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The Biden administration plans to issue a new rule to protect the rights of farmers who raise cows, chickens and hogs against the country’s largest meat processors as part of a plan to encourage more competition in the agriculture sector, the Associated Press reported. The new rule that will make it easier for farmers to sue companies they contract with over unfair, discriminatory or deceptive practices is one of several steps that the White House plans to announce in the next few days. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is also expected to tighten the definition of what it means for meat to be labeled a “Product of USA” to exclude when animals are raised in other countries and simply processed in the United States. Farmer advocacy groups have pressed for change for years but Congress and the meat processing industry have resisted. A USDA official familiar with the White House’s plan said an executive order is expected to be announced this week that will clear the way for the new rules. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that the rules are designed to “increase competition in agricultural industries to boost farmers’ and ranchers’ earnings, fight back against abuses of power by giant agribusiness corporations, and give farmers the right to repair their own equipment how they like.” The regulation will make it easier for farmers to bring complaints under the Packers and Stockyards Act and is similar to one the Trump administration killed four years ago. That rule was first proposed in 2010.

A federal judge halted payments for a loan forgiveness program that provides relief to agricultural producers of color, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. A temporary restraining order was handed down Thursday afternoon by Judge William Griesbach of Wisconsin's Eastern District, in response to a lawsuit filed by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty in April. The group alleged that the Biden administration used an unconstitutional program in an effort to end systemic racism and should make the relief available to white farmers, too. Since the filing of the lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have continued to implement the program and is currently reviewing what the restraining order means for the program. "We respectfully disagree with this temporary order and USDA will continue to forcefully defend our ability to carry out this act of Congress and deliver debt relief to socially disadvantaged borrowers," said a USDA spokesperson. "When the temporary order is lifted, USDA will be prepared to provide the debt relief authorized by Congress.” The Biden administration created the loan forgiveness program for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers earlier this year under the American Rescue Plan Act. The program paid up to 120% of direct or guaranteed farm loan balances for producers who are Black, American Indian or Alaskan native, Hispanic or Latino, and Asian American or Pacific Islander.

The Biden administration, which has made combating racism a centerpiece of its agenda, is pledging to reverse decades of discriminatory agricultural lending and subsidy policies that have left Black farmers at an economic disadvantage and is racing to deploy $5 billion in aid and debt relief to help them, the New York Times reported. At the center of this initiative is the Agriculture Department, an agency that has long been derided by Black farmers as the United States’ “last plantation.” Now the department is in the middle of a drastic overhaul, both of its personnel and of policies that it acknowledges have perpetuated inequality in rural America for years. President Biden’s agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, yesterday said that he would work to root out the vestiges of racism at his agency and to redress “systemic discrimination” that Black farmers had faced.

Texas farmers and ranchers have lost at least $600 million to the winter storm that struck the state last month, according to an assessment issued this week by economists at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, the New York Times reported. Damage and disruption from the bitter blast of cold and snow, which farmers are calling “the St. Valentine’s Day massacre,” is likely to cause some gaps on grocery shelves in the eastern part of the country and push prices higher, especially on crops like sweet Texas onions that were just about to be harvested, leafy greens that would have headed for the East Coast and even cabbage, which this year might not be the St. Patrick’s Day sale item it often is. The storm also caused a severe shipping and processing bottleneck that continues to challenge the food-supply chain. Truck drivers were stuck for days waiting to load or unload produce. Processing plants had no power. Dairies were forced to dump 14 million gallons of milk, said Sid Miller, the Texas commissioner of agriculture. In a state that sells $25 billion worth of agricultural products each year and has more farms and ranches than any other, the damage is spread far and wide.