The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with a left-wing advocacy group to boost voter turnout as part of President Joe Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to get involved in elections.
The USDA worked directly with Demos, a New York-based group that helped draft Biden’s Executive Order 14019, according to records obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)
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Amid mounting concerns over foreign land purchases within the United States, a report from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (DAG) Farm Service Agency has highlighted the alarming pace at which external entities have been gobbling up American forest and farm land.
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Recently released federal pricing analysis from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that food prices will continue to rise through 2024.
The USDA pointed to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index released earlier this month, which showed consumer prices overall rose 3.2 percent in the previous twelve months. Food prices, though rose more quickly at 4.9 percent during the same time.
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The growth of solar generation in Pennsylvania over the last decade owes largely to farmers willing to share their land, a fact that leaves others worried about neighboring property values and future sustainability.
As such, Sen. Doug Mastriano – former gubernatorial candidate and right-wing firebrand who represents a district that spans Franklin and Adams counties – recently introduced a bill limiting the use of farmland for solar development in Pennsylvania. The legislation would prohibit development on prime farming land considered class one or class two by the USDA.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be cracking down on false claims on labeling of meat claiming it is “grass-fed,” “free-range,” “raised without antibiotics,” or “no antibiotics ever.”
The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has received petitions, comments and letters asking the agency to boost oversight of marketing claims made by the meat and poultry industry, the agency said Wednesday in a news release. The agency will then determine if it needs to do more rulemaking on the industry’s claims.
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Several states have already banned or are considering banning foreign ownership of farmland from U.S. adversaries such as China, a trend that has its recent roots in North Dakota.
Chinese food manufacturer Fufeng Group purchased 370 acres of land for a corn milling plant in Grand Forks in November 2021.
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Nationwide, electronic benefits transfer fraud is estimated to cost taxpayers up to $4.7 billion annually, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In 2022, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program distributed over $113.7 billion to nearly 22 million households.
The federal government entrusts states to reduce fraud in safety net programs. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told all 50 states to plan to fight EBT skimmer fraud, which happens when bad actors install a card reader on top of a legitimate point of sale at a retail store.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is taking the first steps in handing out $2.2 billion to farmers, ranchers or forest landowners who experienced discrimination with USDA farm lending programs.
The Inflation Reduction Act that was signed by President Joe Biden in August 2022 authorizes the spending.
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Determined to use their oversight authority to ensure election integrity, House Republicans are deploying dozens of trained observers to key races around the country while dispatching letters putting federal and state officials on notice to look for any shenanigans in the midterms.
The effort led by Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, includes investigating how federal agencies are implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order instructing the U.S. government to expand voter registration, along with the training and deployment of House staff as observers under the authority of Congress.
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The Biden administration has announced $500 million in grant money to stimulate American-made fertilizer production.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack unveiled the new grant program, called the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program, on Sept. 27.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced $110 million in grants for rural health care, and Pennsylvania will receive almost $2 million to replace lost revenue and supply other needs.
The three grants for $1.8 million will go to two health care groups and a food bank in Elk, McKean, and Chester counties.
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More than 100 House Republicans are asking a government watchdog to probe foreign investments in U.S. farmland, including those by China, which they say may present national and food security concerns.
Led by Reps. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania and James Comer of Kentucky, the lawmakers on Saturday called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study foreign farmland ownership and how the U.S. government is monitoring acquisitions, a letter shows. There has been an uptick in foreign investments and ownership, which may be “underreported” due to the U.S. Agriculture Department’s (USDA) unreliable data, the Republicans say.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is sending $740,000 to Pennsylvania for “critical infrastructure to combat climate change” – but most of the money will go toward repaving parking lots.
The USDA Rural Development program provides taxpayer money for all sorts of programs, from infrastructure to health care to environmental and economic concerns in the rural parts of America. In fiscal year 2022, it provided almost $1.5 billion for local projects.
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A grant program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will send $20 million to Pennsylvania to restore streams in central Pennsylvania and preserve farmland.
The funding is part of a $200 million initiative, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, “to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns.” The RCPP was created by the 2014 Farm Bill and has sent out almost 600 awards.
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The Biden administration and Florida Democratic Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried approved the lunch money application for Grant Park Christian Academy in Tampa just days after the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Christian school.
The school was being denied children’s lunch funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program, which Fried administers. The program benefitted 56 low-income children at the Christian school by providing them with free meals.
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The number of commercial and backyard flocks with confirmed avian flu increased by 36% in the past week, according to data on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) website.
Three of the 57 new cases reported were in Missouri, bringing the state total to nine cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Flu Influenza (HPAI) in seven counties—Bates, Dade, Gentry, Jasper, Lawrence, Ralls and Stoddard. Approximately 421,000 birds were in those flocks.
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