Tag Archives: USDA

Politico reports: Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ $1 billion plan for fighting bird flu will rely on money cut from programs meant to help schools and food banks support local farmers, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Rollins in February rolled out a five-step strategy to fight bird flu that includes importing eggs and researching and developing a poultry …

The Portland Press Herald reports: Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday challenging the USDA’s decision to withhold federal funds over Maine’s policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls high school sports. Frey’s office said funds withheld by the administration are used to feed children in schools, child care centers and after-school programming, …

Ars Technica reports: Before he was abruptly fired last month, Derek Copeland worked as a trainer at the US Department of Agriculture’s National Dog Detection Training Center, preparing beagles and Labrador retrievers to sniff out plants and animals that are invasive or vectors for zoonotic diseases, like swine fever. Before he received his termination notice, he says, Copeland had just …

Chapel Hill’s NPR affiliate reports: The State Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services received a letter from the United States Department of Agriculture earlier this month stating it will no longer receive funding for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. The nonprofit Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina is one of seven food banks that receives funding through …

Courthouse News reports: A coalition of farmers sued the Trump administration Thursday to lift an indefinite freeze of billions of dollars in funding for programs created under the Inflation Reduction Act. In the suit, brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the farmers challenge President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order “Unleashing American Energy,” which placed …

Politico reports: The Agriculture Department has axed two programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy food from local farms and ranchers, halting more than $1 billion in federal spending. Roughly $660 million that schools and child care facilities were counting on to purchase food from nearby farms through the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program in …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Department of Agriculture has eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety, the agency said on Friday, raising concerns about government oversight of the food supply as the Trump administration seeks to downsize the federal bureaucracy and slash costs. The USDA eliminated the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory …

Breitbart reports: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins told Breitbart News exclusively that President Donald Trump’s administration will be focusing its egg price reduction efforts on repopulation of chickens and on biosecurity measures, and that the administration is now ruling out any vaccines for animals against avian bird flu. Rollins broke down key planks of the administration’s billion-dollar …

Politico reports: Thousands of fired workers at the Department of Agriculture must get their jobs back for at least the next month and a half, the chair of a federal civil service board ruled Wednesday. The ruling said the recent dismissals of more than 5,600 probationary employees may have violated federal laws and procedures for carrying out layoffs. The decision …

“I have chickens in my backyard and yesterday I went out – they just started laying – and yesterday I got five eggs. Is part of the solution more small farms, because when avian flu hits, you have these giant industrial farms? I don’t think the eggs are as good anyway.  Isn’t part of it just investing in smaller farms, …

NewsNation reports: Egg prices are at an all-time high and expected to get even worse for consumers, according to a new U.S. Department of Agriculture projection. The USDA’s latest outlook predicts egg prices will increase 41% in 2025 as a widespread bird flu outbreak continues to devastate egg-laying chicken flocks. Tuesday’s updated forecast is more than double the 20% jump …

NBC News reports: The United States Department of Agriculture on Tuesday said that, over the weekend, it accidentally fired agency employees who are working on the federal government’s response to the H5N1 avian flu outbreak. In a statement, the agency said it is trying to quickly reverse the firings. The error is the latest in the Trump administration’s efforts to …

CNN reports:  The US Department of Agriculture last week issued a conditional license for an avian flu vaccine for use in chickens, amid an outbreak ravaging poultry flocks, contributing to the sky-high price of eggs. Zoetis, the manufacturer behind the vaccine, announced the conditional approval. “We’ve been working with the administration and with Congress, and we’re very excited today to get …

Politico reports: Agriculture Department employees have been ordered to delete landing pages discussing climate change across agency websites and document climate change references for further review, according to an internal email obtained by POLITICO. The directive from USDA’s office of communications, whose authenticity was validated by three people, could affect information across dozens of programs including climate-smart agriculture initiatives, USDA …

Reuters reports: Dairy cows infected with avian flu in five U.S. states have died or been slaughtered by farmers because they did not recover, state officials and academics told Reuters. Reports of the deaths suggest the bird flu outbreak in cows could take a greater economic toll in the farm belt than initially thought. Farmers have long culled poultry infected …

The Associated Press reports: When I told friends and family I was reporting on the first chicken meat grown from animal cells, their first comment was “Eww.” Their second comment was: “How does it taste?” The short answer (you’ve probably heard this sentence before in other contexts): Tastes like chicken. The longer answer, which folds in the “Eww” response, is …

CBS News reports: A Trump-era plan to cut food stamps is now off the table after the Biden administration said it is abandoning a previous plan to tighten work requirements for working-age adults without children. Those restrictions were projected to deny federal food assistance benefits to 700,000 adults, a proposal that had had drawn strong condemnation from anti-hunger advocates. USDA …

Reuters reports: President Joe Biden on Friday will sign two executive orders aimed at speeding pandemic stimulus checks to families who need it most and increasing food aid for children who normally rely on school meals as a main source for nutrition. “Many Americans faced challenges receiving the first round of direct payments and as many as 8 million eligible …

Politico reports: The Agriculture Department last week began mandating that millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families include a letter from President Donald Trump claiming credit for the program. The USDA’s $4 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program has distributed more than 100 million boxes to those in need since May, with the aim of redirecting meat, …

“We track daily our plant openings. One of the challenges we had in protein — meat, poultry, beef, pork — had been the closure of some of our processing plants there. And we’ve had infections in those plants that caused some temporary closures. “Essentially all those plants are back open. We’ve turned the corner, and while some retailers are suggesting …