On September 16, the Department of Transportation (DOT) published a notice requesting information from the public to prepare a report required by President Biden’s recent executive order (EO) on “America’s Supply Chains.” Per the EO, the Secretary of Transportation must submit to the President, within 1 year, a report on transportation-sector supply chains.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urged U.S. agricultural cooperatives to “harden” defenses against cyber attacks after Iowa’s New Cooperative Inc. was targeted in a ransomware attack last week.

“We want to make sure during this harvest that we don’t have any additional disruptions as a result of systems being hacked,” Vilsack said Wednesday in a speech to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture’s annual meeting.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will gather information about production practices from producers across the U.S. as part of the 2021 Agricultural Resource Management Survey.

“ARMS is a vital survey that tracks how U.S. farms use technology to manage production of their major field crops,” said USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service Heartland Region Director Brad Summa. “The results of this survey also help policymakers and farm groups understand the factors driving the costs and returns of crop production.”

China is the world's largest consumer of wheat, accounting for 19 percent of global wheat consumption in marketing year 2020/21 (July-June), more than four times the U.S. share. China also became a leading importer during 2020/21, with purchases estimated at 10.6 million metric tons, China's highest import total since the 1990s.

USDA forecasts China's 2021/22 imports at 10 million metric tons. Before the 2010/11 marketing year, China's wheat imports typically totaled 1 million metric tons or less. More recently, wheat imports totaled 3 to 5 million metric tons most years between marketing years 2011/12 to 2019/20.

As nations around the world grapple over what defines sustainable agriculture and how to achieve net zero agricultural emissions by 2050, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack continues to advocate for a voluntary, incentive-based approach that does not result in less food or limit farmers’ ability to make the right decisions for their own operations.

In USDA’s September update of 2020 PLC Payment Rates, wheat, peanuts, seed cotton, long-grain rice, and southern medium-grain rice are projected to receive PLC payments.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is providing additional time for livestock and poultry producers to apply for the Pandemic Livestock Indemnity Program (PLIP). Producers who suffered losses during the pandemic due to insufficient access to processing may now apply for assistance for those losses and the cost of depopulation and disposal of the animals through Oct. 12, 2021, rather than the original deadline of Sept. 17, 2021. PLIP is part of USDA’s Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative.

U.S. agricultural exports in fiscal year (FY) 2022 are projected at $177.5 billion, $4.0 billion higher than the revised forecast for the preceding year. The FY 2021 export forecast of $173.5 billion represents an increase of $9.5 billion from May’s projection, mainly due to higher livestock, dairy, and poultry exports, as well as the adoption of a new definition of “Agricultural Products.”