ARLINGTON, Va., June 18, 2018 -- The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) is urging Congress to enact a bill that would relieve trucks involved in hauling agricultural products from the U.S. Department of Transportation's costly electronic logging device (ELD) mandate. Reps. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., introduced the Agricultural Business Electronic Logging Device Exemption Act of 2018, which would completely exempt agricultural businesses from the ELD mandate. The mandate requires commercial drivers who prepare hours-of-service records to connect an ... Read More
Subject-focused News
FDA issues draft guidance on establishing a supply-chain program under FSMA
By David Fairfield, Senior Vice President of Feed Services The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on June 14 issued draft guidance to assist animal food facilities needing a supply chain program to meet the requirements established under its current good manufacturing practice, hazard analysis, and risk-based preventive controls for food for animals rule (PC animal food rule). The animal food preventive control requirements mandated by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) require animal food manufacturers receiving raw materials and ingredients to develop and ... Read More
Senators criticize Trump’s tariffs and their impact on U.S. agriculture
Republican and Democratic lawmakers criticized the Trump administration’s escalating tariff threats that are attracting retaliation on agricultural goods from China and other countries during a Senate Finance Committee hearing with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Answering repeated questions on Wednesday about whether the United States is in a trade war with China and other countries, Ross responded: “We’ve been in a trade war forever. But now, U.S. forces are coming to the ramparts.” Several senators expressed concerns about retaliation against the U.S. agricultural sector, while ... Read More
House passes farm bill on second attempt
House Republicans passed their version of the farm bill (H.R. 2) on a party-line, 213-211 vote Thursday. The bill is unchanged from the version that failed to pass in May, but it gained more Republican votes after House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., agreed to schedule votes on unrelated immigration bills. The farm bill failed to pass last month after Democrats and some moderate Republicans opposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the bill and some members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus withheld their votes to force action on a separate immigration ... Read More
NGFA conveys corn/soybean storage rate input to CME
At the culmination of many months of discussion both internally and with the CME Group, the NGFA on June 20 transmitted a letter to CME with recommendations for changes to the storage rates for corn and soybean futures contracts. The letter from NGFA Risk Management Committee Chair MJ Anderson, director of risk management and merchandising at The Andersons Inc. in Maumee, Ohio, acknowledged the huge importance of the corn and soybean contracts for purposes of risk management and price discovery in the grain, feed and processing industry, but also expressed belief that convergence ... Read More
NGFA asks House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to support the bipartisan DRIVE-Safe Act.
In a letter to the leaders of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the NGFA and several other significant U.S. agricultural and agribusiness groups urged the lawmakers to help alleviate a nationwide shortage of commercial drivers by providing new opportunities for younger drivers. “Seventy percent of the nation’s freight is carried by commercial trucks, yet as our economy strengthens, motor carriers are having difficulty finding the drivers they need to handle growing capacity,” noted the NGFA and 41 other groups in a June 18 letter to Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, ... Read More
Trump imposes $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods
President Donald Trump announced today the United States is imposing tariffs on an additional $50 billion worth of goods from China. In a statement released Friday morning by the White House, the president said he is taking the action “in light of China’s theft of intellectual property and technology and its other unfair trade practices.” The announcement comes after a Section 301 investigation conducted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), in which it “found that China’s acts, policies and practices related to technology transfer, intellectual property, and ... Read More
Ag Transportation Summit – Why it’s the place to be July 25-26
1. What is the Ag Transportation Summit and why is it particularly important this year? This conference comes at a time when all three modes – rail, inland waterways and ports, and motor carriers – are facing significant challenges affecting agricultural customers. The stage will be set by Ken Eriksen, senior vice president for energy and transportation at Informa, who will provide an overview of conditions and challenges confronting agricultural transportation. The shared goal, as reflected in the conference theme, is to “Connect Growing Supply with Growing Demand,” and the ... Read More
NGFA Hill Briefing: NGFA members meet with more than 50 lawmakers on the Hill
By Bobby Frederick, Director of Legislative Affairs and Public Policy Twenty-five NGFA members and staff, along with state affiliates from Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, and Texas, met this week with more than 50 congressional offices to hone in on priority issues important to the grain and feed community. NGFA’s June 13 fly-in occurred on the same day that the Senate Agriculture Committee marked-up its version of the 2018 farm bill, giving NGFA members the opportunity to promote reforms that target the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) towards environmentally sensitive land and hold the ... Read More
Senate Agriculture Committee approves farm bill
By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media The Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday (June 13) approved its version of the new farm bill by a 20-1 vote, sending the bill to the Senate floor for a debate by the end of the month. “We have the support of both leaders to bring the bill to the floor before the 4th of July break, and if we do that we will then give our farmers, our ranchers, our growers, and everybody connected to the great food chain we have in America certainty and predictability,” said Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan. Senate Majority Leader Mitch ... Read More
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