Latest News From POLICY

Tentative deals have been reached with three of the 12 rail unions and large U.S. freight railroads.  However, there's more work to do to avert a strike.

University of Missouri, South Dakota University and Iowa Soybean Association were named winners at the Farm Progress show in Boone, Ia. on Tuesday. Vilsack noted requests from over 1,000 applications topped $20 billion.

More than 16% of new cars sold in California in 2022 were zero-emissions vehicles, the state said, up from 12.41% in 2021 and 7.78% in 2020.

We often hear about government funding but little about how it is actually being used. These 289 projects funded by the USDA will cover everything from solar arrays to grain dryers.

Welcome to a festering landowner-hunter conflict and a lawsuit launched by rural property owners against the state. If persistent hunting dog encroachment affects a farming operation, is compensation in order?

If we trick ourselves into banning these technical options, farmers will pay a steep price as they struggle to grow food and consumers will bear the cost of it whenever they eat.

EPA said there was little risk to most people from exposure to dicamba, though it identified six additional instances in which workers handling the herbicide should wear a respirator along with the required outfit.

It will be a combination of cover crops, reduced nitrogen rates or split nitrogen applications as well as nutrient reduction wetlands, bioreactors, and saturated buffers Iowa farmers will use to meet their goals.

From a train derailment outside Hereford, Texas, to growing concerns about a possible labor strike in mid-September, rail delays have been a severe pain point for the grain users and shippers all year.

Satellite imagery, communications intercepts and human intelligence proving Russia had plans to invade Ukraine was presented to U.S. officials in Oct. 2021. When briefed to NATO allies, some thought it was bogus.

AgDay launched in 1982 by satellite on a handful of local affiliates. Today, viewers watch the agriculture news program on 121 affiliate stations and RFD-TV, reaching more than 53 million viewers each year.

As we talk and argue about the same stuff, John Phipps says many crises in ag that alarmed us a decade ago, simmered to something like stalemates with no point of view dominating as we feared.

The House passed the Democrat-led reconciliation bill on Friday with a 220 to 207 party line vote, nearly a week after the Senate passed the bill with a close 51-50 vote.

Secy. Yellen directed the IRS not to use any of the new funding allocated in the reconciliation package to increase the number of audits of Americans making less than $400,000 a year. So, what will the funds be used for?

Sen. Ernst told AgriTalk's Chip Flory that she and Sen. Klobuchar are “thankful” for the biofuel opportunities in this bill. But she’s not convinced the IRA is the answer to America’s pump inflation.

The reconciliation bill is heading to the House on Friday with many provisions on ag. Here's what producers need to know about the Inflation Reduction Act.

Less than a week after the first shipment of grain left Ukraine, three more ships departed Friday. Grain analysts are still concerned about not only how much grain will be exported, but if the ships will safely return.

Do tariffs fuel inflation? John Phipps's Customer Support segment explains why economists have struggled to come up with estimates of economic effects due to lingering COVID influence on world business.

Fufeng Group recently bought 300 acres of land in North Dakota and the proximity to a U.S. military base has many concerned. But this isn’t the first time questions have been raised about China’s stake in the U.S.

Ukraine's first shipment of grain  since Russia's invasion is now one step closer to reaching its final destination of Lebanon. The UN. says the shipment of over 26,000 tons of corn was cleared to proceed Wednesday.

Europe and the Netherlands have been dealing with an increasingly incendiary political situation pitting the country’s farmers against EU government plans to decrease greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030.

For the first time since the war started, a Ukrainian ship carrying grain left port. The UN says the Razoni was carrying 26,527 MT of corn. The vessel was stuck in port since Feb. 18, before the start of the war.

Heavy Russian strikes hit the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv overnight and early on Sunday, killing the owner of one of the country's largest grain producing and exporting companies, the local governor said.

Man-made disasters are the worst. And what just happened in Sri Lanka is an eye-opener and offers warnings about food production for the rest of the world—and perhaps most especially for my country of India.

“I feel like every day is one day closer to having the President declare a climate emergency,” says Newlin. “Once that happens, I don’t know what it will mean for ag, or what it’s going to open up the door to."

