Iraq Completes 2024-2025 MOU

ADM Rice made a sale of 88,000 metric tons (MT) of U.S. long grain milled rice to Iraq last week, bringing the tonnage to 220,000 MT for the 2024-2025 Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU), surpassing the agreed upon amount of 200,000 MT. 

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Rice, TradeAllie Shipley
2024 Farm Bankruptcies Highlight Worsening Farm Credit

An indicator of farm financial health across the country, Chapter 12 bankruptcy provides farmers and ranchers with increased flexibility for paying off debt, and is used when all other options have been exhausted. AFBF Market Intel reports have long followed annual filings of Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies, through good and bad years for the farm economy.

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Allie Shipley
Hurricanes, Heat and Hardship: Counting 2024’s Crop Losses

Weather-associated production risk is a part of life for farmers and ranchers. Through heavy rain, hail, snow, winds, fire and drought, farming families prepare land, plant and harvest knowing their livelihoods are reliant on local weather conditions. In 2024, 27 weather disasters, each with damages exceeding $1 billion, struck the U.S. coast-to-coast.

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Allie Shipley
Secretary Rollins Releases the First Tranche of Funding Under Review

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced that USDA will release the first tranche of funding that was paused due to the review of funding in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

In alignment with White House directives, Secretary Rollins will honor contracts that were already made directly to farmers.  Specifically, USDA is releasing approximately $20 million in contracts for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

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State Rep. Mike Johnson Says Funding is Needed to Take Down Trees Infested with Pine Beetles

State Representative Mike Johnson from Pineville says more than 12 million malnourished trees from the 2023 drought that have become infested with pine beetles need to be taken down. Johnson says Cleco and the Louisiana Department of Transportation have started the process by removing dead trees along roads and highways, but more needs to done with trees on private property.

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