Ag News: Kentucky D-SNAP Benefits & U.S and Canada Dairy Industry
**Low-income Kentucky residents recovering from severe weather outbreaks could be eligible for a helping hand from USDA’s Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Last week, the USDA announced an estimated 14,000 households in 14 counties may be eligible to receive the food assistance.
The program is for residents impacted by tornadoes, flooding and wind that began December 10th.
Households that may not normally be eligible under regular Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program rules may qualify for D-SNAP.
**The U.S. dairy industry celebrated last week’s decision which found Canada is improperly restricting access to its market for U.S. dairy products, violating tariff-rate quota commitments in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
The case is the first of any kind brought before a USMCA Dispute Settlement Panel and was launched with bipartisan support last May.
National Milk Producers Federation CEO Jim Mulhern says Canada is ignoring mutually agreed-upon commitments."
**Corn and biofuel groups are voicing concerns over EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard proposal.
EPA proposes Renewable Volume Obligations that Growth Energy says would undercut blending requirements for biofuel in 2021, and retroactively waive 2.96 billion gallons from 2020 RVOs finalized almost two years ago.
Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor says the proposal “sets an extremely troubling precedent of revising finalized volumes for 2020 and back-setting volumes for 2021 rather than driving growth in renewable fuels.”