#Zippy Duvall

[idvoteforthatdaddy]

I was hoping for a return of Sonny Perdue as AG Secretary, but of the 15 possible people in the running for the next Secretary of Agriculture. I'm rooting for either Texas Ag Commissioner Sid Miller, Current House Ag Chairman Rep. Glenn Thompson or Zippy Duvall. But my favorite of the three is GT.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

Over the weekend, House Republicans once again failed to secure a deal to fund the federal government. The deadline for approving a spending bill is Dec. 20 and without its passage there could be another shutdown, which has happened before on the GOP’s watch. Speaker Mike Johnson has been unable to get members of his own party representing farm districts to back the legislation currently being negotiated. Politico reports that Republicans planned to circulate the text of the bill among members on Sunday, but that soft deadline has passed without a solution and now leadership may reach out to Democrats for help.

Advocacy groups and lobbyists representing farming interests have been pushing Congress to include farm relief in the funding bill. “Our country will suffer the consequences if Congress takes farmers & our food supply for granted. I call on members of Congress who represent ag to stand with farmers by insisting the supplemental spending bill include economic aid for farmers and voting it down if it doesn’t,” Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation wrote. Ironically, one reason farms are seeking relief is that they are still dealing with the economic fallout from Donald Trump’s trade war, which led to decreased sales of U.S. farm products on the international market. Trump has proposed similar trade policies, including tariffs, for his second term despite the economic risk to millions of consumers.

While the House fumbled this key deadline, Johnson was not at the Capitol. On Saturday he instead attended the Army-Navy football game along with Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and Trump benefactor Elon Musk. Since taking the House in the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans have governed in a state of almost perennial chaos. The party could not decide on a consensus speaker and then after Kevin McCarthy was selected, he was removed from power. Because McCarthy and now Johnson have had such a hard time getting the party in line, they have had to rely on Democratic votes to pass key legislation keeping the nation funded. Even after Republicans held on to the House in the 2024 election, the margin of the party’s control will be virtually unchanged from two years ago.

House Republicans don’t take basic governing seriously, and this proves it.

[mariacallous]

As Washington’s top trading partners mull retaliatory measures against U.S. President Donald Trump’s expanding and increasingly aggressive trade war, American farmers are all but certain to be caught in the middle. 

On April 2, Trump unveiled the harshest U.S. tariffs in nearly a century on friends and foes alike. It was a stunning move that upended markets and sent shockwaves through the more than 180 countries and territories targeted. Starting on April 5, the White House will impose tariffs on much of the world, ranging from 10 percent to as much as 50 percent, with some of the steepest measures concentrated in Asia. China, for example, will now face an additional 34 percent tariff, effectively boosting the value of total average U.S. tariffs on the country to more than 70 percent. 

One of the big questions now looming is whether Washington’s top trading partners will target the U.S. agricultural sector when they strike back. Much of the concern revolves around Beijing, which is one of the world’s biggest importers of agricultural goods; in 2023, it was the top market for U.S. agricultural exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

“The real issue now will be how do countries like China respond, and some of the really big markets for agricultural commodities,” said Joseph Glauber, a former chief economist at the USDA who is now at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

China didn’t wait long to retaliate. Many of the U.S. agricultural sector’s worst fears were confirmed on April 4, when Beijing announced that it would match Trump’s policy with its own 34 percent tariffs on all imports from the United States—measures that will deal a crushing blow to American farmers.

“This practice of the US is not in line with international trade rules, seriously undermines China’s legitimate rights and interests, and is a typical unilateral bullying practice,” the Chinese Finance Ministry said in a statement.

And others may soon follow. Even before Trump’s April 2 announcement, key trading partners were retaliating against Trump’s trade policy by targeting the U.S. agricultural sector—potentially laying the groundwork for a sharper response now. The European Union, China, and Canada all fired back against his earlier measures by imposing levies on U.S. agricultural products, with Beijing in particular unveiling 10 to 15 percent tariffs on wheat, chicken, soybeans, corn, pork, and beef. 

