| | | | | |  | | By Ryan McCrimmon | With help from Helena Bottemiller Evich and Doug Palmer Editor's Note: Weekly Agriculture is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro's daily Agriculture policy newsletter, Morning Agriculture. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
| | | — Progressive farm groups are mobilizing to pressure the incoming Biden administration to select a more left-leaning Agriculture Secretary, and they're promising a fight if former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a moderate Democrat, is the nominee. — At the same time, a coalition of groups are backing Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, who is flexing her credentials for the top job. Fudge sat down with POLITICO to talk trade aid, food stamps and climate change. — The Trump administration's investigations into Vietnamese trade practices could lead to painful repercussions for U.S. dairy and poultry exporters if tariffs are imposed, according to farm industry groups. HAPPY MONDAY, NOV. 16! Welcome to your Weekly Ag report, where your host did not get the memo about ditching the hoodies and sweatpants for real clothes. Send tips to rmccrimmon@politico.com and @ryanmccrimmon, and follow us @Morning_Ag. | | | THE AG SECRETARY SWEEPSTAKES ARE HEATING UP: A tug-of-war is unfolding over the apparent frontrunner for the top USDA job under incoming Biden administration. Our Liz Crampton and Helena Bottemiller Evich report today that progressive ag groups have their knives out for Heidi Heitkamp, who was long seen as a favorite to run the department under President-elect Joe Biden, given her centrist record and friendly relationship with the farm industry. A coalition of more than a dozen groups, from family farmers and organic consumers to environmental advocates, are making plans to publicly oppose a possible Heitkamp nomination in the coming days. "There's going to be a big fight on Heitkamp if Biden puts her name forward," said Kari Hamerschlag, deputy director of Friends of the Earth's food and ag program. — What's their beef? They see the former senator — whose name was floated in 2016 as a potential USDA chief under the Trump administration — as too close to corporate agribusinesses and the fossil fuel sector. While much of the resistance comes from the most left-leaning corners of ag, major associations like the National Farmers Union are also seeing fault lines form about whether to get behind Heitkamp. And, of course, the divisions are part of the broader debate among Democrats about whether to move farther left or hew closer to the middle, after Biden beat Trump but the party underperformed in congressional and state races. Since losing her reelection bid in 2018, Heitkamp has focused on pushing Democrats to engage more with rural communities, which have overwhelmingly rejected the party in recent elections. When she was in Congress, she fought for North Dakota crops like corn, soybeans, wheat and sugarbeets, and she was vocal about the negative impact of Trump's trade war on agriculture. — Heitkamp is also thought to have the support of former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, one of Biden's top advisers, though Vilsack told Pro Ag he doesn't have a favorite for the job. Another thing Heitkamp has going for her: Republicans are poised to keep control of the Senate for the next two years, barring a Democratic sweep in two Georgia runoff elections on Jan. 5. That means moderate Cabinet nominations could face a much smoother path to confirmation than more left-leaning picks. The competition: As POLITICO scooped last week, Rep. Marcia Fudge, a senior House Ag member, is publicly touting her credentials for the job — and she has growing support from progressives and the Congressional Black Caucus. — Fudge sat down with POLITICO to share her thoughts on how to handle Trump's record-setting farm bailouts; taking a "hard look" at nutrition programs; and getting farmers to buy in on battling climate change. Read the Q&A here. Who else is in the mix? To be sure, there are plenty of names being floated as possible contenders, including California Ag Secretary Karen Ross and even House Agriculture Chair Collin Peterson, who was defeated earlier this month in his conservative Minnesota district. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock has also started coming up more after he lost his bid for Senate.
