The Agriculture Department raised its estimate for corn production to 15.1 billion bushels, a jump from its June projection of 14.8 billion, but slightly lowered its prediction for ending stocks, in its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report issued Friday.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and Public Lands Council (PLC) recently filed a lawsuit against the misguided Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “Conservation and Landscape Health” rule. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming and seeks to overturn the rule which threatens generations of family ranching operations in the U.S. by undermining the long-held balance of multiple-use management.

Corn growers were responsible for a $151 billion boost to the U.S. economy in 2023, according to a new report released by the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA).

Brazil’s equivalent of the USDA has raised its second corn crop production projection.

Rural America is learning the hard way that more investment is needed to protect rural infrastructure from catastrophic storms.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations Thursday approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, providing support for critical agriculture, rural development, nutrition, conservation, and food and drug safety programs.

USDA is spending $110 million to expand meat processing through more than 50 grants for projects in 30 states, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Thursday.

Earlier this week, grassroots members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) concluded a successful Summer Business Meeting in San Diego, CA. Cattle producers discussed top issues facing the cattle industry including risk management, taxes, and business regulation.

USDA says there’s plenty of old crop corn, soybeans and wheat in grain bins that haven’t been marketed and a market analyst says it’s expected to stay that way until commodity prices improve.

Friday's July 12 USDA reports will update balance sheets with new estimates from the June 28 Acreage and Grain Stocks reports, including estimates of ground that was not planted at the time of the June survey. Traders have likely lost interest by now but will check to see if USDA is willing to budge on its South American production estimates.

Today, a bipartisan group of 37 U.S. House members, led by Reps. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) and Angie Craig (D-MN), sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan encouraging him to support biomass-based diesel and advanced biofuels volumes that fully account for availability and production capacity. Clean Fuels applauded the letter and thanked all of the Representatives who led and signed.

NFU Vice President Jeff Kippley represented family farmers and ranchers Wednesday at a House Agriculture Committee hearing. “Examining the Consequences of EPA’s Actions on American Agriculture” provided a platform for discussing various concerns related to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations and their impact on the agricultural sector.

U.S. pork industry players are voicing their frustrations with accessing the South African market as lawmakers works to renew a bill providing countries in sub-Saharan African with duty-free access to U.S. markets.

The U.S. EPA has announced it expects to finalize biofuel blending volumes for 2026-2028 late next year.

The value of U.S. beef exports topped $900 million in May, the highest since June 2023, according to data released by USDA and compiled by the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF). Pork exports posted another solid performance in May, but were below last year in both volume and value.

According to Farmers National Company, the agricultural land market has been “nothing short of exceptional during the past five years.”

The Agriculture Department is taking a deliberate approach to the question of whether cows should be inoculated against avian flu, even as some vaccine developers report substantial demand for a vaccine from dairy farmers worried about lost milk production.

It will take time to assess all the agricultural damage in Texas and other states from Hurricane Beryl and its remnants, but at least some grain infrastructure was knocked out by winds that reached 95 miles per hour in some areas.

The USDA’s national corn and soybean condition ratings improved a little over the past week. Development weather remains mostly favorable, but there are some areas of concern, and there could be some impact this week as the remnants of Tropical Storm Beryl make their way inland.

Now that Beryl has made landfall and continues to interact with land, it will continue to weaken. While weakening to tropical storm status on Monday, Beryl will still provide a threat for heavy rain and thunderstorms to the Mississippi Valley and even the Eastern Corn Belt through the first half of this week.

EPA has significantly raised the level at which the agency believes atrazine harms aquatic plants, potentially helping some farmers who rely on the weedkiller.

For many farm businesses, the amount of debt they hold is a key factor of their ability to sustain and grow their operations. Data from USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) show that 23 percent of U.S. farms held debt in 2022.

Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) recently announced a project award of $176 million through the Rapid Response Partnership Vehicle (RRPV) to accelerate the development of mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccines.

Time is running out for Congress to get a farm bill accomplished in 2024. The head lobbyist for NCBA says he hasn’t changed his opinion on Congress’ ability to get it across the finish line. Ethan Lane says, “I still think we’re spring of next year before we really are having an honest conversation about passing a farm bill.”

Over the past four years, soybean oil experienced a dramatic bull market that took prices to a new record high -- over 80 cents a pound in April 2022. Roughly two years later, those peak prices were cut nearly in half as the bullish excitement of becoming part of a new market for low-carbon fuel gave way to regulatory disappointments and the reality of competing feedstocks. This year, as recently as late June, August soybean oil prices were trading near their lowest level in over three years and it seemed as if the market had lost its appreciation for soybean oil's new role as a low-carbon fuel, as well as its traditional use as a source of food.

Lawmakers return to Washington to try to focus on fiscal 2025 spending bills even as Democrats face an ongoing debate about whether President Joe Biden should end his re-election bid. House Ag Committee member Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., announced on Saturday that she believes Biden should drop out of the race. In a statement released by her campaign, she said that “given what I saw and heard from the President during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the President himself following that debate, I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump.” But Biden continues to insist that he’s not dropping out of the race, saying in a ABC News interview that he would only step aside, “if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that.”

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—a decision that reins in the legal concept of Chevron deference and reduces overreaching regulations from federal agencies that lack congressional authority.

An American Farm Bureau Federation economist says USDA’s proposed changes to the Federal Milk Marketing Orders are not all good. Danny Munch tells Brownfield USDA addressed the “higher of” Class I milk price mover. “The biggest takeaway is that they do recommend a switch back to the “higher of” Class I mover, which was one of our biggest priorities. We are disappointed, though, that they did not decide to switch back to the “higher of” on an emergency basis.” And, he says not making the immediate emergency change will continue to cost farmers a lot of money.