American farmers, who overwhelmingly backed Trump in the recent U.S. presidential election, have been through this before. During Trump’s first term in office, his trade war with China cost the sector more than $27 billion in lost agricultural exports between 2018 and 2019 and pushed longtime buyers to seek alternative suppliers, such as Brazil. The fallout was so painful that the first Trump administration ultimately shelled out a $28 billion bailout to farmers to help cushion the blow. 

But Trump’s latest round of tariffs, which are bigger in scale and scope than before, risk injecting even more pain into the U.S. agricultural sector. 

“One thing is certain: American family farmers and ranchers will bear the brunt of this global trade war,” Rob Larew, president of National Farmers Union, said in a statement. “The economic strain and uncertainty that farmers face have reached a breaking point.” 

Those sentiments were echoed by Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation—the country’s largest general farm organization—who warned in a statement that “increased tariffs threaten the economic sustainability of farmers who have lost money on most major crops for the past three years.” 

“Tariffs will drive up the cost of critical supplies, and retaliatory tariffs will make American-grown products more expensive globally,” said Duvall, who noted that exports contribute to more than 20 percent of farm income. “The combination not only threatens farmers’ competitiveness in the short term, but it may cause long-term damage by leading to losses in market share.” 

And it’s not just Trump’s most recent announcement or the looming retaliatory tariffs that spell trouble for farmers. Another key problem is the chaotic nature of Trump’s on-again, off-again threats, which has complicated farmers’ efforts to plan for the future, experts said. 

“It’s hard to think about long-term investment and management decisions when you have this much uncertainty,” said Christopher Wolf, an agricultural economist at Cornell University. 

Trump has insisted that agricultural imports harm farmers, although he has said that there “may be a little bit of an adjustment period” and urged farmers to “bear with me.” But ahead of his announcement, some Republican senators were already warning that the president’s penchant for tariffs could harm the already vulnerable agricultural sector. 

“Anyone who says there may be a little bit of pain before we get things right needs to talk to my farmers, who are one crop away from bankruptcy,” Sen. Thom Tillis recently told CNN. 

“They don’t have time, so we’ve got to be crisp on this implementation,” he added. “Otherwise, we could do damage that is irreparable to farmers.” 

Trump is reportedly now mulling a new round of emergency aid for farmers, according to the New York Times. 

But even if Washington does throw farmers another financial lifeline, there would likely still be lasting damage to the industry. After Trump’s last trade war, the U.S. agricultural sector lost considerable market share in soybean sales to Brazil, which reverberates to this day.

“There are long-run costs, and if countries really move away from the United States in a big way, I think that really can be a real danger to the sector,” Glauber said.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this LA Times article:

Corn growers suffering from the double blows of President Trump’s trade war with China and catastrophic flooding got a boost Friday from the Environmental Protection Agency.

In a move intended as a pick-me-up for the ethanol industry, the agency announced finalized plans to end a federal ban on summer-time sales of gasoline mixed with higher amounts of ethanol.

It was sharply criticized by both the oil industry, which doesn’t want to lose more market share to ethanol, a corn-based biofuel, and by environmentalists, who say the change undoes anti-smog regulations.

The new rule allowing year-round sales — something the ethanol industry has long fought for — is essentially an aid package for anxious Midwestern farmers whose votes are critical for Trump’s reelection campaign.

"We’re doing this because it’s a very important presidential priority," Bill Wehrum, who leads the EPA’s clean air office, said in a phone call with reporters.

Wehrum did not say the change came with environmental benefits. It would, however, provide a “substantial additional market opportunity for ethanol producers,” he said.

Agriculture industry groups cheered the new rule.

“After years of declining farm income, opening up markets to additional fuel choices for consumers helps create new demand that farmers desperately need,” Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said in a statement.

But the change faces strong opposition from the oil industry. In a statement Friday, the American Petroleum Institute called the fuel mandate “broken” and accused the EPA of rushing to lift the ban before the start of summer.

Environmentalists also criticized the change, which undoes regulations imposed in 2011 by President Obama’s EPA to reduce smog.

[worldofwardcraft]

Fury on the farm.

August 19, 2019

Since Trump is too stupid to realize pressuring China with tariffs will never push them into a trade deal, he recently threatened to raise taxes on Chinese imports even more. China, not a nation to shrink from playing hardball, then retaliated by announcing a complete halt to all agricultural imports from the US. Meanwhile, America's farmers are not only not pleased with Darnold Trump's ongoing trade war with China, they are becoming downright infuriated.