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| AG GROUPS PREP FOR CLIMATE ACTION: The ag sector is working to get organized ahead of a new focus on addressing climate change in a Biden administration. On Tuesday, leading agriculture groups are planning to announce the formation of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance, or FACA. Heavyweight unity: The group is being co-chaired by the American Farm Bureau Federation, Environmental Defense Fund, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and National Farmers Union — a foursome that disagree on plenty of policy issues. Other groups involved: The Nature Conservancy, The Food Industry Association (FMI) and National Alliance of Forest Owners. And a new taskforce: The Bipartisan Policy Center is also announcing a new Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Task Force on Tuesday. That effort is being co-chaired by Heitkamp and Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss, who formerly served as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. What it means: The moves are just the latest sign that there's momentum building to get agriculture (and forestry!) much more engaged in climate solutions. In the past few years, the ag sector has been getting a lot more comfortable with talking about climate change, as POLITICO reported in an award-winning deep dive last year. Biden zeroes in: The president-elect is signaling he's serious about embedding climate action across the federal government, including USDA. Reading the carbon-tea leaves: A team of former White House and government officials have drawn up a 300-page blueprint for how to leverage the government to fight climate change. The so-called Climate 21 Project argues USDA has "enormous capacity to contribute meaningfully" to the administration's climate ambitions. The first 100 days? The blueprint calls on the administration to establish a carbon bank using the Commodity Credit Corporation in its first 100 days as a way to financially incentivize carbon sequestration on farm and forest lands. It also recommends financing climate smart practices through existing conservation programs and making big changes so that crop insurance policies and rates incentivize climate-friendly practices. Policy forecast reading: The Climate 21 Project's transition memo on agriculture (find it here) is all the buzz right now. The document was co-authored by Robert Bonnie, who served as the undersecretary for natural resources and the environment in the Obama administration and is currently serving as lead of the Biden transition team for USDA. Meryl Harrell, formerly a senior adviser to the undersecretary and currently on the transition team also co-authored the memo. | | | | 
Cows. | Getty Images | AG SECTOR FEARS FALLOUT FROM VIETNAM PROBES: Dairy and poultry producers are worried that the Trump administration's investigation into Vietnam's currency practices and alleged use of illegally-harvested lumber could hurt U.S. farm sales to a fast-growing export market, our Pro Trade friends tell MA. "In 2019, total [poultry] sales to Vietnam had reached more than $140 million annually," the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council said in comments to USTR. "For 2020, U.S. exports are on pace to maintain those same high levels despite the difficulties of trade during the worldwide pandemic." The trade group said it has seen no evidence that Vietnam's allegedly undervalued đồng has negatively affected exports to the Southeast Asian nation. But they did express concern about losing sales if the U.S. applies tariffs on Vietnamese goods. "In our view, the current 301 investigation is structured in a way that will invite trade retaliation on U.S. exports, and U.S. poultry will be a likely candidate for that retaliation," the group said. The National Milk Producers Federation sounded similarly concerned in comments they filed along with the U.S. Dairy Export Council, asking USTR to "refrain from taking steps through this investigation that could damage the progress we have achieved with Vietnam." "Given the very significant barriers U.S. exporters continue to face in other markets, we believe that U.S. efforts can most constructively be directed at these barriers, rather than in a market in which progress has been occurring and in which we expect progress to continue," the dairy groups wrote. EU REJECTS USDA CRITICISM OF FARM POLICY: A top EU official dismissed the Trump administration's warnings that the European "Farm to Fork" sustainable ag plan would limit the food supply and cause a sharp rise in hunger among vulnerable populations around the world, reports Pro Trade's Doug Palmer. The Farm to Fork plan is part of the bloc's sweeping climate blueprint, the European Green Deal. The agricultural component sets 10-year targets to curb the use of pesticides and fertilizers, among other food and ag goals, and the EU has also pushed other countries to adopt similar targets. A recent USDA study found that Europe's farm production could drop by 12 percent if the policies were adopted globally, driving up global food prices as much as 89 percent. Food insecurity would increase by an additional 185 million people under that most extreme scenario, according to USDA. Trump administration officials have been sharply critical of the European plans. What Brussels thinks: Claire Bury, the EU's deputy director general for food policy, said the study "doesn't take account of everything that's in the farm support strategy," like technological research and innovation that would boost farm production. Bury said subsidy payments to farmers during the transition period will help reduce the cost of meeting the environmental targets, and thus prevent a steep rice in food prices. She also noted that the bloc has increased agricultural productivity over the last 20 years while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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| | | — The agricultural downturn in recent years was seen as the most challenging stretch for the farm economy in decades. Agricultural Economic Insights is launching a podcast series taking a look at the 1980s farm crisis that brought a wave of bankruptcies and reshaped the industry. The first Escaping 1980 episodes are here. — Businesses are bracing for mandatory workplace safety rules under the Biden administration, after Trump's relatively lax enforcement of coronavirus protections at meatpacking plants and other facilities. POLITICO's Rebecca Rainey has the story. — Millions of students who lack any internet access in rural "dead zones" are still scrambling to adapt to remote learning. The digital gap has prompted teachers to distribute lessons on flash drives or forced children to stay at relatives' homes with better internet connections. The New York Times has the deep-dive. — Food distribution giant Sysco is getting rid of its minimum delivery sizes for restaurants starting today, in an effort to help small businesses as Covid-19 cases skyrocket and new dining restrictions are imposed. CNBC has the details. — The National Industrial Hemp Council received $200,000 under USDA's Market Access Program to develop export markets including Europe and China for hemp fiber, cannabidiol goods and other products. It's the first such funding for a hemp trade group, according to NIHC. 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. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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