Cal. Commodities Pile Up & Land Pulled from Conservation Reserve

**Tree nuts, fresh produce, dairy products and other California commodities continue to pile up.

It’s happening as fewer ships arrive to pick up cargo at the Port of Oakland, where farm products account for 60% of total exports.

Ag shippers grew frustrated as some 67,000 containers left empty during the first two months of 2022, nearly double from last year.

75% of containers returning to Asia were reported empty.

**The Texas House Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety heard testimony from cattle groups addressing the hardships of rampant illegal border crossings.

www.agrimarketing.com reports, the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association’s Stephen Diebel says these are families who make it possible to order a hamburger or grill a steak, and they're having to worry about running into trespassers.

He says they face the danger of confronting regular thefts, burglaries, damaged infrastructure and armed intimidation.

www.agrimarketing.com/s/140770

**Landowners told the USDA they’ll take 1.7 million acres out of the long-term Conservation Reserve and put it back into crop production, betting on profits from sky-high commodity prices.

The USDA tells www.agriculture.com this year’s “general sign-up” would be the smallest amount of land since the reserve was created in 1985.

This complicates the Biden administration’s goal of relying on conservation lands to help slow global warming by sequestering carbon in plants and soil.

www.agriculture.com/news/business/high-commodity-prices-shift-conservation-lands-to-crop-fields