Trump's idiotic trade war has been a blow to farmers who were already reeling from years of global overproduction, along with bad weather caused by climate change. Since 2013, net farm income has plunged by half from $123.4 billion to only $63 billion last year. This latest move by China could prove to be catastrophic for American agriculture, as nations like Brazil rush in to take over our lost Chinese markets.

So it was that when Trump's Secretary of Agriculture, former Georgia governor "Sonny" Perdue (pictured above killing it at Club Chuckles), showed up in front of thousands of farmers at a Minnesota panel discussion and started off with a joke about their whining, things from there on did not go, shall we say, well.

Once the boos died down, Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, blasted Trump, Perdue and the trade war's "devastating damage to rural communities." Then Brian Thalmann, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, declared that, contrary to Trump's rosy statements, "We are not starting to do great again. We are starting to go down very quickly." Joel Schreurs of the American Soybean Association then warned of the danger of losing market share in the world's biggest importer of soybeans.

Later, Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation (the nation's largest farm organization), piled on by calling China's import cut-off “a body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by.” Then, Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union (the second-largest group), said Trump’s “strategy of constant escalation and antagonism” has “just made things worse.”

Struggling farmers view the Trump maladministration's promise of an additional $16 billion in assistance as more of a band-aid (and blatant attempt at vote buying) than a solution. And their discontent with our (provisional) president's clumsy meddling in world trade is only escalating. Trump's approval in farm country stands for now at a comfortable 54 percent. But with farm bankruptcies at record levels, one can only wonder how long the support of this essential component of Trump's base will continue.

[bountyofbeads]

Treasury Department designates China a ‘currency manipulator,’ a major escalation of the trade war

https://wapo.st/2yCQlaj

Treasury Department designates China a ‘currency manipulator,’ a major escalation of the trade war

By David J. Lynch, Gerry Shih, Jeff Stein and Damian Paletta | Published August 05 at 7:56 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted August 5, 2019 |

The United States and China traded blows in an unrestrained economic conflict Monday that sent stock markets plunging and threatened to inflict significant damage on a weakening global economy.

Late in the day, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin formally labeled China a “currency manipulator,” a largely symbolic slap at Beijing that is likely to deepen the growing animosity between the two trading partners.

The move, which President Trump had promised to take on his first day in office, only requires Treasury to initiate consultations with China. Beijing has long denied U.S. accusations that it keeps its currency undervalued to make its products more competitive on world markets.

Treasury’s announcement shortly before 6 pm capped an unnerving 24 hours that began with China allowing its tightly controlled currency to slide to an 11-year low against the dollar and continued through a near-1,000 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

“This is a big policy mistake. We get recession because of policy mistakes like this,” said Allen Sinai, chief economist and strategist at Decision Economics. “China did not actively drive its currency down. It was a market-driven move. Secretary Mnuchin’s comments are totally political.”

On Wall Street, the Dow fell more than 767 points or nearly 3 percent , and Treasury yields plunged to their lowest mark in almost three years as investors anticipated trouble ahead.

The financial meltdown followed China’s decision to answer Trump’s latest tariffs by allowing its currency to fall past a key benchmark of 7 yuan-per-dollar level for the first time since 2008.

The central bank, the People’s Bank of China, downplayed the significance of the milestone but linked the drop to the dispute with Washington.

In Washington, the president accused the Chinese government of “currency manipulation” and said incorrectly that the yuan was near a “historic low.”

The currency move came after Trump announced new tariffs Thursday on an additional $300 billion in Chinese goods,

The latest maneuvers in Washington and Beijing underscored the stunning deterioration in relations since Trump said this spring that the two sides were on the verge of an “epic” trade deal.

“This puts us into a new phase and it’s not a good phase,” said Marc Chandler, chief market strategist for Bannockburn Global Forex. “It’s hard to see how there won’t be a lot of collateral damage.”

Trump’s push to label China a manipulator has been thwarted in the past by Mnuchin and former aides such as Gary Cohn, while being supported by Peter Navarro, a White House trade advisor.

