Perdue Pledges Tenacity and Biofuels Foul for Argentina Indonesia
** Sonny Perdue, President Trump's nominee for Ag Secretary, pledged to be a "tenacious advocate and fighter" for farmers within the administration and says he'll try to address requests for help from dairy and cotton producers ahead of the next farm bill.At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Ag Committee, Perdue promised to work with Robert Lighthizer, the nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to protect ag interests in upcoming trade negotiations.
Perdue also distanced himself somewhat from Trump's budget proposals.
** The National Biodiesel Board is asking the U.S. government to impose duties against Argentina and Indonesia, charging the two countries with unfairly subsidizing their biodiesel production and then dumping the fuel on the U.S. market at below production costs.
In a release, NBB says it filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition with the Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission on behalf of the National Biodiesel Board Fair Trade Coalition.
** Congressional budget analysts estimate a key change sought by dairy producers to the Margin Protection Program could cost more than $2 billion, a price tag leaders of the House Ag Committee say is unrealistic.
The National Milk Producers Federation is asking Congress to reverse a 10-percent cut made during drafting of the 2014 farm bill in the feed cost formula that's used to calculate the margin between milk prices and feed costs.