2018 Farm Bill

Rural broadband deployment won’t succeed in closing the “digital divide” unless the agencies handling billions of dollars in funding coordinate better.  That’s the collective sentiment of House Ag members.  Ag Chair David Scott said “effective communication” is the key to 100% rural broadband deployment using the historic Infrastructure and Jobs Act funding.   “And this is why we established proce

The 2018 Farm Bill created a grid security division within the rural utilities service of USDA's Rural Development Mission Area. A memorandum of understanding between USDA and the Department of Energy was reached the following year. Rural Utilities Service administrator Chris McClean said some of the efforts to bolster security and provide available financing for rural electric service providers

A hindsight look at how renewable energy programs of projects from the 2018 Farm Bill have provided rural producers and stakeholders opportunities in the now and the future. "When communities lean in to clean energy, as so many are already doing and have been doing for years, the resulting economic prosperity is clear ...

New investments are designed to give local and regional food producers more opportunities to sell their goods locally, to hospitals, universities and government outlets. "This means that roughly $97 million will now be available for a variety of opportunities to create a strong local and regional food system," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ...

Last week, the USDA announced the approval of the Oregon Department of Ag’s plan to regulate hemp production statewide. This mean, through the ODA the state can continue to serve as the primary regulator of hemp production in Oregon. ODA ...

New legislation introduced last week in the Senate calls for Federal Milk Marketing Order hearings addressing Class I milk pricing. Democrats Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Republican Susan Collins of Maine introduced the bipartisan Dairy Pricing Opportunity Act ...

A Successful Farming article says there may be trouble ahead for the upcoming Farm Bill in D.C. A former USDA official says the 2023 legislation could be in trouble if the political turbulence surrounding the last two farm bills keeps going into next year ...

This was the first week growers in Idaho could apply for a license to grow hemp. The Gem State recently had its Hemp Plan approved by the USDA. While Idaho may have been one of the last states to come up with a Hemp Plan, Chanel Tewalt with the Idaho state Department of Agriculture said that allowed them to learn lessons from other states ...

Hemp production will soon be a reality in Idaho. On Monday, the Idaho state Department of Agriculture announced that the USDA has approved the state’s Hemp Plan. Under this plan, ISDA will begin licensing hemp producers and handlers under Idaho Code and the 2018 Farm Bill. The ...

Late last week, the USDA awarded Washington State University $4,853,908 to benefit the Pacific Northwest hop industry. The funds, which were part of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative grant program, will allow WSU to conduct research on enhancing supply chain sustainability and global competitiveness ...