Several states have already banned or are considering banning foreign ownership of farmland from U.S. adversaries such as China, a trend that has its recent roots in North Dakota.
Chinese food manufacturer Fufeng Group purchased 370 acres of land for a corn milling plant in Grand Forks in November 2021.
Read More
Nationwide, electronic benefits transfer fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers up to $4.7 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In 2022, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program distributed over $113.7 billion to nearly 22 million households.
The federal government entrusts states to reduce fraud in safety net programs. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told all 50 states to plan to fight EBT skimmer fraud, which happens when bad actors install a card reader on top of a legitimate point of sale at a retail store.
Read More
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking the first steps in handing out $2.2 billion to farmers, ranchers or forest landowners who experienced discrimination with USDA farm lending programs.
The Inflation Reduction Act that was signed by President Joe Biden in August 2022 authorizes the spending.
Read More
Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.
The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.
Read More
The Biden administration has announced $500 million in grant money to stimulate American-made fertilizer production.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack unveiled the new grant program, called the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, on Sept. 27.
Read More
More than 100 House Republicans are asking a government watchdog to probe foreign investments in U.S. farmland, including those by China, which they say may present national and food security concerns.
Led by Reps. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania and James Comer of Kentucky, the lawmakers on Saturday called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study foreign farmland ownership and how the U.S. government is monitoring acquisitions, a letter shows. There has been an uptick in foreign investments and ownership, which may be “underreported” due to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s (USDA) unreliable data, the Republicans say.
Read More
The Biden administration and Florida Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried approved the lunch money application for Grant Park Christian Academy in Tampa just days after the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Christian school.
The school was being denied children’s lunch funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program, which Fried administers. The program benefitted 56 low-income children at the Christian school by providing them with free meals.
Read More
The number of commercial and backyard flocks with confirmed avian flu increased by 36% in the past week, according to data on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) website.
Three of the 57 new cases reported were in Missouri, bringing the state total to nine cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu Influenza (HPAI) in seven counties—Bates, Dade, Gentry, Jasper, Lawrence, Ralls and Stoddard. Approximately 421,000 birds were in those flocks.
Read More
Georgia farmers already weathering crop shortages from a deep freeze during the spring could face another challenge this harvest season, according to the Georgia Farm Bureau.
More than 10,000 John Deere workers are on strike at 14 plants across the nation, including in Grovetown, near Augusta. Farmers have reported having a hard time finding parts for tractors and planters, and the sale of some tractors is on hold amid negotiations between union workers and John Deere.
A spokesperson for United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), Brian Rothenberg, said Thursday negotiations with the company were “ongoing.” Workers are demanding more pay and better benefits. Some workers told Farm Journal Magazine the strike could go on until the end of the year. It is reportedly the largest private-sector strike in two years.
Read More
In what has become a nationwide trend, food and staffing shortages have reached two of the largest school districts in Georgia.
Both Fulton County Schools and Gwinnett County Schools are facing inventory and food service issues, according to reports.
Read More
Federal officials have sentenced a Stonecrest, Georgia man for defrauding the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Coronavirus Food Relief Program and attempting to defraud the IRS’s COVID-19 relief program. This, according to a press release that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia published this week.
Read More
A federal judge in Florida temporarily halted President Joe Biden’s $4 billion debt relief program exclusively for farmers of color, saying in a Wednesday order that the program was racially discriminatory.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard sided with Scott Wynn, a Florida-based white farmer who sued to block the program in May. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) program was originally passed in March as part of Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, with the intention of providing relief to “socially disadvantaged farmers.”
“Section 1005’s rigid, categorical, race-based qualification for relief is the antithesis of flexibility,” Howard wrote. “The debt relief provision applies strictly on racial grounds irrespective of any other factor.”
Read More
United States District Judge William C. Griesbach sustained a motion last week for a temporary restraining order to block a program under the Department of Agriculture to forgive certain government loans for farmers belonging to at least one “socially disadvantaged group.” The Department of Agriculture identified groups eligible for this classification as “a group whose members have been subjected to racial or ethnic prejudice because of their identity as members of a group without regard to their individual qualities . . . one or more of the following: Black/African American, American Indian, Alaskan native, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, or Pacific Islander.”
Read More
U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA-08) this week blasted the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden for ending the Farmers to Families Food Box Program, which Scott described as popular. Scott said this in an emailed newsletter to his constituents.
Read More