Now, Trump thinks continuing to punish China will spur them to negotiate. But some aides fear his hardline stance will backfire, said one senior advisor who requested anonymity to discuss confidential discussions.

Aides have brought Trump charts to convince him that the currency charge is untrue, but the president remains firm in his beliefs, the official said.

“It’s a good step and long overdue, because China has been guilty of massive currency manipulation for 20 years, and they certainly deserve to be called out,” said Robert Scott, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think-tank.

China did routinely intervene in currency markets for about a decade until roughly 2013, but in recent years has not done so, several economists said. Its once sizeable global trade surplus is roughly one-tenth its 2007 size.

“It’s not accurate to call China a currency manipulator because market forces are driving their currency down. They are not intervening to push it down,” said David Dollar, a former Treasury Department official now at the Brookings Institution.

The administration’s plans were not clear, though some analysts suggested the president could use the designation to justify additional tariffs on Chinese goods. Mnuchin also plans to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund “to eliminate the unfair competitive advantage created by China’s latest actions,” Treasury said in a statement.

But the U.S. is unlikely to get much support. Just last month, the fund found in its latest annual assessment that China’s financial position “was broadly in line with the level consistent with medium-term fundamentals and desirable policies.”

A weaker Chinese currency will make products from the United States more expensive while making made-in-China merchandise more attractive. That will offset some of the effects of Trump’s planned 10 percent tariff, which is scheduled to go into force September 1.

The currency shift also will effectively counter the Federal Reserve’s recent interest rate cut by leading to tighter financial conditions in the United States, said Robin Brooks, chief economist of the Institute of International Finance.

For corporate executives, the latest developments in the U.S.-China dispute only make the global picture more unclear. The president’s tariffs on products from China and several other countries have made it difficult to predict future prices for key industrial components and ensure access to individual markets, said David Loevinger, managing director of Los Angeles-based TCW Group.

“The big risk is it adds another element of uncertainty into the global economy,” said Loevinger, a former Treasury Department official. “Right now, when business thinks about making a big investment, they look around the world and see uncertainty everywhere.”

Consumers watching the stock market sink will likely respond by cutting discretionary spending, removing another key prop from the slowing economy. “Consumption is in many ways the bedrock of our economy,” said Brooks.

Dollar,who was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2009 to 2013, said: “This is clearly bad for the U.S. economy . . . You’re throwing a lot of sand in the wheels of commerce. You’d expect things to slow down globally and it’ll certainly be felt by Americans.”

Unlike some currencies whose values are freely dictated by supply and demand, China’s central bank sets a daily target price around which the renminbi, also known as the yuan, can fluctuate. The bank steps in when the price strays too far. For a decade, it has not allowed the renminbi to fall past 7 to the dollar, which financial markets consider a psychologically important threshold.

China’s central bank blamed “unilateralism, trade protectionism and tariff expectations imposed on China” for the change in exchange rate.

China’s central bank said it was confident it could keep the currency at a “reasonable and balanced level.”

Trump has long complained that the renminbi is too weak and the dollar too strong. He has lobbied the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to help U.S. exporters and boost the U.S. stock market.

Setser said the president has limited tools to bring about a lasting dollar decline. But even an unsuccessful currency market intervention could rattle the global economy.

“It would signal that the U.S. is not willing to be a global locomotive in a world that still needs a global locomotive,” he said. “The risk is the world economy would end up with no locomotive.

China, for its part, has argued that it has kept its currency at a reasonably high level to assuage U.S. concerns. It also fears that a tumbling currency could spark panic about its slowing economy and trigger an outflow of capital.

Beijing is expected to try to prevent an unrestrained plunge by the yuan, fearing it would encourage Chinese citizens to take their wealth out of the country, economists said.

Currency markets this year have broad dollar strength. The greenback, reflecting the U.S. economy’s relative strength and nine Fed interest rate increases, has risen against the euro, the British pound and other major currencies .

The yuan has actually held up better against the surging dollar. Its year-to-date decline against the dollar of 2.4 percent is much less than the currencies of two U.S. allies, the Taiwan dollar at 3.4 percent and the South Korean won at 8.6 percent.

