing on May 1 to discuss President Barack Obama's trade agenda. Read More...

President Barack Obama left for Asia today amidst speculation about what the trip will mean for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade negotiations. Read More...

The White House kitchen garden has not been certified organic even though a sign reading “organic farming” was on the garden fence on Monday during the Easter Egg Roll, Sam Kass, senior policy adviser on nutrition, told The Hagstrom Report today after he made extensive remarks at the Consumer Federation of America National Food Policy Conference. Read More...

The Corn Refiners Association, which represents the makers of high-fructose corn syrup, said today that First Lady Michelle Obama was misinformed about HFCS when she indicated agreement Monday with a chef's comment that the body does not know how to digest HFCS and that people don't need it. Read More...

The Easter Egg Roll used to be one of the simplest, crowd-pleasing occasions at the White House, but today’s 136th event is likely to cause controversy in many parts of the food and agriculture industries. Read More...

The White House will open its gardens and grounds including First Lady Michelle Obama’s kitchen garden to the public this coming Saturday and Sunday.
Read More...

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — It’s hard to make good films about farming and agriculture, especially in competition with Hollywood classics such as “Oklahoma!,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz” and even “The Great Gatsby.” Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week reappointed two members to the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) board of directors. Read More...

At the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, breakfast offering include eggs, greens and toast topped with avocado paste, chorizo and grapefruit brulee. Read More...

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Secretary of State John Kerry have urged nations around the world to expand their support for the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP). Read More...

In another apparent attempt to keep the troubled Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership talks going, Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Wendy Cutler will meet Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Washington with Ambassador Hiroshi Oe and Ambassador Takeo Mori of Japan for TPP negotiations, focusing on agriculture market access and motor vehicle issues. Read More...

Northern Plains farmers and grain shippers complained to the federal Surface Transportation Board about protracted shipping delays due to perceived railroad favoritism for shipping oil versus grain, but disagreed over whether the STB should use it powers to force railroads to ship grain, DTN/The Progressive Farmer reported Friday. Read More...

The Agriculture Department's National Agricultural Statistics Service announced this week that it will release the 2012 Census of Agriculture on May 2 at noon. Read More...

American Farm Bureau Federation lobbyist Mary Kay Thatcher said late Thursday that 13 groups met in Kansas City to discuss Big Data, prescriptive farming and the privacy and security issues they present for farmers if they share their field data with companies offering the services.
Read More...

Japan’s tariff reduction for beef that Australia has accepted in a free trade agreement would not be enough to convince American beef producers to accept it, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said this week in a wide-ranging discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced this week that the United States will will provide $183 million in U.S. agricultural commodities and support to benefit an estimated 2.7 million children in 10 developing countries as part of the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. Read More...

The two top Democrats in Congress on agricultural policy — House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. — disagreed this week on the future of farm bills. Read More...

In signals that the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership negotiations will go slowly, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said this week that he will offer his own trade promotion authority bill, while TPP talks between U.S. and Japanese negotiators in Tokyo failed to produce major breakthroughs. Read More...

Two key House Republicans said this week they want a reexamination of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance in the next Congress, while Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., pointed out that the new farm bill has changed the program. Read More...

The American Farm Bureau Federation will convene a meeting today in Kansas City to discuss one of the most perplexing opportunities and problems in agriculture today: “Big Data” — the collection and use of information from farmers and its manipulation into prescriptions that can help farmers be more efficient, but could also compromise their privacy. Read More...

Reps. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., and G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., today released their Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2014 that would establish a federal labeling standard for foods with genetically modified ingredients, giving sole authority to the Food and Drug Administration to require mandatory labeling on such foods if they are ever found to be unsafe or materially different from foods produced without GMO ingredients. Read More...

The House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday approved a bill to reauthorize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and to address concerns relating to end users and protecting customers from failures such as MF Global and Peregrine Financial. Read More...

Members of the North American Agricultural Journalists visited the new Norman Borlaug statue in the U.S. Capitol on Monday. Read More...

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Stabenow, D-Mich., said this week that she would send the testimony delivered at a hearing on advanced biofuels on Tuesday to the Environmental Protection Agency for consideration as the EPA finalizes the volumetric requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard. Read More...

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs and MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger will host members of Congress, administration officials and other national faith, anti-hunger and anti-poverty leaders for the National Hunger Seder today in the Capitol Visitor Center. Read More...

Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., today will introduce a bill that would prohibit state governments from enacting laws requiring labeling of foods containing genetically modified ingredients. Read More...

U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah, who last week announced a new agency development lab involving agriculture, came under scrutiny Tuesday on Capitol Hill for the agency's program to encourage democratization in Cuba with a secret Twitter program and other agency practices. Read More...

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said Monday he will give up the chairmanship of the committee at the end of his term without a fight, while Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, said he has already been campaigning to get the post and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, another candidate, said he has not decided whether to pursue it. Read More...

The Senate Agriculture Committee today approved President Barack Obama’s nominees to the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the committee plans to write a bill that would reauthorize the commission, with some changes. Read More...

