Does not matter: Farm-state races to watch in final 21 days — Free school meals through June

Oct 13, 2020

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DRIVING THE WEEK

THREE WEEKS TO ELECTION DAY: The Senate this week is churning through the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, and there's sure to be more chatter about the on-again, off-again stimulus negotiations. But at this point, it's all about the upcoming elections. So let's take a look at where the races stand in some of the biggest farm states, per POLITICO's newly updated elections forecast.

In Iowa , the presidential contest and Senate race are both rated toss-ups. A Quinnipiac poll last week showed President Donald Trump down five percentage points to former Vice President Joe Biden among likely voters — even after Trump carried the state by 9 points in 2016. The same poll found Senate Agriculture Committee member Joni Ernst trailing Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield by the same margin.

— On the House side, the state's three Democratic-held seats are all seen as up for grabs, including those of retiring Rep. Dave Loebsack and freshman House Ag member Cindy Axne . The latter has been active on farm issues — including sparring with Democratic leaders over their efforts to freeze Trump's bailout payments to ag producers — but former Rep. David Young is vying to reclaim his seat after losing to Axne by 2 points in 2018.

The Trump campaign is gunning to flip Minnesota from blue to red after Hillary Clinton carried the state by just 2 percentage points in 2016. But POLITICO currently rates the state as "leaning" toward Biden, while Senate Ag member Tina Smith, a Democrat, is considered "likely" to win re-election.

— The state also features one of the most closely watched House showdowns, a toss-up between House Agriculture Chair Collin Peterson and former Republican Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach. Peterson's conservative rural district voted for Trump by more than 30 percentage points four years ago, and farm lobbyists are growing nervous about losing a longtime ally of the ag industry, as our Liz Crampton reports.

— House Ag freshmen Jim Hagedorn, a Republican, and Angie Craig, a Democrat, are both in competitive races. Hagedorn is under heavy scrutiny for potential campaign finance violations, and POLITICO rates his race a toss-up, while Craig is slightly favored.

Other farm-state races on our radar: North Carolina features toss-up races for president and its Senate seat (though none of its House races are toss-ups).

— Kansas is "likely" to vote for Trump, but the race to replace retiring Senate Ag Chair Pat Roberts is closer: It's "leaning" toward House Ag GOP member Roger Marshall over Democrat (and former Republican) Barbara Bollier, a state senator.

— Texas and Georgia both "lean Republican" in the presidential and Senate contests, while POLITICO expects Biden to turn Wisconsin blue, along with Nebraska's 2nd District.

WELCOME TO YOUR WEEKLY AGRICULTURE REPORT! It's Tuesday, Oct. 13, and your host's Los Angeles Lakers are NBA champions. Send tips to rmccrimmon@politico.com and @ryanmccrimmon, and follow us @Morning_Ag.

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Cafeteria worker pushes a cart full of food to distribute a free lunch to the students and community at Dillard high school in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. | AP Photo

A cafeteria worker pushes a food cart to distribute free lunches to students in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. | AP Photo

FREE SCHOOL MEALS THROUGH JUNE: The Agriculture Department on Friday said it would extend a suite of regulatory waivers to allow schools to serve free meals until the end of the school year in June, as the pandemic and economic fallout keep hunger rates high. As Pro Ag's Helena Bottemiller Evich reports, the move was largely expected after Congress gave the department authority and funding to extend the waivers in a recent spending bill.

How we got here: Under pressure from school leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue agreed in August to extend regulatory flexibility for feeding programs until the end of 2020. But USDA said it couldn't go any further without more funding from Congress.

The details: The department is allowing the Summer Food Service Program and Seamless Summer Options to continue through June 30, 2021, essentially letting school cafeterias serve any student for free without checking their qualifications for free or subsidized meals. They also have more flexibility to meet nutritional standards and other requirements.

But, but, but: Despite the flexibility provided by USDA for months, there's been a notable drop in the number of meals served to students, and the School Nutrition Association says Congress still must allocate more money for the feeding programs.

