Lawmakers Push To Have Agricultural Trucking Relief Act Included In Transportation Bill
Reps. Austin Scott (R-GA) and Kurt Schrader (D-OR) are teaming up to have H.R. 1673, The Agricultural Trucking Relief Act of 2019, inserted into the House Transportation and Infrastructure bill this week as a floor amendment. As mentioned in prior newsletters, their legislation would modify the current agricultural commodity definition for transportation to explicitly include […]
Glyphosate No Longer Part Of Proposition 65
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled that the label warning requirement for glyphosate under California’s Proposition 65 is unfounded. Therefore, Bayer is not required to include a cancer warning on products containing the herbicide. This follows the judge’s preliminary ruling in 2018 and is permanent and final. […]
AmericanHort Advocates Eligibility For Covid-19 Relief
On June 22, AmericanHort filed official comments urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture to make nursery and floriculture producers eligible for direct relief under the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). The comments were signed by a total of 104 national, regional, and state nursery, floral, landscape, and farm credit organizations and farm bureaus, who together represent and […]
Asian Longhorned Beetle in South Carolina
Researchers confirmed the first finding of Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) in South Carolina. A homeowner in Charleston County found a suspicious looking insect that was later identified by specialists at Clemson University’s Plant and Pest Diagnostic Clinic and USDA APHIS. At least four maple trees had live beetles present. Only five other states have reported […]
K·COE Isom, AmericanHort Discuss PPP Flexibility ACT Regulations
Beth Swanson and Kala Jenkins from K·Coe Isom joined AmericanHort on June 19 for a webinar to discuss the latest regulations for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). AmericanHort partners with K·Coe Isom, one of the leading national agricultural accounting firms, to assist the organization with tax issues as well as provide additional services for Premium […]
Comment Deadline June 22 For USDA Coronavirus Grower Relief!
Craig Regelbrugge June 17 2020 USDA recently published implementation details for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Relief is now available to many crop and livestock producers, but USDA has not yet included nursery and floriculture crops for direct payment relief for COVID-19-induced losses falling during the period January 15 – April 15, 2020. Nursery and […]
Initial Regulations For PPP Flexibility Released
The Treasury Department and Small Business Administration released further regulations on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) last week. The latest release focused on measures included in the PPP Flexibility Act, which was signed into law on June 5th. The interim final rule codified some of the changes that were made with additional guidance to be […]
USDA Launches Offshore Greenhouse Certification Program
Unrooted annual, perennial, and even some woody plant cuttings produced in growing operations outside the U.S. have become very important to the U.S. horticulture supply chain. In recent years, roughly two billion such cuttings have been imported to be finished here. But the cuttings are highly perishable, and any delays in the import process can […]
Dicamba Registrations Voided
The 9th Circuit Court recently ruled to vacate the registrations of certain dicamba products in response to issues with soybean production. In the court’s ruling, it declared that EPA ‘substantially underestimated the risks it acknowledged.’ The decision follows thousands of complaints of off-site movement of certain dicamba products when applied to genetically modified (to be […]
USDA Declares Ralstonia Eradicated
On June 11, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced the successful completion of actions taken by federal and state plant health officials to eliminate Ralstonia solanacearum race 3 biovar 2 from U.S. greenhouses. This announcement comes just two months after the pathogen was first detected on geranium (Pelargonium) in a Michigan greenhouse in April. […]