Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
President Barack Obama is expected to sign an agriculture appropriations bill this week that contains millions in direct aide to the nation’s dairy farmers.
The 2010 Agriculture Appropriations Act, which passed the U.S. House on Thursday and the Senate on Friday, contains $350 million that will benefit dairy farmers. Of that amount, $60 million will be used for cheese and other dairy product purchases. The commodity purchases will be used by the government to fill food banks for struggling families that have been hit by economic hard times.
The remainder of $290 million, earmarked for direct aid to dairy farmers, will be distributed at the discretion of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who is expected to rely heavily on the expertise of his dairy advisory committee. The funding is not expected to resolve the long-term problems plaguing dairy farmers, but should help many producers through the current financial crisis.
The appropriations bill totals $121.2 billion, including $23.3 billion in discretionary spending. Although many areas and programs received reduced federal funding as a part of the appropriations bill, Congress provided no funds for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network, which was authorized as a part of the Farm Bill. Without the program, many states continue to scramble to meet the behavioral health needs of agricultural and rural workers under economic stress.
One of the areas that saw an increase in funding was the national food stamp program, which received $58.2 billion. That, when combined with stimulus monies from earlier in the year, results in a 19 percent increase from last year’s levels.
A program to assess the safety of Chinese chicken imports, heavily backed by the National Pork Producers Council, was also included in the bill. Language included in the bill allows the USDA to conduct scientific risk assessments on the safety of the processed chicken imports from China.
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