Vilsack Visits Georgia and UN May Skip Ag on Climate Adaptation
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.
**Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Georgia last week promoting USDA's school meals and sustainable aviation fuel.
On Tuesday, Vilsack focused on efforts to expand healthy meals for students with improved nutritional quality.
On Wednesday, Vilsack spoke at the grand opening of LanzaJet Freedom Pines Fuels, the world’s first facility dedicated to the production of sustainable aviation fuel from ethanol.
Both domestic production and use of advanced biomass-based diesel grew by one billion gallons in 2023.
**Seeking consensus for action against global warming, negotiators at the UN climate summit may skip over food and agriculture while assembling a final statement on climate adaptation.
Instead, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack tells www.agriculture.com, food and agriculture’s contribution to COP28 would be a non-binding endorsement of sustainable production.
Vilsack says there wasn’t enough time to negotiate a text on agriculture because of disagreements between the world’s wealthiest nations and the developing world.
www.agriculture.com/despite-the-hype-cop28-likely-to-say-little-about-agriculture-and-climate-8414041
**Following shifts in U.S. food spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, food-at-home spending was only 2.7% higher in November 2023 compared with November 2019.
Food-away-from-home spending remained elevated at 14.6% higher, according to new data from USDA’s Economic Research Service.
After an initial jump in inflation-adjusted food-at-home spending in March through May 2020, the spending leveled off, averaging just 2.8% higher in December 2020 compared with 2019.