“The Chinese have been resisting the pressure,” said Chandler. “Trump’s tweets last week and his insistence on talking the dollar down made them just give up. They surrendered to market forces.”

Trump’s latest tariff escalation, which the president announced Thursday on Twitter, sparked a rush of Chinese state media commentary suggesting that the Chinese government was caught flat-footed. State media lashed out at the United States on Sunday, accusing it of negotiating in bad faith and suggesting that Beijing may hold out from negotiating further with the Trump administration.

Beijing appeared to mount other forms of retaliation on Monday. The government has asked state-owned firms to stop their U.S. agricultural purchases, according to a Bloomberg report Monday that was widely cited by Chinese media. The crop purchases, which would benefit states that comprise Trump’s political base, were to be a sign of Chinese goodwill as trade talks progressed.

Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau, called the Chinese move “a body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by.”

Agricultural exports to China fell $1.3 billion during the first half of the year, he said, adding that the organization fears it will lose access to a market that was worth almost $20 billion to farmers in 2017.

“It isn’t clear right now that either side has a plan for de-escalation,” said Setser. “What makes this different is how quickly both sides are ratcheting up the threats.”

 Joshua Dawsey, Taylor Telford and Heather Long contributed reporting

[creepykingdom]

Disney's Vero Beach: Trip Report

By Grant Duvall

Have you ever wanted to take a Disney vacation with the service you love but very little of the Disney characters?  Disney's Vero Beach resort is the place for you!  Disney's Vero Beach,  which opened in 1995, is a different kind of Disney vacation.  This is the opposite of the stereotypical Disney trip as Vero Beach is all about relaxing.

Located about an hour and 15 minutes away from Walt Disney World, this unassuming resort offers a lot of relaxation.  When driving by it you would not realize it was a Disney hotel unless you were looking for the small sign.   It kind of blends in with the rest of the town.  My wife and I got there at about 9 a.m. and because it was a slower time of year, they allowed us to check in early!  Score!  They also gave us an upgraded balcony for no charge!  Even bigger score!  They also take  Walt Disney World annual passes, which is another perk!

 We started the day by going to the character dining that they only offer on Saturday mornings (apparently there's one more on Monday nights themed to pirates as well).  This is Goofy and Donald in beach outfits.  The service was great, but the food sprawl was very small by Disney standards (the dining room barely had 20 tables in it).  The food was more along the quality of a Best Western breakfast buffet with potatoes and eggs with added Mickey waffles of course.  For only $20 though the price is great for what you get as most character breakfasts tend to be in the $35 range.

The room was very nice and the view was incredible.  We were facing the ocean and were able to walk on the balcony and enjoy the breeze.  As far as the actual hotel goes, it's very small but very reminiscent of Disney's Caribbean Beach resort.  It was strange walking around a near empty resort though.  There were times we went to the pool and we were the only people there for extended periods of time.  The pool was nice and thankfully heated as it was rather chilly outside.  The waterslide had no wait and was very zippy and nicely themed to a lighthouse.  The kids have a water play area themed to a pirate ship called The Tiger Lily, which works nicely with the nice miniature golf course themed to Peter Pan surrounding it.

Of course, the main selling point is the private beach.  It was nice relaxing by the ocean at a very uncrowded beach.  If you ever wanted to take surfing lessons, kayak, or go fishing those options are available for reasonable prices.  Another nice option that we did not partake in is a spa with massages and other services.  There's one other event of note (other than dance parties, games, and karaoke), which is the complimentary s'more campfire.  Everyone loves s'mores, and in order to get one, you'd better be prepared to dance and sing for a half an hour.  The two hosts had so much energy and the kids that were there enjoyed it.  We all had to get up and sing campfire songs and dance all over the place.  This was where the Disney magic really showed, and they said that you don't even need to stay on property to enjoy this, so if the hotel is too much money, you could go and eat, have s'mores and see the resort.