THE LATEST PUSH-AND-PULL OVER PESTICIDES: Farm chemical makers Bayer and BASF are fighting to keep dicamba on the market for U.S. farmers to spray across their cotton and soybean fields, after a federal court clamped down on the controversial weedkiller in June because of its tendency to drift to nearby farmlands and damage neighbors' crops.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the German multinationals are seeking approval from the EPA to let growers mix dicamba with new chemical agents that would prevent drifting, which has been blamed for harming millions of acres of crops. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler has said the agency will come to a decision by mid-October.

Ag officials in the 20 largest soybean states have already received more than 900 complaints of dicamba-related damage this year, and Bayer in June agreed to pay up to $400 million to settle such claims. Disputes over the chemical have also fueled personal conflicts among farmers, even cases of vandalism and deadly violence.

Meanwhile in France, food safety regulators last week said they'll restrict certain uses of glyphosate, another controversial herbicide, in cases where other substances are available as a replacement, writes POLITICO's Eddy Wax.

The government published results of a two-year study into potential alternatives to glyphosate, which is widely used but seen as potentially carcinogenic, and determined that farmers won't be authorized to spray the weedkiller between rows of fruit trees or on soil used for growing sunflowers and major cereal crops, for example.

The new rules also cap the amount of glyphosate that can be applied per hectare (roughly 2.5 acres) in a single year. Those limits will vary across agricultural sectors. France is aiming to phase out glyphosate entirely by 2023.

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In Case You Missed It

LAST WEEK TODAY — Here's your post-weekend refresher on some of the biggest food and ag stories you might have missed:

— Perdue rebuked for ethics lapse: The USDA chief has blurred the lines between his formal duties and his political support for Trump, a trend that landed him in hot water last week when the Office of Special Counsel found that Perdue violated the Hatch Act by effectively calling for "four more years" for Trump at a taxpayer-funded event in August. Now the secretary (or more likely, the Trump campaign) is on the hook to reimburse the government for travel and other costs.

— The dizzying state of stimulus talks: Bipartisan negotiations toward an economic rescue package are apparently back on, after Trump cancelled the talks last week and subsequently reversed himself, all via Twitter. Despite all the noise, a stimulus deal before has long been unlikely — a reality that Senate Republicans made clear over the weekend. But as your host has long noted, the farm industry is in relatively good shape to ride out the impasse: While restaurants and other sectors have been begging Congress for a lifeline, USDA still has billions of dollars in its arsenal to send relief checks to producers.

— Trump's trade deficit debacle: After running in 2016 on promises to slash the gap between U.S. imports and exports, Trump is on track to end his first term with the highest trade deficit since 2008. In August, the deficit in goods was over $83 billion — the highest monthly gap ever. Even America's longtime agricultural trade surplus has dwindled under Trump, from more than $21 billion in fiscal 2017 to an estimated $4.5 billion this year.

Row Crops

— The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to fight hunger amid the pandemic, which sent food insecurity rates skyrocketing around the world. Early this year, the WFP estimated that 265 million people could experience dangerous levels of hunger. The New York Times has more details.

— Giant fast-food chains are thriving amid the pandemic while independent restaurants struggle to stay open. Bolstered by larger capital reserves, more physical space and years of experience with drive-through and delivery services, foodmakers like McDonald's, Chipotle and Domino's are adding stores and customers while tens of thousands of local eateries go bankrupt. The Wall Street Journal has the story.

— Oregon's timber industry is struggling to navigate a pair of disasters: the coronavirus and catastrophic wildfires. The worst blazes in a century started just as the sector was seeing signs of recovery from the pandemic, like strong demand for housing and home improvement projects, the Washington Post reports.

— A Massachusetts man was charged with burning down a stack of hay bales that were painted in support of Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris. More from the Boston Globe.

THAT'S ALL FOR MA! Drop us a line: rmccrimmon@politico.com; hbottemiller@politico.com; lcrampton@politico.com; jyearwood@politico.com and pjoshi@politico.com.