Humane Society on Checkoff Funds and U.S. Beef in China
From the Ag Information Network, I'm Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.**One of the nation's largest animal rights groups is pushing support for a Senate farm bill amendment that dramatically limits the use of checkoff funds.
The Humane Society has been lobbying Senators to support the amendment prohibiting certain practices relating to some commodity promotions, to require greater transparency for those and other purposes.
According to agweb.com, the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act of 2017 was sponsored by Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
https://www.agweb.com/article/humane-society-of-the-us-lobbies-for-bill-to-limit-reform-checkoffs/
**Speaking of the Senate's farm bill, the Trump Administration stopped short of a veto threat while being critical for not tightening work requirements for food stamp recipients and omitting regulatory reform proposals.
As reported in Agri-Pulse, the administration praised the bill for tightening the income eligibility limit for commodity subsidies and reducing the interest rate paid to rural electric cooperatives on an escrow fund managed by USDA.
https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/11160-white-house-criticizes-senate-farm-bill-but-avoids-veto-threat
**The U.S. beef industry has made progress in establishing a customer base in China a year after a 14 year ban was lifted, but is about to face more challenges in the additional 25 percent retaliatory tariff, which takes the total import duty on U.S. beef to 37 percent.
The U.S. Meat Export Federation's Joel Haggard says the threat of duties has already had an effect on interest in U.S. beef, and he expects the volume entering China to decline once the higher rates take effect July 6th.