U.S. food exports to Cuba went down by 24 percent in 2013, according to a report released today by the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, Inc. Read More...

Hagstrom, de Bourbon win awards at NAAJ eventJerry Hagstrom, founder and editor of The Hagstrom Report and a columnist for National Journal, was awarded a prize at the North American Agricultural Journalists dinner on Monday evening. Read More...

House Agriculture leaders on Monday introduced a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and scheduled a markup Wednesday at 9 a.m. in Room 1300 of the Longworth House Office Building. Read More...

The North American Agricultural Journalists has raised nearly $67,000 for the NAAJ-Sonja Hillgren Memorial Scholarship at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Chuck Abbott, head of the fund drive, announced at the NAAJ annual awards banquet and dinner-dance Monday evening. Read More...

The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee will holding a hearing Tuesday on President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget requests for the Agriculture Department’s Farm Service Agency, the Foreign Agricultural Service, the Risk Management Agency and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Read More...

The volumetric requirements for the Renewable Fuel Standard will be different from those at the proposed levels, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said today. Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today that his ability to provide assistance to farmers who have lost 5 million piglets from porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus is limited, and he suggested that Congress might want to adjust a disaster program in order to provide that aid. Read More...

Brewers are “cautiously optimistic” that the Food and Drug Administration will issue a rule that will be workable for “spent grains” that are used as animal feed under the Food Safety Modernization Act, Chris Thorne, a spokesman for the Beer Institute, told The Hagstrom Report. Read More...

The number of proposals to make it easier to buy raw milk is growing even though the industry and health professionals say it is dangerous, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Read More...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday announced that it would rehear the American Meat Institute’s case against the Agriculture Department’s country-of-origin labeling for red meat labeling regime on May 19. Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack confirmed today that producers will be able to apply for disaster relief at Farm Service Agency county offices on April 15, as has been the Obama administration’s goal. Read More...

The Senate and House State and Foreign Operations subcommittees will hold hearings on Tuesday on President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget request for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Read More...

Members of the House Agriculture Committee, particularly the Republicans, have often been contentious with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in his testimony before the committee, but on Thursday the members all greeted him with thanks for his role in finishing the 2014 farm bill and asked him politely to address their the concerns of their districts as he implements the new bill. Read More...

The Environmental Working Group is going to launch a food data base and mobile app “that aims to change the way American eat and shop for foods,” EWG President Ken Cook has announced. Read More...

BUENOS AIRES — Argentine farm workers, ranchers and farmers have come together to try to convince the Argentine government to establish more pro-agricultural policies, a key farm worker leader told farm leaders from all over the world gathered here last week.
Read More...

Testifying before House committees today, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said Japan is the problem in talks to complete the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership negotiations. Read More...

The trustee for MF Global Inc., a registered commission merchant that failed to segregate funds for customers including farmers, will begin making final distribution that will result in full restitution of $1.2 billion in customer losses when the company failed in 2011, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced today. Read More...

Joseph Reilly, the associate administrator of the Agriculture Department’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, will succeed Cynthia Clark as administrator, Agriculture Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics Cathie Woteki announced in an internal USDA memo today. Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said he fears the legal case U.S. sugar producers have filed asking for corrective action could affect other negotiations with Mexico, but a spokesman for the sugar growers said the case is justified. Read More...

The Senate Agriculture Committee will meet next Tuesday to consider sending President Barack Obama’s nominees to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to the Senate floor. Read More...

The Senate Finance Committee today approved the tax extenders bill, including several provisions important to agriculture. Read More...

The Senate Agriculture Committee has approved President Barack Obama’s nomination of Todd Batta to be Agriculture assistant secretary for congressional relations. Read More...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today released to the House Agriculture Committee a list of what the USDA has done so far on implementing the 2014 farm bill. The report includes some upcoming deadlines. Read More...

Gardening has grown 17 percent in the United States in the past five years, with a huge increase among people 18 to 34, the National Gardening Association reported today as First Lady Michelle Obama and Food Corps volunteers helped school children plant the sixth kitchen garden. Read More...

The American Farm Bureau Federation on Tuesday said its review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “waters of the United States” proposed rule found it to be “dismaying” and that the group will fight the finalization of the rule. Read More...

The Agriculture Department is starting a feral swine management program, Agriculture Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Services Ed Avalos said today. Read More...

The Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday entitled Advanced Biofuels: Creating Jobs and Lower Prices at the Pump. Read More...

The Senate Finance Committee today rescheduled a hearing on President Barack Obama’s trade agenda that was scheduled for Thursday until April 30. Read More...

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., today released a 15-year House budget resolution that would cut farm program spending by $23 billion between 2015 and 2024, turn the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program into a block grant to the states, and eliminate the provision that allows an increase in SNAP benefits if states use the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to make payments of at least $20 per year per household. Read More...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a likely 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, will join U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Rajiv Shah in New York Thursday to announce the establishment of a “U.S. Global Development Lab” that will include agriculture. Read More...