President Joe Biden and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will lead a delegation from Washington into southwest and western Wisconsin later today to talk about agricultural issues, including some dairy initiatives. Their schedule calls for them to fly to La Crosse and then travel by helicopter to the Dick and Kim Cates farm in Iowa County and then go to the Mahogany dairy near Cashton for ice cream before returning to Washington. Early reports say the president will issue an executive order regarding agriculture and also explain some updated programs for the dairy industry
The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee has finished its work on the fiscal year 2022 budget for agriculture. That includes the budgets for USDA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The new budget would be $26.6 billion — up 1.3 percent from the 2021 budget. Total spending in the plan for all of agriculture would amount to almost $198 billion.
Rains last week across much of the country’s major growing areas helped the condition of the corn and soybean crops but crop conditions still didn’t improve. The amount of corn now in the good to excellent category went down another 1% this week, to 64 percent. That’s the 10th lowest corn rating for the end of June in the past 12 years — below only 2017 and 2019. Improvements in the corn crop in Iowa, Illinois and Michigan were offset by declines in the crop in Minnesota, Ohio and South Dakota. The soybean rating for this week didn’t change from a week ago as it held at 60 percent good to excellent. States that saw a drop in soybean condition this week include Minnesota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Kansas but Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin saw a little improvement.
In Wisconsin, the soybean crop did get better with the rains as it’s rated 68 percent good to excellent — up 6 percent from last week. State farmers also reported 11 percent of the plants are already blooming. The condition of the corn crop didn’t change from a week ago as it’s still rated 69 percent good to excellent. The oats are rated 75 percent good to excellent with 79 percent of the crop headed. Potatoes around the state also look good, as that crop is rated 88% good to excellent. Farmers also have taken 59% of their second hay crop — about a week ahead of normal. The topsoil moisture improved quite a bit from a week earlier as it’s rated 72 at percent adequate to surplus.
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