Account
The Senate is debating cuts to the federally subsidized crop insurance program as it considers a massive farm bill this week. The Obama administration said Monday it wants to see more cuts to crop insurance and farm subsidies in the legislation, which would cost almost $100 billion a year over five years and would set policy for farm programs and food aid. The bill would cut about $2.4 billion annually from overall farm spending. But it would still expand federally subsidized crop insurance and raise some subsidies for rice and peanut farmers. The White House did not specify how large a cut it was seeking. Almost $80 billion of the annual cost of the bill is for domestic food aid, with most of the rest of the money split between farm subsidies, federal help for crop insurance and programs to protect environmentally sensitive land. The government spent an estimated $15.8 billion on the program for the 2012 crop year after a drought destroyed many crops, up from $9.4 billion in 2011. The...
FBN’s Lou Dobbs on the predictions of sequestration’s economic impact that never came true.
House Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of poorly preparing for the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts while at the same time scaring people abou...
Salmonella outbreaks. E. coli outbreaks. Millions of dollars in economic losses. These are among the scenarios the Obama administration warned about last month as it...
An undercover video that showed California cows struggling to stand as they were prodded to slaughter by forklifts led to the largest meat recall in U.S. history. In...
The Agriculture Department faced more questions Wednesday about whether top officials were pushing a strategy to make the billions in recent cuts to the federal budg...
A leaked email from an Agriculture Department field officer adds fuel to claims President Obama's political strategy is to make the billions in recent federal budget...
The federal government is for the first time proposing sweeping new standards to make sure foods sold in schools are more healthful.Under the new rules the Agricultu...
Candy bars are out – while granola and dried fruit are in.According to a new proposal released Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nutrition requirements w...
Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin said Saturday that he will not seek re-election, becoming the third senator in recent weeks to drop out of the 2014 races.The 73-year...
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will keep his job in President Obama's second term.USDA communications director Matt Paul said Monday that Obama asked Vilsack to s...
The leaders in both parties on the House and Senate Agriculture committees have agreed to a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill that expired in October, a move ...
President Obama pledged Sunday to make gun control a top priority in his second term and vowed to put his "full weight" behind such legislation."I'd like to get it d...
The U.S. is heading into a tough wildfire season made even more challenging because budget cuts mean fewer firefighters to battle blazes, Interior Secretary Sally Je...
Canada said Thursday that it is considering retaliatory measures against the United States in a dispute over meat-labeling rules that Ottawa and the World Trade Orga...
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on the White House working to boost the biofuel industry, while the EPA proposes greenhouse-gas emissions associated with biofuel production.
Instead of furloughing meat inspectors, why not cancel the wine-tasting getaway in California? Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., posed that question this week to Agriculture...
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the southern New Mexico plant that has been fighting for more than a year for permission to slaughter horses will open soon, u...
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on the impact of the drought on food prices and efforts to get the Farm Bill passed.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack weighs in on the Farm Bill and how the ongoing drought in the Midwest will impact food prices.