Tag: U.S. farmers

Farmers are coming around on climate change

Flooded fields, persistent droughts or ravaging wildfires are giving many a change of heart

Major farm and livestock groups held a press conference in February to project a united voice on an issue they’ve long avoided. The coalition leaders said they wanted to join the fight against climate change rather than remain cast as villains avoiding the responsibility.

The approach was a sharp departure for an industry that less than a year earlier looked more like a victim as photos circulated of nearly 20 million acres so saturated and flooded that farmers, mostly in the Midwest, couldn’t get into their fields. The federal crop insurance program paid out more than $4 billion in claims.

But farmers and ranchers now acknowledge that they have to change their practices. In myriad ways, the agriculture sector pumps carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane into the atmosphere, contributing to a warming planet. They suffer the effects in flooded fields, persistent droughts or ravaging wildfires partly fueled by trees killed by insects that are increasingly flourishing because of mild winters. Continue reading.

Trump announces $19B program to help agriculture sector

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion program to help the struggling agriculture sector and distribute food to families in need amid the economic toll of the coronavirus pandemic.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will purchase crops and livestock from farmers and ranchers facing a steep decline in orders and massive supply chain disruption. Funding will come from the $2.2 trillion coronavirus economic relief bill and separate USDA funds to support commodity prices.

USDA will offer $16 billion in direct grants to farmers and ranchers to compensate for short-term drops in demand and oversupply driven by the coronavirus pandemic. The department will also purchase $3 billion in fresh produce, dairy, and meat to distribute to food banks, community organizations and charities. Continue reading.

Farmers are slamming Trump’s $28 billion farm bailout — more than double Obama’s 2009 payment to automakers — as a ‘Band-Aid’

Farmers are slamming Donald Trump over his trade war with China, saying his administration’s bailouts to the agricultural industry are like a ‘Band-Aid’ when it comes to helping those affected by the tariffs.

As president, Trump has repeatedly slapped tariffs on Chinese goods entering the United States, sparking tit-for-tat tariff hikes from China on products including agricultural goods.

As a result, exports of goods such as soybeans and pork to China have dropped off dramatically, with the Financial Times reporting that in the first five months of 2019, the US exported 4.3 million tonnes of soybeans to China, down from 15.2 million in the same period last year.

View the complete September 23 article by Yusuf Khan on the Insider website here.

China to remove tariffs on some U.S. products, but not pork or soybeans

Washington Post logoBEIJING — China extended an olive twig, rather than a branch, to the United States in the trade war Wednesday, announcing it would exempt 16 American-made products from tariffs as a sign of goodwill ahead of talks scheduled for next month.

But the gesture, which Beijing said was designed to ease the dispute’s impact on American companies, does not offer relief from tariffs on the big-ticket agricultural products such as soybeans and corn that are causing the most hurt in the United States.

“China wants to claim the moral high ground before the October talks and to send a message of goodwill,” said Yao Xinchao, professor of international trade at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing. “It’s all about molding public opinion” to portray the United States as the aggressor, Yao added.

View the complete September 11 article by Anna Fifield on The Washington Post website here.

As billions flow to farmers, Trump administration faces internal concerns over unprecedented bailout

Washington Post logoSenior government officials, including some in the White House, privately expressed concern that the Trump administration’s nearly $30 billion bailout for farmers needed stronger legal backing, according to multiple people who participated in the planning.

The bailout was created by the Trump administration as a way to try to calm outrage from farmers who complained they were caught in the middle of the White House’s trade war with China. In an attempt to pacify farmers, the Agriculture Department created an expansive new program without precedent.

As part of the program, the USDA authorized $12 billion in bailout funds last year and another $16 billion this year, and Trump has said more money could be on the way.

View the complete September 9 article by Jeff Stein on The Washington Post website here.

