The 2018 Farm Bill is in the House-Senate conference committee. Three former USDA secretaries, Tom Vilsack (Obama), Ann Veneman (Bush 43) and Dan Glickman (Clinton), penned an op-ed in The Hill newspaper entitled, “Focusing on Nutrition is Paramount to Getting a Sound, Bipartisan Farm Bill Out.” They lament that the farm bill deliberations to date have contained “no substantive debate about diet quality.” The three argue for reform of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) via the following:
Make diet quality a core SNAP objective Improve SNAP diets through nutrition education Authorize a pilot nutrition intervention program within SNAP to evaluate purchasing behavior and health outcomes...
What You Need to Know Today: Commodities were mostly lower across the board today after yesterday’s Federal Reserve meeting hinted at a potential interest rate hike later in 2026. The dollar index reached its highest level in over a year, and a strong dollar makes U.S. agricultural expor...
Tomorrow is the Juneteenth federal holiday, and the USDA, along with the rest of the federal government and the CME, will be closed, so the monthly Cattle on Feed report was released a day early. The total number of cattle on feed in feedlots with 1,000 head or more capacity on 1 June amounted...