The U.S. House of Representatives made farmers and farm organizations happy yesterday before members left Washington for the year: They voted 385 to 41 to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement. But the Senate won’t have a vote on the deal until sometime next year because Senators are more focused on an impeachment trial than they are trade. For agriculture, the deal is expected to increase our exports to Mexico and Canada by more than $2 billion. That’s over and above a trade that is at almost $40 billion a year.
It’s official that those added tariffs on Chinese products that were scheduled to go into effect on December 15th won’t happen. On Wednesday, the U.S. trade ambassador’s office published a notice in the Federal Register saying those tariffs are formally suspended. Trade Ambassador Robert Lighthizer also said the U.S. might even suspend other tariffs on Chinese goods that were put in place earlier. This all is happening because the U.S. and China have reached that agreement on phase 1 of a new trade deal.
State lawmakers are moving forward on dairy issues that federal officials are dragging their feet on — dairy product labeling. Earlier this week the state Senate Agriculture Committee approved two bills designed to protect consumers from products that industry leaders say are misleading labels on imitation dairy products. One of the bills would stop the labeling of foods as dairy products if the product is not made from milk from a cow, sheep, goat or another type of mammal. The second measure would call for the same requirements for products to use the word milk on product labels. Plant-based products couldn’t be labeled as milk.
Today is the deadline for farmers to sign up for both the Dairy Margin Coverage Program and the Market Facilitation Program for 2020 at county Farm Service Agency offices. The DMC program is for dairy farmers to help cover their margins costs in the new year. Last year, the program paid Wisconsin dairy farmers over $69 million. The Market Facilitation Program was set up to help farmers recover lost when President Trump put punitive tariffs on countries around the world for what he said were illegal trade practices.
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