10 things USDA announced at the Farm Progress Show

BOONE, Iowa — Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins gave a keynote and held a news conference at the Farm Progress Show on Sept. 1, in which she covered new plans for USDA's data systems, biofuels, fertilizer reshoring and the next round of a plan to rebuild the cattle herd. Reuters reported on the satellite and artificial intelligence pilot for crop estimates , and Tyson Foods disputing what Rollins said about its shuttered beef plants. Here is the rest. ADVERTISEMENT 1. Rollins described her Tyson commitment two times in one afternoon. From the stage, the USDA secretary said she had a guarantee from Tyson. "I also have a commitment from the head of Tyson that those plants will not be sold to any foreign interests or foreign owners; that they will be dedicated to American-owned co-ops, ranchers, businesses, and I'm so grateful for Tyson and for their leadership in that," Rollins said. Later that afternoon, Rollins clarified that the exchange was between her and Tyson CEO Donnie King. "Mr. King told me that they would make sure that if it moves or when it moves, it would be to American-owned company or producers," she said. Tyson told Reuters it will sell to any buyer, foreign or domestic, and that nothing about its position has changed. Rollins said what worries her is one of the remaining big packers buying up the capacity coming offline. She put it alongside foreign purchases of U.S. egg and pork operations and farmland. ADVERTISEMENT "We have been asleep," she said. 2. The satellite pilot is one of four pillars in USDA's Data Modernization Plan, with the others covering reporting experience, integration of technology platforms and what the department calls "trust and transparency with producers." The reporting pillar takes in mobile survey access, prefilled information and wider use of records USDA already has. "These changes will reduce the duplicative requests that you receive over and over and over again," Rollins said of the plan which follows a request for information she issued in February and a month of listening sessions at state fairs and farm shows. 3. Scott Hutchins, under secretary for research, education and economics and USDA's chief scientist, said that pilots could be expected this year, with transitions in 2027, and permanent by the following year. Nothing switches over until the new methods have been run against old data, he said. "We want to be able to provide information continuously through the year and avoid the kinds of surprises that sometimes we experience," Hutchins said. 4. USDA will show its work. Starting with the 2024 and 2025 crop seasons, the National Agricultural Statistics Service will publish Crop Season in Review reports comparing in-season forecasts against final numbers and laying out which data went into them. There will also be a quarterly Survey Chat for producer questions. "We need to create a mindset that we haven't fixed something, we've improved it, and we're going to continually improve it," Hutchins said. "We want to be able to provide information continuously through the year and avoid the kinds of surprises that sometimes we experience." ADVERTISEMENT 5. NASS is preparing to roll out a data tool called Ag Insights, Hutchins said, that would let producers pull agency numbers on a phone or tablet instead of hunting through PDFs. 6. Farmers.gov is being rebuilt for early next year. USDA Chief Information Officer Sam Berry said producers will be able to log in and see what the department has on them. "We want you to know what the government knows about you," he said of the system that will pull records together from the Farm Service Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the Risk Management Agency. 7. The last USDA modernization attempt is being turned off. Berry said half of Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems goes away this November and the rest next spring. Berry described MIDAS as a system that "cost a billion dollars, and went so poorly that the federal government then audited that project and found that we only delivered 10% of what we had paid to get." The Government Accountability Office put the spending for MIDAS at about $423 million between 2004 and July 2014, when USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack halted it, and the delivery at about 20% of what had been planned. Estimates had run from $330 million up to $659 million before it stopped. In late August, Berry said a new acreage reporting system reached every county office and the old one was fully retired. Richard Fordyce, under secretary for farm production and conservation, said the next step is pulling data straight off farm equipment. USDA is working on it with manufacturers who had booths at the show. ADVERTISEMENT 8. On biofuels, Rollins ran through the highest renewable volume obligations in the history of the Renewable Fuel Standard, summer waivers for E15, and a new regenerative feedstock rule. The day before the show, she said, came a 100% reallocation of excess RINs by 2027. 9. The U.S. imports about 60% of its fertilizer, Rollins said, and lowering is running through four departments. She pointed to recent groundbreakings on two Louisiana plants, one of them permitted in 45 days, and more than 80 USDA-backed projects around the country. In June, the department put $500 million behind a program called Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long Term Domestic Supply. 10. The cattle package Rollins previewed at the show has been released. In Boone, she recapped the Ranchers First Initiative announced in Nebraska the day before, which creates a Beef Retention and National Development endorsement, or BRAND, under Livestock Risk Protection. It lets producers insure the economic value of holding a heifer back for breeding over two years. The package also expands federal beef buying across the Justice Department, Veterans Affairs, the Department of War and Health and Human Services, and starts an initiative for beginning and veteran farmers. Rollins also told the Boone crowd USDA would prioritize a million CRP grassland acres for grazing. That figure is not in the department's written announcement.