Agriculture Policy

By Max Fisher, Vice President of Economics and Government Relations, and Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced Dec. 5 it will open the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) general signup from Dec. 9 to Feb. 28 – the first general signup since 2015. Signup includes “general” enrollment of large tracts of land, as well as continuous signup for high-priority stewardship practices. The deadline for agricultural producers to sign up for general CRP is Feb. 28, 2020, while signup for continuous CRP is ongoing, USDA ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Director of Economics and Government Relations After Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced on Nov. 15 the second tranche of 2019 Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments, USDA began issuing them this week. The first tranche was issued in late summer and equaled the higher of either 50 percent of the total payment expected or $15 per acre. The second tranche will equal 25 percent of the total payment expected, and the third tranche – if implemented – will equal the remaining 25 percent and occur in January 2020. Producers in counties receiving the ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Oct. 29 issued its long-awaited interim rule for the domestic production of hemp, launching a major step in the implementation of the 2018 farm law and providing clarity about how the crop will be federally regulated. Under the 2018 farm law, Congress legalized the commercial production of hemp and directed USDA to establish a national regulatory framework for hemp production in the United States. The advocacy group Vote Hemp estimates that farmers have planted more than ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media, and Max Fisher, Director of Economics and Government Relations NGFA is providing several recommendations to improve the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) draft environmental assessment of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which it completed as part of the rulemaking process for implementing the 2018 farm law. NGFA’s comments, which will be submitted to USDA on Oct. 27, counter portions of the USDA Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) draft report, in which the agency assessed the anticipated environmental impacts of ... Read More

By Sarah Gonzalez, Director of Communications and Digital Media After a controversial decision issued in August to exempt some small petroleum refineries from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the Trump administration announced Oct. 4 that it will propose expansions to biofuel blending requirements beginning in 2020. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it will propose actions that would ensure that more than 15 billion gallons of conventional ethanol are blended into the nation’s fuel supply beginning in 2020, and that the volume obligation for biomass-based diesel is met. ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Director of Economics and Government Relations Earlier this week, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that agricultural producers affected by natural disasters in 2018 and 2019 can apply for assistance through the Wildfire and Hurricane Indemnity Program Plus (WHIP+), which contains provisions to address losses from hurricanes hitting the southeast, wildfires in the west, and flooding in the Midwest. Sign-up began on Sept. 11 at Farm Service Agency (FSA) county offices. More than $3 billion is available through the disaster relief package enacted by Congress ... Read More

By Max Fisher, Director of Economics and Government Relations Sign-up is underway for producers to apply to receive 2019 Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently released the methodology used to determine the MFP county payment rates. NGFA has summarized the payment rates below. (All producers in a county will receive the same MFP rate for planted acres, regardless of their productivity.) USDA’s MFP methodology shows that it determined the MFP county-level payment rates by adding within each county each crop’s 2015-2018 average ... Read More

By Randy Gordon, President and CEO The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) announced that effective Oct. 1, it will impose an approximately 10 percent increase in fees charged to grain, cotton, rice, peanut and other warehouses operating under the U.S. Warehouse Act (USWA). AMS maintains that the fee increase is needed to cover expenses associated with the voluntary federal warehouse program, “including the maintenance of a sufficient operating reserve,” and called the increase a “remedial action to correct the budgetary shortfall for administration of ... Read More