Speaking of dining, there's one main dining room which had a delicious dinner and an even better breakfast.  This breakfast, which we had the second day, was phenomenal.  I had chicken and Mickey waffles with spicy powdered sugar.  The whole breakfast menu blew away other Disney resorts.  There's also a snack shack where you can get hummus and two bars, which had surprisingly strong and reasonably priced drinks.  As soon as we finished breakfast, we had to say goodbye to Disney's Vero Beach.  I would highly recommend this to those who enjoy Disney cleanliness and amenities, but don't expect to have too much Disney theming.  In most areas you wouldn't even know it was a Disney resort.  This was clearly a test run (as well as Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort in South Carolina) for Aulani.  This shows that they can run a nice hotel off property.  My best recommendation is to stay here for a night or two as part of your stereotypical Orlando trip in between Disney and Universal just to relax and recuperate from the parks.  I can't wait to visit again in the future for a nice relaxing weekend.

Creepy scale 1-10.....1.  There is absolutely nothing creepy about this place, other than the warning signs for sharks and jellyfish.

[idvoteforthatdaddy]

Zippy Duvall President of the American Farm Bureau Federation

[xtruss]

Judge Restores Protections For Grey Wolves Across Much of US

— By Matthew Brown and John Flesher | Thursday February 10, 2022

BILLINGS, Montana (AP) — A judge restored federal protections for gray wolves across much of the U.S. on Thursday, after their removal in the waning days of the Trump administration exposed the predators to hunting that critics said would undermine their rebound from widespread extermination early last century.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in Oakland, California, said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to show wolf populations could be sustained in the Midwest and portions of the West without protection under the Endangered Species Act. The service also didn’t adequately consider threats to wolves outside those core areas, White said.

Wildlife advocates had sued the agency last year. The ruling does not directly impact wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and portions of several adjacent states. Those animals remain under state jurisdiction after federal protections in that region were lifted by Congress last decade.

Attorneys for the Biden administration defended the Trump rule that removed protections, arguing wolves were resilient enough to bounce back even if their numbers dropped sharply due to intensive hunting.

At stake is the future of a species whose recovery from near-extinction has been heralded as a historic conservation success. That recovery has brought bitter blowback from hunters and farmers angered over wolf attacks on big game herds and livestock. They contend protections are no longer warranted.

Interior Department spokesperson Melissa Schwartz said the agency was reviewing Thursday’s decision and offered no further comment.

Wildlife advocacy groups said the judge’s order would most immediately put a stop to hunting in the Great Lakes region, where Wisconsin officials had come under criticism after a wolf hunt last year blew past the state’s quotas, killing 218 wolves in four days.

“Wolves in the Great Lakes region have a stay of execution,” said John Horning with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians.

Wolf attacks on livestock are uncommon but can cause significant economic damage to farmers when their cows or sheep are killed.

And wolves in some places have reduced the size of elk and deer herds, their natural prey. That has stirred anger among hunters who target the big game animals.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, National Rifle Association and other industry groups had urged the judge not to restore federal protection, keeping the wolves under the control of state officials who allow wolf hunting.

Zippy Duvall, president of the Farm Bureau, said he was “extremely disappointed” with the ruling and that it ignored wolves’ recovery beyond government population goals.

“It’s really frustrating and outrageous that some judge thousands of miles away is suddenly telling us that our own scientific management of the species can’t be trusted,” said Ed McBroom, a Republican state senator from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. “They’re simply forcing citizens to take matters into their own hands.”

None of the Great Lakes states with established wolf populations — Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin -- had scheduled additional wolf hunts prior to the judge’s ruling. All three were updating their wolf management programs and officials said that work would continue.

A state judge in Wisconsin in October had blocked a hunt two weeks before it was to begin, responding to a lawsuit that claimed it was illegally scheduled.

In Michigan, where the wolf population numbers about 700, Republican legislators introduced pro-hunting resolutions but no formal proposal was before the wildlife commission that sets hunting seasons.

Before hunting is considered, Michigan officials want their legal status more permanently settled “given the long history of legal challenges to delisting decisions and the resulting shifting status of wolves,” said Ed Golder with the state Department of Natural Resources.

The status of northern Rockies wolves was not challenged in the lawsuit decided Thursday. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in September began a separate review of whether protections should be restored for the region’s wolves, after Republican state lawmakers in Montana and Idaho passed laws last year intended to drive down wolf numbers by making it easier to kill them.

