WACD Reading List

The Biden administration has released a report outlining its vision to conserve and restore land, water and wildlife with recommendations for locally led, voluntary efforts to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The 24-page report outlining the administration’s “America the Beautiful” initiative recognizes the contributions of farmers, ranchers, forest owners, private landowners and fishers and commits to supporting those efforts.

USDA will permanently end its Farmers to Families Food Box Program at the end of May. The program, which bought meat, dairy and produce from farmers and directed it to hungry families, was created by the Trump administration during the pandemic. Over the past year, USDA has spent more than $4 billion on the program and delivered more than 156 million boxes through mid-April.

WASHINGTON, Mar. 10, 2021 – Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1319, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021...Specifically, provisions within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will reduce hunger across the country, strengthen the food supply chain, invest in rural America, and provide long awaited support to underserved, socially disadvantaged farmers.

If you’re a mother or father struggling to get by, who didn’t always know when or where the next meal would come from, you will rest easier tonight knowing help is on the way. The bill not only boosts SNAP benefits through September, it also increases targeted nutrition assistance to mothers and young children and expedites more nutrition aid to U.S. territories. Farmers, business owners, and workers across the food supply chain will see additional assistance to respond to market disruption, as well.

The new era of climate mitigation on the farm would look like a beefed-up version of longstanding USDA conservation programs, augmented by a carbon bank that sets a floor price for carbon sequestration and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, said leaders of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA) on Wednesday. “That’s what we’ve modeled it after,” said Chuck Connor, a founding member of the alliance and a former deputy agriculture secretary.