Outbreaks have been reported in fruit and vegetable packing facilities in California and New York. But as more farm workers hit the fields and packing facilities, the industry risks the health of its workers, and the food supply chains those workers support, if widespread protective measures are not put into place. (Forbes)

Farmers across the nation leaned more heavily upon the federal government last year to finance their agricultural operations amid low commodity prices and trade disputes, and more of the money they borrowed is now delinquent. (U.S. News)

The Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, in collaboration with Microsoft, has created the Purdue Food and Agricultural Vulnerability Index online dashboard to quantify the potential risk to the supply of agricultural products as a result of COVID-19 farm and agricultural worker illnesses. (Purdue)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed lifting the amount of biofuels that refiners must blend into their fuel next year to 20.17 billion gallons, from 20.09 billion this year, according to two sources familiar with the details of an agency draft proposal. (Reuters)  

President Donald Trump’s executive order late last month invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat and poultry plants open got a ton of media attention, but there’s one big thing that was largely missed: The EO could actually grant USDA the same sweeping authority over, well, the rest of the country’s food production. (Politico)

On May 19, the USDA unveiled the details of its $16 billion Coronavirus Food Assistance Program. The program will provide direct payments to farmers and ranchers to partially offset COVID-19 related losses for livestock and specialty and non-specialty crops. (Farm Bureau)