Under the loosened rules, hunters and trappers primarily in Montana have killed a record 23 wolves that wandered outside Yellowstone National Park this winter. That’s sparked public outrage due to the popularity of Yellowstone’s wolf packs among tourists who visit from around the world.

Following the killings, Interior Sec. Deb Haaland published an op-ed this week saying federal officials could give northern Rockies wolves emergency protection if the species is put at significant risk.

“Recent laws passed in some Western states undermine state wildlife managers by promoting precipitous reductions in wolf populations, such as removing bag limits, baiting, snaring, night hunting and pursuit by dogs — the same kind of practices that nearly wiped out wolves during the last century,” Haaland wrote.

Wolves once ranged most of the U.S. but were wiped out in most places by the 1930s under government-sponsored poisoning and trapping campaigns.

A remnant population in the western Great Lakes region has since expanded to some 4,400 wolves in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. And more than 2,000 wolves occupy six states in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.

Yet wolves remain absent across most of their historical range. Wildlife advocates argue that continued protections are needed so they can continue to expand in California, Colorado, Oregon and other states.

Democratic and Republican administrations alike, going back to former President George W. Bush, have sought to remove or scale back federal wolf protections first enacted in 1974.

— Flesher reported from Raleigh, North Carolina.

[iowamedia]

Major Ag Groups Want Major Changes to Cattle Market

Major Ag Groups Want Major Changes to Cattle Market

Cattle Market Caucus Six major agriculture groups want action and discussion on the state of cattle markets. With a growing spread of packer margins and producer prices, the group of organizations want to improve cattle transparency. The group includes the American Farm Bureau, the National Farmers Union, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall calls the…

[correctsuccess]

business briefs on Barbara, Rogers-Scharneck Reilly Cavanaugh, Chad Donahue, June Hudnall and Richard Lebreux Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation (MFBF) just lately introduced that Barbara Rogers-Scharneck from Ward Hill has been re-appointed by American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) President Zippy Duvall to its Promotion and Training (P&E) committee.This nationwide committee is targeted on bridging the hole between farmers and shoppers by offering instruments and sources to different Farm Bureau me... #business #businessloan #correctsuccess #loan #success

[sabrinawhill]

American Farm Bureau Seeking CFAP Application Extension

American Farm Bureau Seeking CFAP Application Extension

The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) is seeking additional time for producers to apply for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Friday, February 26 is the current deadline to apply for assistance through CFAP. The program has served as an important lifeline for farmers and ranchers struggling during the pandemic. AFBF President Zippy Duvall sent a letter to newly confirmed…

[bigyack-com]

Trump’s Made-for-TV Trade War Keeps World Guessing

In a letter to the president in May, Zippy Duvall, the president of the American Farm Bureau, said farmers faced “near-unprecedented economic uncertainty and hardship” stemming from the escalation of tariffs in China and other key markets. He urged Mr. Trump to make a deal as soon as possible, saying “time is running out for many in agriculture.”But Mr. Trump’s approach has complicated his ability to get a final deal, including securing the big farm commitments that he showcased last month. American negotiators are now left with the difficult task of translating the massive purchases Mr. Trump requested — larger purchases “than any time in our history, by far” — into the actual text of a trade agreement. While China needs and wants to buy agricultural goods like soybeans and pork, it has balked on terms that would leave it exposed to accusations that it favors American products over other countries’, as well as agreements that could result in more American tariffs if its purchases do not come through. Even if American negotiators secure better market access for beef, pork, dairy and genetically modified products, Washington-based analysts who have done the calculations say they have difficulty figuring out how the United States could increase its agricultural exports to China to much more than $30 billion a year, without diverting trade from elsewhere. Mr. Trump’s tariffs also remain a source of uncertainty, with his administration sending mixed signals about whether any of the existing levies will be removed if a deal is reached. The president announced the Phase 1 trade deal during a meeting in the Oval Office with Liu He, China’s top trade negotiator. While Mr. Trump canceled an increase in tariffs planned for Oct. 15, he made no mention of rolling back any levies. That has not gone over well with the Chinese, who have since been under pressure domestically for seemingly giving away too much to the United States.“Without rolling back some of the tariffs, or reducing the uncertainty of not raising additional tariffs, then I would ask what is the additional incentive of implementing this deal on the Chinese part?” He Jianxiong, the former executive director for China at the International Monetary Fund, said at a Nov. 6 event at the Peterson Institute in Washington.Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong. Source link Read the full article

[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: Wisconsin Farmers Let Agriculture Secretary Know They Are Not Happy With Trump’s Trade War

Farmers’ discontent over President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with China erupted into the open Wednesday as his agriculture secretary was confronted at a fair in rural Minnesota.

Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, drew applause as he leveled criticism of the administration’s trade policy at a forum with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in front of thousands of farmers gathered in a metal barn for a panel discussion.

American farmers took a fresh financial hit from Trump’s trade war over the weekend as China announced a halt to all U.S. agricultural imports after the president threatened Beijing with another tariff increase.

Wertish criticized Trump’s “go-it-alone approach” and the trade dispute’s “devastating damage not only to rural communities.” He expressed fears Trump’s $28 billion in trade aid will undermine public support for federal farm subsidies, saying the assistance is already being pilloried “as a welfare program, as bailouts.”

Others joined in. Brian Thalmann, president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, complained about Trump statements that farmers are doing “great” again. “We are not starting to do great again,” he said. “We are starting to go down very quickly.”

Joel Schreurs of the American Soybean Association warned American producers are in danger of long-term losses in market share in China, the world’s largest importer of soybeans.

Perdue sought to soothe the crowd as he defended the president’s policies. “Obviously this is a popular opinion. A lot of applause,” he joked after the audience reacted to Democratic Representative Angie Craig saying aid is not substitute for a strategy on trade. “There is a lot of stress out there.”

Giving Assurances

He offered assurances that American farmers would gain their market share in China back but said any resolution to the conflict had to be based on “reciprocal trade.”

“If your solution is to forget about what China has done and sell and trade with them anyway with cheating, then I just fundamentally disagree with you,” Perdue said.

Perdue told reporters afterward that ”the ball is in China’s court” on the trade dispute and no additional trade assistance is currently planned for farmers beyond what the administration has already announced.

Trump hinted on Tuesday his administration may provide more money for farmers.

“As they have learned in the last two years, our great American Farmers know that China will not be able to hurt them in that their President has stood with them and done what no other president would do,” Trump said in a tweet. “And I’ll do it again next year if necessary!”

The trade war has hit farmers already beset by years of low commodity prices due to global overproduction and this year a string of bad weather. U.S. farm income dropped 16% last year to $63 billion, about half the level it was as recently as 2013.

U.S. Agricultural exports to China dropped by more than half in 2018 after the trade war began, falling from $19.5 billion in 2017 to $9.2 billion in 2018.

Major farm groups sounded an alarm earlier this week after China announced it was halting U.S. agriculture imports.

Zippy Duvall, president of the the American Farm Bureau Federation, the nation’s largest and most influential general farm organization, on Monday called the import cut-off “a body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by.”

Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union, the nation’s second-largest general farm group, said Trump’s “strategy of constant escalation and antagonism” has “just made things worse.”

Trump’s overwhelming support in rural America was crucial to his narrow 2016 election victory and maintaining farmer’s backing is critical to his re-election bid.

In June, 54% of rural voters approved of Trump’s job performance compared with a national approval rating of 42%, according to a Gallup survey of 701 self-identified rural voters.

By Mike Dorning and Erik Wasson / Bloomberg on August 07, 2019 at 04:30PM

[sabrinawhill]

Trump, Biden Outline Agricultural Priorities

Trump, Biden Outline Agricultural Priorities

A new look into the priorities for rural America of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is revealed in responses to a questionnaire distributed by the American Farm Bureau Federation. AFBF asked the Republican and Democratic candidates to respond with their stances on several topics directly affecting America’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities, including trade, labor

[casorasi]

Farm groups sound alarm over Trump's China trade war escalation

WASHINGTON - Major American farm groups sounded an alarm Monday after China halted U.S. agriculture imports, signaling a key Republican political constituency is losing patience with President Donald Trump's escalating trade war. Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau… Farm groups sound alarm over Trump's China trade war escalation