Agriculture News
Judge: Jury won’t take smell tour of North Carolina hog farm
The Seattle Times | Posted on April 4, 2018A federal judge says he won’t send jurors for a see-and-sniff tour of a North Carolina hog-growing operation at the center of a lawsuit claiming industrial-scale pork production causes ugly conditions. Judge W. Earl Britt ruled Monday that jurors would not get a true feel for conditions with one quick visit to a Bladen County farm growing animals for Virginia’s Smithfield Foods. Britt’s decision came as jurors were being selected for a trial that could shake the profits and change production methods of pork producers after a generation of raising hogs in confined conditions. The trial could take six weeks.Lawyers for the farm’s neighbors said the jury tour was requested just as the farm was removing millions of gallons of waste for the first time in 23 years.
Agriculture Is Being Left In The Digital Dust
Ag Professional | Posted on April 4, 2018Agriculture is the least digitized of all major industries, according to the McKinsey Global Institute’s Digitization Index. That’s right. Agriculture is dead last for living up to its digital potential. It’s never good when you realize you’re even being outflanked by slow-moving sectors such as government and education. In the digital horse race, our industry is being left in the dust. When you’re being beat by a bureaucracy, you know you’ve got serious problems. In the world of big data, self-driving tractors and combine yield monitor tech that was introduced more than a quarter century ago, one has to ask how modern agriculture is last in terms of digitization. Even with the amazing advancements in technology that mainstream agriculture has seen during the past two decades, the McKinsey report exposes just how far agriculture is behind compared with other industries.
Iowa will see 'hits across the board' as trade war with China escalates
Des Moines Register | Posted on April 3, 2018An escalating trade war between the U.S. and China will hit two key parts of Iowa's economy — farming and manufacturing. And the timing is terrible.China said Monday it will levy tariffs of up to 25 percent on pork, ethanol and dozens of other products that would hammer Iowa's ag economy as it struggles to get out of a lingering downturn."It's going to make a bad situation worse for agriculture," said David Swenson, an Iowa State University economist. "You're going to see hits across the board," including job losses, said Chad Hart, an ISU agriculture economist. "This will reach across Iowa, because it's impacting both manufacturing and ag sectors," Hart said. "That will hit the state economy. That will hit the state government."
Why I’m Quitting GMO Research
Slate | Posted on April 2, 2018I’m exhausted by the overwhelming negative responses the topic evokes in so many people. A few weeks ago, like thousands of other scientists around the globe have done before, I stood up in front of a public audience and “defended” my Ph.D. thesis to a jury of senior scientists. My time in GMO research creating virus-resistant plants has meant dealing with the overwhelming negative responses the topic evokes in so many people. These range from daily conversations halting into awkward silence when the subject of my work crops up, to hateful Twitter trolls, and even the occasional fear that public protesters might destroy our research. Little wonder then, that having finished my Ph.D., I’m part excited and part relieved to move to a new lab and work on more fundamental questions in plant biology: how plants are able to control the levels at which their genes are active. My first experience of the intensity of anti-GMO belief occurred during a public panel discussion about patenting crops and GMOs organized by my colleagues. The panel was interrupted by a protester shouting about how GM food was responsible for their American friends’ child’s autism. As the panelists tried to explain, there is no causal link between autism and GMOs (or vaccines for that matter), and GMOs have repeatedly been found to be perfectly safe for human consumption. But the protester readily dismissed these arguments in favor for what can only be described as a fervently held conspiracist belief. It really showed how futile researchers’ attempts at science communication can be.
AABP Creates Position Statement on Raised-Without-Antibiotics Programs
Dairy Herd Management | Posted on March 30, 2018Raised-without-antibiotics (RWA) programs for cattle production have become increasingly popular with consumers. However, when an animal in one of these programs needs antibiotic treatment for an illness or injury, they typically cannot stay in this type of marketing program. “As this segment of the cattle industry develops, producers and processors have looked to the bovine veterinary community for guidance on structuring these programs to both meet the needs of consumers as well as the cattle in our care,” says Dr. Brandon Treichler, chair of an American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) task force that addressed RWA programs from a cattle care standpoint.
A new Monsanto-backed company is on the verge of producing the first fruit made with CRISPR
Business Insider | Posted on March 30, 2018In a move aimed at securing its future, Monsanto has invested $125 million in a gene-editing startup called Pairwise. The alliance could tee up Monsanto, long known for its controversial dealings with farmers and its role in popularizing genetically modified organisms, to introduce some of the first produce made using the blockbuster gene-editing tool Crispr.In a call with Business Insider, the company hinted that strawberries or another type of fruit would be among the first Crispr produce to hit grocery-store shelves — a development it expects within five to 10 year
US per capita egg consumption still rising as protein craze continues, says egg board
Food Navigator | Posted on March 30, 2018While increasing numbers of food manufacturers are experimenting with alternatives to animal proteins, enthusiasm for all things plant based has not dampened the demand for eggs, with US per capita egg consumptionm rising again in 2017.
Lost Valley’s lender forcing sale of dairy’s herd
Capital Press | Posted on March 29, 2018he owner of Lost Valley Farm, a controversial Eastern Oregon dairy that has drawn the ire of environmental groups and run afoul of state regulators, may soon be forced to sell off its entire herd. Greg te Velde, of Tipton, Calif., began operating the dairy near Boardman, Ore. in 2017, which was permitted for up to 30,000 cows — making it the second-largest dairy in the state, behind neighboring Threemile Canyon Farms.
Animals farmed: welcome to our series
The Guardian | Posted on March 29, 2018There has been a revolution in the way we produce and consume meat and fish. Chicken, beef, pork or salmon were once rare Sunday-at-best luxuries. Now billions of people around the world can afford to eat fish and meat daily. Intensive farming has made this possible: the realisation that money could be saved – and prices driven down – by increasing the scale of production, and reducing exposure to what were once seen as essential components of farming, such as sunshine, quality of life for the animals, space and natural grazing. A new artificial lifecycle was introduced instead: electric lights to simulate day and night, heating systems to simulate seasons, selective breeding to speed up growth and fattening. Eggs are hatched on factory belts, chickens are kept in sheds and cages, pigs spend some of their lives in crates, cows are reared in barns. Some farmers stayed small – but not all could not match the cost savings of this model. Some got larger and larger. Farmers became business people. Business people bought out other farmers. In the process they made animal protein available to millions.
Kansas Passes Controversial Poultry Bill
US News and World Report | Posted on March 29, 2018Gov. Jeff Colyer has signed into law a measure aimed at luring large-scale poultry processors to set up shop in Kansas.Colyer signed the bill on Tuesday. It passed in the Senate last month and in the House March 12, the Lawrence Journal-World reported .It greatly expands the number of chickens growers can house in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) before they would be required to obtain a state environmental permit.The Kansas Department of Agriculture and other agribusiness groups strongly supported the bill, arguing it would enable Kansas farmers to produce more "value-added" meat products for consumers.