News: Courting farmers pre-election

Monday, October 7, 2024

Courting farmers pre-election

Oct 07, 2024

With help from David Lim

The White House is pictured in Washington earlier this year.

Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack and other top administration officials will discuss the key ag investments and hold Q&A sessions with ag groups at the White House Tuesday. | Samuel Corum/AFP via Getty Images

QUICK FIX

— The White House is hosting a farmer-centered event Tuesday as Democrats are pushing to tout rural investments and solidify rural support in battleground areas before the election.

— USDA credited federal bulk milk testing requirements for the rise in avian influenza cases in California dairy cattle.

— Two lawmakers introduced legislation to strengthen workforce opportunities for conservation agriculture and alleviate the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s yearslong staffing shortages.

IT’S MONDAY, OCT. 7. Welcome to Morning Agriculture. I’m your host Grace Yarrow. In an ultimate battle of concerningly-neon cocktails, are you picking AMC’s gummy worm special or Applebee’s $1 October concoction? As always, send tips to gyarrow@politico.com and be sure to follow us at @Morning_Ag.

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Driving the day

WHITE HOUSE WOOING FARMERS? The White House is hosting a “Farmers and Ranchers in Action” event Tuesday, according to planning documents obtained by MA. Invited ag groups will take an optional White House tour in the morning before hearing from top administration officials and later traveling to USDA’s headquarters for more talks.

The lineup is slated to feature Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s Chief Ag Negotiator Doug McKalip and White House policy adviser Neera Tanden at the White House. Those officials will discuss the administration’s key ag investments and hold Q&A sessions with attendees.

The event, scheduled just under a month before Election Day, is the latest step by Democrats to shore up rural support and tout USDA’s work under President Joe Biden. Making a dent in Republicans’ steep rural margins could determine the outcome of the presidential election and some key down-ballot races.

USDA boosting Dems: The Biden administration is ramping up rollout of Inflation Reduction Act ag funds, with a historic $7.7 billion investment for climate-smart agriculture funding announced last week. USDA also allocated $1.3 billion last week in rural energy funding.

Those investments come as GOP leaders like Speaker Mike Johnson have reasserted plans to roll back the IRA and other Biden-era climate support if Republicans win in November.

Ag industry goals: Kenneth Hartman Jr., who started last week as president of the National Corn Growers Association, thanked the administration for holding the farmer-forward event.

“I plan to talk about the ways that federal officials can remove barriers and expand markets for corn growers,” Hartman told MA in a statement. That includes some of NCGA’s priorities: sustainable aviation fuel tax credits (as producers await guidance on the crucial 45Z credit), the still-stalled farm bill and other key ethanol policy.

At least 15 members of the National Farmers Union are also flying in to join the event Tuesday. NFU President Rob Larew said the group is “pleased” to join the White House for the event and plans to discuss the union’s priorities for the future of farming.

“This administration has made historic investments in agriculture and taken bold steps to create a fairer marketplace for farmers and ranchers,” Larew said in a statement to MA. “While we celebrate the progress, there’s still more to do, and we’re eager to discuss Farmers Union priorities for the future of farming.”

Campaigns courting farmers: The Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns both launched coalitions of rural supporters and are hoping to lock down favor with farmers and ranchers ahead of November.

Harris’ rural push: The Harris campaign hosted a conversation with Black farmers in Byromville, Georgia, on Sunday afternoon to talk about Harris' economic plans and Hurricane Helene recovery in the state, per a campaign announcement.

Last week, the Harris camp also launched a series of new ads targeting rural voters in battleground states featuring a Wisconsin dairy farmer talking about healthcare policy and the Affordable Care Act.

Trump’s side: The former president held a farmer-focused roundtable in Pennsylvania last month, during which he threatened John Deere with a 200 percent tariff and focused on trade policies. His campaign’s Rural Americans for Trump Coalition is reaching out to farmers through door-knocking and phone-banking, per an RNC spokesperson.

BIRD FLU OUTBREAK

MILK TESTING YIELDING RESULTS: Bird flu cases in California dairies have increased to 56 dairy herds as of Oct. 3, increasing since the virus hit the state’s dairy industry a month ago.

USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Eric Deeble said that “very steep initial increase” is due to the federal bulk milk testing requirements that has “run up detection.” Deeble told reporters Friday that USDA is seeing a pattern of a “very rapid phase of initial detection and subsequent diminishment over time” due to the testing methods.

(Notably, public health experts have cast some doubt that bulk testing is able to consistently identify the presence of bird flu, as the virus could be diluted enough to test negative in large milk tanks, as Reuters reported.)

More bird flu prep: Federal health officials also told reporters Friday that two bird flu infections in California dairy workers at separate farms do not change the CDC’s assessment that the risk to the public remains low.

David Boucher, the director of infectious disease preparedness and response at the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, noted the government recently invested $72 million to boost bird flu vaccine preparedness.

GSK, Sanofi and CSL Seqirus will use the funds to prepare more doses of candidate vaccines and domestic egg supply is being conserved year-round for flu vaccine manufacturing if it is needed.

Steve Grube, chief medical officer for FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said there is no change in the agency’s assessment that commercial pasteurized milk is safe to drink.

“FDA continues to emphasize its long-standing recommendation against the consumption of unpasteurized raw milk,” Grube said.

On the Hill

FIRST IN MA: Reps. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) are hoping to resolve staffing shortages at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service with a new bill introduced Friday.

The bill would make students at community colleges and postsecondary vocational programs eligible for USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative grants. It would also update the program to focus on paid training for food and ag sciences to strengthen USDA’s workforce.

It would also allow retired NRCS employees who still work part-time to assist with higher ed teaching programs to mentor the next generation of conservation employees.

Deeper dive: NRCS is critically important to implementing the Biden administration’s historic spending on climate-smart agriculture goals but has faced staffing shortages for years. The subagency is working to hire 1,600 new employees in 2024 by this fall, the lawmakers said, arguing that their bill could make that hiring process more streamlined.

Spanberger, who is running to be Virginia’s governor, and Molinaro, who’s facing a tough reelection in the most expensive House race this year, are both members of the House Ag Committee.

Row Crops

— Florida is facing the threat of another major hurricane making landfall in the state, prompting state emergency officials to prepare for the evacuation of potentially more than 6 million residents as the state still recovers from its last direct hit, our Arek Sarkissian writes.

— Why do some people prefer powdered greens to just eating their vegetables? (The Atlantic)

— Talks on a new trade deal between the European Union and Ukraine could throw an economic lifeline to the war-torn nation — but angry European farmers and the risk of populist blowback threaten progress before they even start, our Bartosz Brzeziński reports for POLITICO Europe.

— Conservative organizer Scott Presler pledged to protect the Amish community’s raw milk and dairy production at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday. (The FDA recommends against manufacturing or consuming raw milk products because of bird flu risks.)

THAT’S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line and send us your agriculture job announcements or events: gyarrow@politico.com, meredithlee@politico.com, marciabrown@politico.com, abehsudi@politico.com and ecadei@politico.com.