Agribusiness Update for Thursday 12/03/15

Lawmakers are using a compromise highway bill to reverse crop insurance cuts that were part of the two-year budget agreement. The conference agreement of the House and Senate bills is expected to pass through Congress by Friday as lawmakers want to prevent programs from expiring. The $3 billion worth of cuts will be replaced by a Federal Reserve dividend cut for the banking industry. If the highway funding bill is passed, it would be the first multiyear transportation funding bill to last longer than two years since 2005.

President Obama remarked climate change could lead to "fields that no longer grow" before heading back to the U.S. from the United Nations climate summit in Paris this week. He feared that climate change could lead to submerged countries, abandoned cities and fields that no longer grow. The climate talks do not have a specific agricultural focus, but many warn that farmers need to pay attention to the climate talks. That's because of the commitments the Obama Administration along with private companies is making that seek to lower agriculture's carbon footprint.

That's today's Agribusiness Update from the Ag Information Network of the West.