| | | | |  | | By Garrett Downs | | | With help from Meredith Lee Hill and Marcia Brown
| | — President Joe Biden is set to release his fiscal year 2025 budget today. While the package certainly won’t make it into law in its entirety, it will give a window into Biden’s election year proposals. — Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack will announce new actions and investments to increase competition and transparency during his address to the National Farmers Union in Scottsdale, Arizona. — Feeding America is making a big push for food security in the farm bill. HAPPY MONDAY, March 11. I’m your host, Garrett Downs. Send tips to gdowns@politico.com and follow us at @Morning_Ag.
| | | | A message from American Beverage Association: America’s leading beverage companies – The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo – are bringing you more choices with less sugar. From sparkling, flavored and bottled waters to zero-sugar sodas, sports drinks, juices and teas, Americans have more options than ever. In fact, nearly 60% of beverages sold today have zero sugar. Families are looking for more choices to support their efforts to find balance and America’s beverage companies are delivering. Explore choices at BalanceUS.org. | | | | | | | 
President Joe Biden is set to release his fiscal 2025 budget as his 2024 campaign kicks into gear. | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP | BUDGET WATCH: Biden’s Office of Management and Budget is set to release Biden’s fiscal 2025 budget today, just days after the president signed a bill funding a number of government agencies for the remainder of fiscal 2024 including the Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration. Meanwhile, other government’s agencies are still unfunded for fiscal 2024, with Congress racing to pass another tranche of spending bills before a partial shutdown after March 22. Context: The president’s budget never makes it fully into law, but it is the starting gun on the appropriations process for the next fiscal year beginning on Oct. 1. This year, with presidential and congressional elections in November, lawmakers are almost certain to punt funding debates past that date. But the budget will give the clearest indication yet of Biden’s election year congressional priorities, and give insight into his ag policy priorities for the upcoming year. What we’re watching for: Biden will make a number of requests for discretionary funding levels in the next fiscal year. We’ll be watching his proposal for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Biden’s initial fiscal 2024 budget requested $6.3 billion for the program, which was later adjusted up to meet demand for the program. Congress funded the program at about $7 billion for fiscal 2024, likely averting a funding shortfall that could have forced participants onto waiting lists. But that was after a bitter partisan battle, sowing doubt over whether Congress has the appetite to continue funding WIC at high enough levels to meet growing demand. GOP pushback: The GOP-led House Budget Committee is already pushing back on Biden’s budget before it is released.
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| | |  Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack will announce new competition and transparency investments and actions in Arizona. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | VILSACK IN ARIZONA: Vilsack will address the NFU national conference in Arizona today, where he will announce new funding for competition and transparency efforts. Notably, it’s the same event where Vilsack last year announced a proposed rule to rework “Product of USA” labeling. Just last week, the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs completed its review of the new rule that would clarify companies’ use of “Made in the USA” labeling on meat packaging, the last regulatory step before the rule is finalized. For more on that, read Marcia’s story. Zoom out: Vilsack’s boss, President Joe Biden, delivered his State of the Union address last week where he said: “Because I invested in family farms led by my secretary of Agriculture who knows more about this than anybody I know, we're better able to stay in the family, those farms, so their children and grandchildren won't have to leave home to make a living. It's transformative." Arizona is a critical swing state that could make or break Biden’s reelection bid, and the administration has leaned on Vilsack in the run-up to the campaign to explain how the administration’s policies are helping rural people. As we’ve reported, Democrats are trying to chip away at deep Republican support in rural areas, and Vilsack has honed a stump speech where he details how the administration’s climate and competition investments will create new revenue streams for all farmers, not just the largest. Post-SOTU, administration officials are fanning out to key states to make the case for a second Biden term. After Vilsack’s competition-related appearance in Arizona, he will visit an elementary school in battleground Nevada on Tuesday to tout the administration’s actions on reducing hunger.
| | | | A message from American Beverage Association:   | | | | | ANTI-HUNGER PUSH: Feeding America advocates fanned out on Capitol Hill to convey to lawmakers “how urgent our crisis is, how deep the challenges are for foods banks right now as they face the highest demand that they’ve ever seen, including higher than the peak of the pandemic,” Vince Hall, the group’s chief government relations officer, told MA. Emergency food aid cut: We’ve noted the recent FY 2024 package that Congress passed last week actually cuts funding for the The Emergency Food Assistance Program that food banks rely on for aid. Kent Eikenberry, who heads the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, told MA he sees 25 to 40 new families at the food bank every week. “So every day we wait is a day that as a food provider, I have to find the resources to offset that TEFAP food that's not available,” Eikenberry said. “Eventually, either the number of people that we serve is going to suffer, or the amount of product the people we serve receive is going to have to decrease,” he added, noting the added strain of higher food prices. Farm bill goals: Feeding America advocates are pressing Congress to strengthen SNAP and double support for TEFAP in the farm bill, meaning an additional $480 million. Farm bill woes: Amid the farm bill impasse, the group is also eager for USDA to potentially roll out new funding for food banks through the internal Commodity Credit Corporation. Lawmakers' responses in private meetings were “all over the map” on how much Congress can do in the farm bill to boost TEFAP, Hall said. Lawmakers also gave a range of answers about whether a farm bill can even pass this year, with some even predicting a multi-year extension. Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has said she would be “OK” forgoing a new farm bill reauthorization, if it means protecting anti-hunger programs from Republicans who want to limit future updates to the Thrifty Food Plan that serves as the basis of SNAP benefits. Feeding America advocates also say they support protecting nutrition programs too, if it comes down to it. But waiting also has its costs. “We're deeply, deeply, deeply concerned about our ability to feed people, tomorrow, a week from tomorrow, a month from tomorrow,” Hall said. “So the longer that we delay action on the farm bill, the longer we miss the opportunity to help food banks that are in a critical crisis today.”
| | | | DON’T MISS AN IMPORTANT TALK ON ACCESS TO AFFORDABLE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS IN CA: Join POLITICO on March 19 to dive into the challenges of affordable prescription drugs accessibility across the state. While Washington continues to debate legislative action, POLITICO will explore the challenges unique to California, along with the potential pitfalls and solutions the CA Legislature must examine to address prescription drug affordability for its constituents. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | — How raw milk went from a Whole Foods staple to a conservative signal. (POLITICO Magazine) — The precarious future of Brazil’s new agricultural boomtowns. (Financial Times) — Agriculture and antitrust policy expert Austin Frerick is out with a new book later this month, “Barons," chronicling the dominance of some of the biggest companies in food. THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line: gdowns@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, mmartinez@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.
| | | | A message from American Beverage Association: Families are looking for more choices to support their efforts to find balance. That’s why America’s beverage companies are now offering more than 600 brands with less sugar or no sugar at all, and our actions are making a real difference.
Our commitment to supporting your efforts to find balance includes:
· Putting clear calorie labels on every bottle, can and pack.
· Reminding consumers to think about balance with signs on coolers and displays in store.
· Innovating products to offer more choices with less sugar or no sugar at all.
· Working with local organizations across the country to build awareness of the many choices available – and make zero-sugar beverages more available in communities where it’s needed most.
Learn more at BalanceUS.org | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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