Agriculture News
Cargill underwrites poultry antibiotic research center
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on April 25, 2018Cargill has donated $150,000 to build a state-of-the-art poultry health lab, focused on antibiotic alternatives, at the University of Arkansas, according to a news release from the school. The 4,200-square-foot facility will be located on the university’s Division of Agriculture farm north of the Fayetteville campus. The facility will be named the Cargill Poultry Research Center.
PA:New Law Should Help Promote Pennsylvania Farmers Use of High Tunnels the burden of having to meet state regs
Chester County | Posted on April 25, 2018Pennsylvania farmers, who use high tunnels to grow fresh fruits and vegetables, will no longer face the burden of having to meet state regulations intended for commercial and residential development now that Governor Wolf has signed House Bill 1486. The new law, which was a priority issue for Pennsylvania Farm Bureau (PFB) in 2018, prevents municipalities from requiring farmers to submit stormwater management plans on high tunnel structures that meet the law’s commonsense and easily understood guidelines. “The overall cost of putting together a stormwater management plan for a high tunnel structure would have likely eliminated or significantly negated the profitability of using the high tunnel in the first place,” added Ebert. “The new law should remove those obstacles and benefit local consumers.”
Japan Opens Door to US Ethanol
DTN | Posted on April 25, 2018United States corn ethanol producers will be allowed to export ethanol to Japan, after the nation's government approved a new policy to allow 44% of its 217-million-gallon ethanol demand to produce ethyl tert-butyl ether, or ETBE, which is commonly used as an oxygenate in gasoline, to come from corn-based ethanol. The announcement comes on the same day Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump in Florida. In addition, in recent weeks the Trump administration has started to explore the possibility of re-entering the Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP.Since 2010, Japan's sustainability policy allowed ethanol imports from sugarcane ethanol suppliers, because those gallons were considered to have a smaller environmental footprint. There currently is little or no sugarcane ethanol produced in the U.S.
Cage-free egg production requires 3 to 5 times more labor
Watt Ag Net | Posted on April 25, 2018Training, for both the birds and employees, is one of the keys for successful cage-free egg production. Pickar said it was important to expose employees to the cage-free housing systems early in the process. If possible, you should send them to another facility to train before you put a flock under their care in either a new or converted house. If you are transitioning an existing farm from cage to cage free, Pickar said it is important to make sure that all of the staff understand the reason for the switch to cage free. The consensus answer was three to five times more labor, depending on the type of cage-free housing system used. Systems with doors that are used to contain hens early in the day can reduce labor needs since they also serve to reduce floor eggs. The panelists agreed that it is crucial that pullets be raised in a housing system that trains them for the type of aviary they will be in once they arrive in the layer house.
Three water quality demonstration projects to expand work in targeted watersheds
Nevada Iowa Journal | Posted on April 25, 2018Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig on Monday announced that three locally-led watershed-based demonstration projects will be expanding their work in targeted watersheds to accelerate implementation of practices that improve water quality. “We are excited for the next phase of these three projects as they focus on accelerating adoption of practices and broadening their reach to even more farmers and landowners,” Naig said. “The 55 rural and urban demonstration projects in place across the state have played a critical role in reaching out and demonstrating new water quality focused practices and encouraging Iowans to try something new.”The projects receiving extensions are: Headwaters North Raccoon River Water Quality Initiative Project: The project is led by the Buena Vista and Pocahontas Soil and Water Conservation Districts. North Raccoon Farm to River Partnership Water Quality Initiative, formerly the Elk Run Watershed Water Quality Initiative Project: The project is located in Carroll, Sac, and Calhoun Counties and led by Agriculture’s Clean Water Alliance. Leading a New Collaborative Approach to Improving Water Quality in the Squaw Creek Watershed: The project is located in Boone, Story, and Hamilton Counties and is led by Prairie Rivers of Iowa Resource Conservation & Development.
