• Energy

Corn Producers Get A Boost From Trump Proposal to Increase Ethanol Production

• corn
• ethanol
• farmers
• oil and gas

After starting a trade war with China that hurt midwestern farmers, and giving “small” refineries a free pass on requirements to produce ethanol, the Trump Administration last Friday announced new rules to increase the mandates for ethanol in order to increase the sale of the biofuel beyond the current requirement of 15 billion gallons annually.

Why This Matters:  With so many special interests pressuring the President, it is hard to please everyone. The American Petroleum Institute (API), the lobby for the oil industry, and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents oil refineries, announced that they would challenge the policy.

• Land

Senator Booker Proposes “Nature-Based” Climate Legislation

• agricultre
• carbon sequestration
• Civilian Conservation Corps
• climate change
• farmers
• Forests
• restoration
• the New Deal
• wetlands

Presidential hopeful Senator Cory Booker last week introduced legislation in the Senate to combat climate change through farm conservation, reforestation, and wetlands restoration, The Hill reported. 

• Land

Warren Proposes Big Changes in Ag Sector to Help Farmers and Fight Climate Change

• agribusiness
• agriculture
• climate change
• farmers
• pollution
• runoff
• subsidies
• sustainable agriculture

On Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, rolled out yet another policy plan with big implications for combatting climate change — this time aiming at overhauling the way the government subsidizes the agricultural sector in order to incentivize conservation and stabilize farm incomes for family farmers. 

• Food

Hummus is Good for You AND the Planet

• chickpeas
• farmers
• farming
• legumes
• pulses

For many of us, hummus is already a snack staple but its popularity as a healthy and filling snack is steadily growing. As NPR reported, Americans spent four times as much money on hummus in the marketplace last year than they did 10 years ago: more than $800 million in 2018 alone. The main ingredient […]

• Water

Flood Waters in Midwest Drowning Farms and an AF Base

• climate change
• DOD
• farmers
• floods
• Green New Deal
• livestock
• military installations
• Mississippi River
• Missouri River
• Nebraska
• Offutt Air Force Base

The floods pummeling the Midwest this week could be the last straw for many small farmers and ranchers who were already struggling to make ends meet and then had to deal with the impacts of the President’s trade wars.  The New York Times explained that bankruptcy filings by farmers were up 19 percent last year across the Midwest to their highest level in a decade, and now for many of those farmers, their livestock and land have been washed away.