Vine Seed Replacement Crops and Tribal & Native Hawaiian Trade Mission

**Vegetable seed companies have cut back vine seed production this season, sending Sacramento Valley producers who used to grow them scrambling to find replacement crops.

Michael Willey, Bayer’s North America vegetable seeds production lead, attributed the drop to overproduction in 2023.

Colusa County Ag Commissioner Anastacia Allen says this has resulted in farmers planting more corn, a crop she described as “what you plant when you have nothing else to plant.”

**A Texas federal judge has temporarily blocked a USDA disaster relief program from giving preferential funding to women and minority farmers, otherwise recognized as “socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.”

The judge’s order ruled the program likely violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights to equal protection under the law.

Critics say the ruling is a step backward following decades of systemic racism and policies that largely benefited white farmers.

**Alexis Taylor, USDA Undersecretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, was in Vancouver, Canada, for a first-of-its-kind trade mission intended to develop export markets for Tribal and Native Hawaiian businesses and products.

Taylor says this historic trade mission showcasing products from Tribal and Native Hawaiian producers is long overdue, and Canada couldn’t be a better host country.

Taylor led a delegation of officials from 15 Tribal agribusinesses.