OTTAWA — Keep your head down and hope he picks on somebody else. That’s how you could sum up the advice from Ted McKinney, who heads the U.S. association of state agriculture departments, when he was talking with Canadian ag folks about how Canada could deal with another term for former president Donald Trump in […] Read more
Tag Archives U.S. politics
American farmers share a love-hate relationship with China
There’s a joke making the rounds about my fellow baby boomers. It goes something like this: In the 1960s, boomers didn’t trust anyone over 30, but as soon as they reached their 60s, they didn’t trust anyone under 30. American farmers and ranchers have nearly the same dynamic with China. As long as its people […] Read more
U.S. feuds over climate funds
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — An effort by Republican U.S. lawmakers to reallocate $18 billion in climate-friendly agriculture funding under President Joe Biden’s signature climate law would shift money away from programs that primarily benefit farmers in Republican-leaning states, a Reuters analysis found. The Inflation Reduction Act money, earmarked for U.S. Department of Agriculture-designated “climate-smart” farm practices, […] Read more
U.S. political instability called major global risk
BRANDON — Canadian farmers have front-row seats to the world’s biggest geopolitical risk, according to David Frum. “I think the thing that worries me the most is the threat that lies within the United States,” Frum, a journalist, former White House speechwriter and conservative intellectual, told farmers at Manitoba Ag Days. “If Americans make the […] Read more
Iowa farmers want Trump, despite talk of more trade wars
Many U.S. producers remember the record farm payments they received during the former president’s administration
DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) — Republican farmers in Iowa say they want Donald Trump as their U.S. president, buoyed by the historic sums of money his administration handed out to farms and despite his talk of trade wars that could tank already stifled U.S. agricultural exports. Farmers are a politically powerful voting bloc whom Trump […] Read more
U.S. farm bill efforts this year can expect choppy seas
The pain I felt late Sunday, Jan. 7, was hard to pinpoint until I realized exactly when it struck: just moments after news of a tentative, 2024 budget deal between Senate and House negotiators had been announced. As such, it soon became apparent the pain wasn’t physical; most likely it was emotional. What, though? Anxiety? […] Read more
Congressional infighting threatens to delay U.S. farm bill
Even before the U.S. Congress returns from its five-week, no-work period to its usual three-day weeks of little work, Republicans in both chambers are already signalling global markets, the White House and congressional colleagues that their return will bring no 2023 farm bill and no 2024 federal budget by the two laws’ drop-dead date of […] Read more
