AgClips
Recent AgClips
Limits on livestock nuisance lawsuits passes Iowa Senate
Des Moines Register | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in SARL Members and Alumni NewsThe Iowa Senate passed a bill Tuesday aimed at limiting lawsuit damages in cases filed by unhappy neighbors against livestock producers. Senate File 447 allows for an affirmative defense to be raised when an animal feeding operation is alleged to be a public or private nuisance or otherwise interfere with a person's enjoyment of life or property. The legislation suggests the public interest is served by preserving and encouraging responsible animal agricultural production.
WA lawmakers asked to fund manure-into-water technology
Capital Press | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in SARL Members and Alumni NewsAn engineer told Washington lawmakers Tuesday that public funding would spur technology to distill cow manure into dry fertilizer and clean water, making polluted runoff from dairies a problem of the past. “Wow,” said one legislator. “Yeah, wow,” said another.The Washington State Dairy Federation arranged back-to-back presentations to the House and Senate agriculture committees by Peter Janicki, CEO of Janicki Bioenergy in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.Janicki has worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to convert sewage into drinking water in developing countries.
With people dying from eating cheese, the US raw-milk movement faces a serious setback
Quartz | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Food NewsA recent bout of listeria infection potentially caused by cheese has reignited the fierce debate around raw milk. On March 9, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced that two people had died in Vermont and Connecticut and four others had fallen ill after eating soft, raw-milk cheese from Vulto Creamery, an artisanal cheesemaker based in upstate New York. All six people had been infected with listeria.
Senators seek to protect U.S. agriculture from foreign acquisitions
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Federal NewsU.S. Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) have introduced new bipartisan legislation to give top U.S. agriculture and food officials permanent representation on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. The “Food Security is National Security Act of 2017” also would include new agriculture and food-related criteria for CFIUS to consider when reviewing transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign company.
Company claims first product made from cultured chicken cells
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Food NewsSan Francisco-based food technology company Memphis Meats announced today what it is calling “the world’s first clean poultry” — food products created by replicating chicken and duck cells. The announcement comes a year after the company created its first product made from beef cells in the form of a meatball.“We aim to produce meat in a better way, so that it is delicious, affordable and sustainable,” said Uma Valeti, M.D., co-founder and CEO of Memphis Meats. “It is thrilling to introduce the first chicken and duck that didn’t require raising animals.”
Environmental Groups Ask EPA to End Ag Stormwater Exemption
DTN | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Federal NewsEnvironmental groups are asking the Scott Pruitt-led U.S.
Why prison building will continue booming in rural America
The Conversation | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Rural NewsThe election of Donald Trump signals an end to the recent optimism about reducing the mass imprisonment of two million U.S.
Oklahoma wildfires kill thousands of pigs at Smithfield, Seaboard farms
Reuters | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Agriculture NewsWildfires devastated a Smithfield Foods Inc hog farm in Laverne, Oklahoma, killing at least several thousand pigs, company and local officials said on Friday. The exact number of swine killed in the Oklahoma fire, which began on Monday, was not immediately known. Smithfield did not say how many died in the blaze, but said no workers were harmed.
School Gardens May Combat Childhood Obesity
Choices magazine | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Food NewsMany of these programs have yielded promising results, such as improved science test scores (Klemmer, Waliczek, and Zajicek, 2005; Rahm, 2002). Evaluations of farm-to-school programs have shown improvements in child and teacher eating behaviors, food service at the school level, farmer involvement, and parent attitudes and/or behaviors toward healthy foods (Joshi, Azuma, and Feenstra, 2008).
Will Consumers Find Vertically Farmed Produce "Out of Reach"?
Choices magazine | Posted onMarch 19, 2017 in Food NewsWhile there are arguments for and against vertical farming, whether consumers are even willing to buy vertically farmed produce—an important consideration in the cost-benefit discussion—is rarely discussed. Recent agricultural technologies—such as genetically modified (GM) crops, food irradiation, and nanotechnology—have often been met with consumer skepticism (Frewer et al., 2011; Dannenberg, 2009; Siegrist et al., 2007; Ragaert et al., 2004), so it is unclear how vertical farming will fare with consumers.