Ag News: ASF Spreading in China
**The impact of China's African swine fever outbreak has grown, as the disease arrived in one of the country's largest production areas as pork stockpiles fall rapidly.
According to agrimarketing.com, the Ministry of Agriculture announced the ASF case was found in South China’s Bobai County last week.
The industry is expecting a pork shortage in China in the second half of the year. Imports will be the only help for China to fill its pork demand.
**The Renewable Fuels Association welcomes the EPA’s final rule allowing retailers to sell gas with 15% ethanol year-round. Last Friday’s action fulfills President Trump’s promise to eliminate the summertime prohibition on E15 that offers lower cost, reduced emissions, and higher octane.
In the nine years since EPA first approved the use of E15, RFA has worked tirelessly to remove the costly and unnecessary regulatory barrier that prevented retailers from selling the fuel during the busy summer driving season.
**The American Farm Bureau Federation is praising a federal court’s decision to invalidated the EPA’s 2015 Waters of the U.S. rule.
Several court decisions have preliminarily blocked the rule, but this is the first court to reach a final decision on the lawfulness of the WOTUS rule.
AFBF General Counsel Ellen Steen tells agrimarketing.com, this decision provides strong vindication for what many of us have said for years, the WOTUS rule is invalid.
Several other legal WOTUS challenges are pending.