Environmental groups are hampering species recovery under the Endangered Species Act, according to the Public Lands Council and National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity threatened to sue the Department of Interior and Fish and Wildlife Service to force action on 417 proposed listings under the Endangered Species Act. NCBA and the Public Lands Council say the move stems from a massive lawsuit settlement brokered behind closed doors and without stakeholders at the table. The groups, in a joint statement, say “this is precisely why the Endangered Species Act is broken.” The environmental groups, according to Public Lands Council executive director Ethan Lane, hamper species recovery by placing arbitrary listing-decision deadlines that leave no time for sound research or science-based decisions. During the nearly 40 years since the Endangered Species Act was passed, the Act has a recovery rate of less than two percent and has more than 2,000 domestic species listed.
Agriculture groups and the dairy industry are praising the Agriculture Department’s announcement to reduce surplus cheese stocks in the U.S., a move requested by the American Farm Bureau and others. USDA this week announced it would purchase approximately 11 million pounds of cheese from private inventories and donate the product to food banks and pantries across the nation. The purchase, valued at $20 million, should reduce some downward pressure on dairy markets as dairy producers revenues have dropped 35 percent over the past two years. Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall says the announcement will “help alleviate the tough realities of the market and keep family farmers in business.” Farm Bureau and the National Milk Producers Federation had asked USDA to spend more than $20 million on the purchases, but USDA cited budget restraints, limiting the purchase amount.USDA Secretrary Tom Vilsack also further extended the signup period for the dairy industry safety net—the Margin Protection Program—through December 16th.
Spending on farm programs by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is projected to increase $1 billion this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO this week projected spending on farm programs to rise from $13 billion in 2015 to $14 billion in 2016, and then to $19 billion in 2017 and 2018. CBO projects farm program spending to then go back down to $16 billion in 2019 and down again to $15 billion per year until 2026. At the same time, payments under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, would decline continually, then rise slightly, presumably due to population growth, according to the Hagstrom Report. CBO did not say why the office projects agriculture spending would go up, but the increase likely stems from payments triggered by low commodity prices.
Merger talks between Monsanto and Bayer AG are advancing after a series of meetings in which the companies have addresses issues including the purchase price and a termination fee, according to Bloomberg News. Sources close to the talks say a deal could be reached in the next two weeks. Bayer CEO Werner Baumann and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant have held “constructive meetings” in recent weeks, but Bloomberg said its sources caution that negotiations “could still fall apart or be delayed. Any potential merger between the two would likely face fierce antitrust approval. Any Bayer-Monsanto deal would follow two other billion-dollar acquisitions in the agricultural industry, ChemChina’s $43 billion takeover of Syngenta AG and Dow Chemical merger with DuPont to create the world’s biggest chemical company. St. Louis, Missouri Based Monsanto rejected Bayer’s previous two attempts to acquire Monsanto.
Beef Products Inc. is not dropping its lawsuit filed in 2012 against ABC and journalists Diane Sawyer and Jim Avila, but it has removed a number of defendants from the complaint. The lawsuit was filed over a series of reports BPI alleges were inaccurate and cost the company a significant chunk of its sales of lean finely textured beef. Politico reports BPI dropped ABC’s news division, ABC correspondent David Kerley, two former USDA microbiologists and a former BPI quality control manager who acted as a whistleblower against the company. The lawsuit seeks more than $1.2 billion in damages. It charges ABC with making more than 200 false and disparaging statements about BPI’s product, a form of beef trimmings injected with ammonia to fight pathogens, and helping to fortify the nickname “pink slime.” BPI claims ABC’s “disinformation campaign” caused sales of the product to decline from five million pounds a week to less than two million pounds, forcing BPI to close three facilities and let go of more than 700 employees.
A New poll from Morning Consult shows the majority of voters favor trade. The poll shows 57 percent of registered voters have a favorable view of “fair trade,” and 50 percent said they would be more likely to support TPP if they knew it would provide new markets overseas for U.S. farm products. The American Farm Bureau Federation says the results are something “all candidates should keep in mind as a congressional vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement comes closer to reality.” Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall says “the more people know, the more they will support this vitally important agreement.” Other findings include: 52 percent of voters say they would be more likely to support TPP if they knew the deal would increase annual income in the U.S. by $131 billion, and 69 percent of voters support trade policies that will open new markets for U.S. products and U.S. farmers while less than one in 10, or eight percent, oppose.