Greetings on Sept 23,

The Ag Insider contains original reporting as well as a survey of top news on food, agriculture and the environment. Emails are welcome at chuck@thefern.org. I am on Twitter @chuckabbott1. If you received this briefing from a friend and wish to receive it directly, you can subscribe for free by clicking this link.

The food-stamp program, the largest U.S. anti-hunger initiative, will stop distributing benefits if there is no budget agreement and the federal government shuts down on Oct. 1 for the second time in three years, said the USDA. "Once that occurs, families won't be able to use these benefits at grocery stores to buy the food their families need." Some 45.5 million people received food stamps at latest count, with an average benefit of $126.23 per month. During the 2013 shutdown, the USDA relied on contingency funds to keep the program operating.

"But we are in a different position this time around," said Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, because the USDA has no reserve to tap. He warned, "We're going to be shutting down food stamps …. This is a widespread impact." Merkley and Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic leader on the Agriculture Committee, which oversees food stamps, said lawmakers were obliged to agree on funding the government.

If there is a shutdown, the USDA would cut off food stamp benefits "within the first several days of October," said a department spokesperson. The USDA, like other branches of the federal government, was drafting plans for a shutdown. Meat inspectors stayed on the job in 2013 and are likely to be told to report to work if there is a new shutdown. The spokesperson did not respond directly to questions about which programs would be considered essential services and which would be shuttered. The October crop report was cancelled in 2013, the first cancellation ever.

"The best way to ensure SNAP recipients receive support is to vote for the CR. I will," said Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, in a tweet, referring to a short-term "continuing resolution" to fund the government while budget negotiations continue. The administration says a short-term CR should be free of policy riders.

The Republican-backed continuing resolution would deny funding to Planned Parenthood. The resolution, to run through Dec. 11, authorizes the USDA to operate the Commodity Supplemental Food Program and to pay rural rental assistance contracts, according to a Senate Appropriations Committee summary.
    --Reporting by Chuck Abbott

There is insufficient support in the Senate to pass a bill that would pre-empt state GMO food-labeling laws and keep labeling voluntary at the federal level, despite months of discussion and a landslide House vote for it. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican, told reporters that no Democrat was ready to co-sponsor such legislation: "That is the problem. That is the short answer and the long answer."

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, regarded as the most likely sponsor of a labeling bill, wants bipartisan backing and assurance of broad support before moving a bill, said an aide. "Right now, we're still discussing it with other members and we'll see where it goes," the aide told Ag Insider.

Vermont's first-in-the-nation labeling law is scheduled to take effect on July 1. The food industry says it would be expensive and difficult to comply with a welter of state laws. It is pressing for congressional action this year because of the time that would be needed to create special labels. Groups such as the “Just Label It” campaign say Americans have a right to know what's in their food.

The labeling bill passed by the House, HR 1599, would put USDA in charge of certifying non-GMO foods. Grassley said, "The House bill won't pass the Senate" in the face of antipathy by Democrats.
    --Reporting by Chuck Abbott

"An unprecedented" public-private effort to preserve habitat for the greater sage-grouse "has significantly reduced threats … across 90 percent of the species' breeding habitat" and obviated any need to protect the fowl under the Endangered Species Act, said the Interior Department. A "status review" concluded that the bird is relatively abundant throughout its 173-million-acre range across 11 states in the West, and is not at risk of extinction. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the decision in Colorado.

Major threats to the ground-dwelling bird are ranching, farming, urban sprawl and energy development, along with loss of sagebrush to cheatgrass, an invasive species, and encroachment by conifers. Other animals, such as elk, mule deer and golden eagles thrive on healthy expanses of sagebrush. Besides activity by state and federal agencies to enhance sage-grouse habitat, ranchers committed millions of acres to its preservation.

The population of the sage-grouse has dropped by an estimated 90 percent since the 19th century, Jewell said in a videotaped announcement. "The deteriorating health of the bird has sparked the largest land conservation effort in U.S. history," said Jewell. "A healthy sagebrush landscape also supports a healthy Western economy - for ranching, outdoor recreation and energy that powers our nation."

There are an estimated 200,000-500,000 of the birds. "Tuesday's finding reverses a 2010 determination that the sage-grouse were in precipitous decline," said the Associated Press.

An Interior Department video on the decision, running nearly 3.5 minutes, is available here.

For the Interior Department homepage for the greater sage-grouse, click here.

Kansas, often the No. 1 wheat state, is the latest hot spot for emergence of herbicide-resistant weeds. It is a problem, often linked to glyphosate, that is moving from the southern U.S. into the Midwest and Plains, says Reuters. Glyphosate is the most widely used weedkiller in the world.  Dallas Peterson, a weed scientist at Kansas State University, said glyphosate-resistant weeds were especially troublesome in Kansas soybean fields. Rainy weather was a contributing factor. "It's really kind of exploded," Peterson said.

Fourteen weed species are known to be resistant to glyphosate, according to the USDA. "Weed resistance across U.S. farmland is becoming such a significant problem that the agriculture committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has scheduled a briefing on the problem for Dec. 4," said Reuters.

Dairy farmers have until Nov. 20 to enroll in the dairy Margin Protection Program, a seven-week extension past the busy harvest season, said the USDA. The program, created by the 2014 farm law, pays producers when the difference between the farm-gate price of milk and the price of feed is narrower than the trigger selected by the farmer. The deadline for enrollment originally was Sept. 30. More than half of the dairy producers signed up for coverage in 2015, the first year of operation for MPP. When the sign-up for 2016 opened on June 1, the USDA said participants would remain in the program through 2018, when the farm law expires.

The National Milk Producers Federation, which had requested a two-month extension, said the additional time will "maximize the opportunity for dairy farmers to utilize this crucial risk management tool."

Due to a decline in state support, U-Illinois plans to reduce off-campus research on crops, and may shut down field research at four locations around the state, said the Associated Press. Nine jobs would be lost as part of the retrenchment. The associate dean for research at the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences said the agricultural school expected a drop of $4 million in state funding this year, a 7.5-percent reduction. Crop research would continue on the campus in Champaign, in west-central Illinois, and at farms in northwestern and east-central Illinois.

The largest U.S. egg industry group says it will "educate the lawmakers, voters and consumers" in Massachusetts about the merits of cages for hens ahead of a potential 2016 referendum on animal-welfare rules, reports Politico. It says United Egg Producers has decided not to raise money to oppose the petition drive by the Humane Society of the United States for a statewide vote. The language is expected to be similar to the initiative approved by California voters in 2008 that said animals should have enough room to stand, turn around, lay down or fully extend their limbs.

The National Pork Producers Council told Politico that the Massachusetts language would apply to so-called sow crates. While chickens are the in the spotlight, "they are still trying to go after us," said an NPPC spokesman.

An egg-industry analyst said food companies and restaurants are moving toward cage-free eggs, even though a sizable portion of egg farmers disagrees with the trend.

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