Cage-Free-Egg Laws Spur Cage Match Between States
Pew Charitable Trust | Posted on April 25, 2018Dennis Bowden has raised chickens in the town of Waldoboro, Maine, nearly his whole life. For more than 40 years, he raised his chickens in cages. Then four years ago, when he turned 65, he cut down his flock and went cage-free. The decision to switch was Bowden’s alone, but around the country many politicians have firmly taken sides on the issue of penning hens, hoping either to require egg producers to go cage-free or to protect conventional producers by mandating that stores stock their eggs. When California and Massachusetts enacted laws requiring that eggs produced and sold there be raised cage-free, 13 states including some of the nation’s largest egg producers sued, saying the laws violated the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.Iowa, the top egg-producing state in the country, went further and enacted a law to protect its conventional, caged-chicken industry. The state now requires any grocer participating in the federal food program for low-income mothers, infants and children, known as WIC, to sell conventional eggs alongside cage-free options.And last week, U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, introduced an amendment to the farm bill that would block states from regulating agricultural products that are also produced in other states — a clear shot at cage-free-egg laws.
Farmers’ share of food dollar at record low
The Fence Post | Posted on April 25, 2018USDA's Economic Research Service's Food Dollar Series recently revealed that in 2016 the farmers' share of the food dollar fell to 14.8 cents, down 4.5 percent from the prior year and the lowest level since the series was launched in 1993. When adjusted for inflation, in 2009 dollars, the farmers' share of the food dollar was 12.2 cents, down 11.6 percent from 2015 and again the lowest level since the series began. The farmers' share of the $1 spent on domestically produced food represents the percentage of the farm commodity sales tied to that food dollar expenditure. Non-farm related marketing associated with the food dollar, i.e. transportation, processing, marketing, etc., rose to a record-high of 85.2 cents.
Our View: Beware of Anti-Farm, Socialist Rhetoric
Farm Policy Facts | Posted on April 25, 2018Critics contend that farmers can pick up an extra shift or two at the local mill, so we don’t need a Farm Bill to deal with things like weather disasters, or trade wars, or volatile price swings. We didn’t think agriculture’s critics could get more out of touch, or heartless. But, they did. The “thinkers” who inhabit DC’s ivory tower think tanks now want farmers to work for free.Yes, you read that right. In fact, here’s the Cato Institute’s view on farm policies that help growers survive low prices: Food is essential for human survival and we would all be better served if its price was, like sunlight and air, zero. The benefits of cheaper food and reduced hunger easily outweigh any losses borne by the farm sector….The best farm bill is none at all. How we stumbled upon this little socialist gem is just as significant as Cato’s words.
Farm recovery from April's blizzard will take months
Wisconsin State Farmer | Posted on April 25, 2018As piles of snow diminish, gaping holes in the roofs of many barns across the state remain, evidence of the historic snowstorm that dumped record amounts of snow on Wisconsin April 13-16. As Secretary of Agriculture Sheila Harsdorf toured devastated farms on April 24, the damage she saw goes beyond crumpled barns and gaping holes in roofs. Losses include lower milk production from stressed cows, aborted pregnancies and injuries that show up months down the road.“It’s hard to believe the destruction,” said Sheila Harsdorf, Wisconsin’s secretary of agriculture. “It’s something we’ve probably never seen in our lifetime. If one operation has a disaster, other farms can pitch in and help take care of animals, and allow it to be rebuilt, but in this case, there’s so many structures that are damaged.” Jay Vomastic, owner of JJ&S Sunrise Dairy Farm, in Shawano, lost five cows when snow collapsed a barn on his farm, trapping cows in a "V" under trusses, Vomastic told WFRV-TV. "It's sad to see you know, years of work ... my grandfather, father and everybody built things up to be where it was at — one freak snowstorm and everything is wiped away," Vomastic said in an interview. Vomastic, who is looking at $300,000 worth of damage, according to media reports, said after clean up, they would get contractors in to look at rebuilding. "Is it going to be easy? Probably not, but the way the farming economy was struggling already, this is another backbreaker for the community that they didn't need," Vomastic said in an interview.
Ohio dairy farmers leaving at higher-than-usual rate
Feedstuffs | Posted on April 25, 2018The dramatic drop in milk prices is causing Ohio’s dairy farmers to leave the business at a higher than usual rate, according to The Ohio State University’s (OSU) College of Food, Agricultural & Environmental Sciences. While some farmers retire and give up their dairy licenses every year, there has been an uptick recently. In March 2018, there were 2,253 licensed dairy farms in Ohio – a drop of 59 farms in five months. “Farmers are deciding they can no longer dig any deeper into their equity to pay for what I call ‘the privilege of milking cows,’” said Dianne Shoemaker, Ohio State University Extension field specialist in dairy production economics.