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday that grain shipments from Ukraine could resume as soon as today but that details of the exact coordinates of shipping routes were still being finalized.

Sen. Joe Manchin went from being his party’s main holdout on major social policy, climate and tax legislation, to striking a domestic spending package deal that includes climate and energy programs and tax increases. 

The Next Generation Fuels Act—originally introduced to the House in 2021—was unveiled in the Senate on Tuesday. If passed, manufacturers will have to release vehicles with higher blend capabilities by 2026.

The House recently passed the Lower Food and Fuels Cost Act which includes a special USDA investigator. However, there’s divide on if this is the right approach to restoring competition in the cattle market.

U.S. Forest Service reforestation funding rose to over $100 million this year as part of moves to plant more than a billion trees in a decade under the infrastructure package passed in 2021, USDA said in a statement.

John Phipps says he was aware that the West and especially the southern Plains had high average wind speeds, he didn't realize the Midwest was also a good place to site wind turbines, especially the newer, larger ones.

USDA raised its consumer food price forecast again, to 8.5% to 9.5% for 2022. The agency had initially predicted a 2% to 3% rise in prices. Eggs, fats and oils, and poultry prices are making the biggest gains.

Five months after the invasion, Senators will receive a classified briefing Wednesday. Russia launched a missile attack on the key grain-exporting port of Odesa Saturday, a day after signing a deal to resume exports.

Ukraine pressed ahead Sunday with efforts to restart grain exports under a deal to ease global food shortages but warned deliveries would suffer if the recent Russian missile strike on Odesa was a sign of more to come.

A day after Ukraine and Russia signed a deal to resume grain exports from Ukraine, Russian missiles hit the Odesa port. Ukrainian foreign-ministry accused Vladimir Putin of “spitting in the face” of U.N and Turkey.

“We have tried to work constructively with the Mexican government to address these concerns, but, unfortunately, U.S. companies continue to face unfair treatment in Mexico," said Ambassador Tai.

Truckers protesting California's new "gig worker" law blockaded the state's third-busiest seaport for a second day on Thursday, stalling agricultural exports and threatening to worsen U.S. supply chain backups.

The lawsuit claims the EPA failed to "fully assess" the affect increased corn for ethanol production will have on endangered species, including land conversion and increased fertilizer and pesticide use.

U.S. climate legislation collapsed last week, and analysts say it could hamper the development of clean-burning transportation fuels. Biofuels groups were banking on the legislation to boost investment in fuels like SAF.

Biden spoke up in Massachusetts on Wednesday to deliver his administration’s executive action climate plans in lieu of Manchin’s decision, including offshore wind, bolstered utilities and workplace heat inspections.

As the Western U.S. faces a megadrought, why can't the U.S. move water around the country like it's done with energy? John Phipps explores the physical and political hurdles potential water infrastructure would face.

A potential stoppage on the nation's railways this fall is spurring concern, even after President Biden signed an executive order Sunday to keep U.S. rail traffic on track and the collective bargaining process going.

As a Sunday deadline loomed, Biden signed an executive order to create a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB). The move was an essential step in keeping the collective bargaining process on track and railways operating.

Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) led their colleagues in requesting USDA to address ERP implementation issues. ERP helps producers offset impacts of natural disasters that occurred in 2020 and 2021.

The Carbon Sequestration Collaboration Act aims to increase agriculture and forestry’s current 13% carbon capture rate by establishing more research and development programs in land use.

Georgia representative David Scott says he will introduce new legislation specifically targeted to help small beef farmers and ranchers.

As labor negotiations continue between the railroads and unions, laborers voted to go on strike Monday unless President Biden intervenes. A potential strike would put additional strain on the fragile U.S. rail system.

The CPI, an inflation gauge measuring what consumers pay for goods and services, rose 1.3% from May to June. Prices were up across the economy, with gasoline far outpacing other categories, up 11.2%.

According to the USDA, 2020 farming activities in the U.S. made up 11.2 percent, or 670 of 5,981 million metrics tons, of the U.S.’s total carbon contribution.

The July WASDE report from USDA shows while soybean production this year is expected to fall due to fewer soybean acres planted across the U.S., USDA is also forecasting a drop in exports.