Farmers’ Frustration With Trump Grows as U.S. Escalates China Fight

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Peppered with complaints from farmers fed up with President Trump’s trade war, Sonny Perdue found his patience wearing thin. Mr. Perdue, the agriculture secretary and the guest of honor at the annual Farmfest gathering in southern Minnesota this month, tried to break the ice with a joke.

“What do you call two farmers in a basement?” Mr. Perdue asked near the end of a testy hourlong town-hall-style event. “A whine cellar.”

A cascade of boos ricocheted around the room.

American farmers have become collateral damage in a trade war that Mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by China’s “unfair” trade practices.

View the complete August 27 article by Alan Rappeport on The New York Times website here.

Minnesota farmer tears up while telling CNN how Trump’s ‘very scary’ trade war has harmed her family

AlterNet logoA farmer from Minnesota got emotional during a CNN interview on Thursday when she discussed how President Donald Trump’s trade war has done major harm to both her livelihood and her family.

Speaking with CNN’s Vandessa Yrukevich, farmer Cindy VanDerPol said that she doesn’t know how to tell her children that they should follow in her footsteps to run her family’s farm when the current market for crops is so bleak.

“It’s very scary,” she said. “And I sometimes stay up at night worrying about what the future does hold. You know, what do you tell your children that want to farm? Do you tell them go find something else to do? One of our sons already has.”

View the complete August 15 article by Brad Reed from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump’s big farmer grift: He’s giving millions to the rich while starving the poor

AlterNet logoDonald Trump loooooves farmers. We know this because he says so. “Farmers, I LOVE YOU!” he declared in December. And we’ve learned that whenever The Donald says something, it’s true — even when it’s not.

These days, he’s loving farmers to death. Trump has ignored the obvious need to get monopolistic price-fixing bankers, suppliers and commodity buyers off their backs. And he’s ineptly playing tariff games with China and other buyers of U.S. farm products, causing exports and farm prices to tumble. The result is that our ag economy is tumbling into a deep ditch, slamming farm families and rural America with a rising tsunami of bankruptcies.

Adding crude insult to economic injury, Trump’s doofus of an ag secretary, Sonny Perdue, laughed at farmers, branding them “whiners” for opposing his majesty’s disastrous policies.

View the complete August 15 article by Jim Hightower from Creators Syndicate on the AlterNet website here.

Farmers Don’t Need to Read the Science. We Are Living It.

New York Times logoA new report is another dire warning on climate change.

FIREBAUGH, CALIFORNIA — Many farmers probably haven’t read the new report from the United Nations warning of threats to the global food supply from climate change and land misuse. But we don’t need to read the science — we’re living it.

Here in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, there’s not much debate anymore that the climate is changing. The drought of recent years made it hard to ignore; we had limited surface water for irrigation, and the groundwater was so depleted that land sank right under our feet.

Temperatures in nearby Fresno rose to 100 degrees or above on 15 days last month, which was the hottest month worldwide on record, following the hottest June ever. (The previous July, temperatures reached at least 100 degrees on 26 consecutive days, surpassing the record of 22 days in 2005.) The heat is hard to ignore when you and your crew are trying to fix a broken tractor or harvest tomatoes under a blazing sun. As the world heats up, so do our soils, making it harder to get thirsty plants the water they need.

View the complete August 9 commentary by U.S. farmer Alan Sano on The New York Times website here.

Businesses, farmers brace for new phase in Trump trade war

The Hill logoU.S. businesses and farmers are begging President Trump for relief from his escalating trade war with China as tensions between the world’s two largest economies reach new heights.

Trump’s plan to impose a 10 percent tariff on more than $300 billion in Chinese goods, and China’s decision to suspend U.S. agricultural imports, sets the stage for potential economic and political blowback for the president.

Advocates for businesses and industries caught in the crosshairs of the yearlong U.S.-China trade war are bracing for damage, warning Trump’s new tariffs could force them to hike prices or lay off workers during this year’s holiday shopping season.

View the complete August 8 article by Sylvan Lane and Alex Gangitano on The Hill website here.