Agriculture News
US Rejects EU Solar Tariff Alternative at the WTO
Green Tech Media | Posted on March 26, 2018Refusing the European Union’s request leaves the door open for retaliatory measures. The Trump administration has refused to accept European Union alternatives to U.S. safeguard tariffson importedsolarproducts, according to a joint statement issued by the World Trade Organization.Safeguard measures are permitted under WTO rules if a country faces serious injury due to a surge in imports of a particular product. However, the country implementing the safeguards must compensate their trading partners in other areas, or accept that other countries can put up their own barriers. In response to the Section 201 solar trade case, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia and the EU demanded compensation after President Trump signed the tariffs into law on January 22.
Scientists on brink of overcoming livestock diseases through gene editing
The Guardian | Posted on March 26, 2018Prof Eleanor Riley, director of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, said new techniques will soon allow breeders to genetically engineer disease resilience and, in some cases, immunity into pedigree animals, saving farmers millions of pounds a year. “Genes can be modified to massively increase resistance and resilience to infection,” she said. “The health and welfare benefits of this could be enormous.”Roslin, one of a handful of sites in the world with the capacity for both gene editing and running animal trials, recently announced it had made pigs that appear to be completely immune to Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV), also known as blue ear disease, which costs the swine industry £120m a year in pig deaths and expensive biosecurity. In a separate trial, Roslin is testing pigs designed to be resistant to African swine fever, a highly infectious disease that has recently swept across the Baltic countries and into Poland, causing alarm among farmers.
5 dairy farms affected by Dean Food’s downsizing have new place to sell milk
edairynews | Posted on March 26, 2018Harrisburg Dairies said taking in small farms affected by Dean Food’s recent decision to downsize due to a surplus in the market was a no brainer. “It really made the decision for us, when it came to needing our milk supply to be independent producers that we can have a direct relationship, monitor and inspect ourselves,’ said Alex Dewey Assistant General Manager of the Harrisburg Dairies.
In a U.S.-China trade war, Trump voters likely get hurt the most
The Washington Post | Posted on March 23, 2018Politicians, economists and executives agree China isn't playing fair on trade. But there's a lot of disagreement about whether President Trump's hefty tariffs are the right weapon for fighting back. American farmers and Walmart shoppers are likely to feel pain in this fight, and a lot of them voted for Trump. There are two ways Americans are highly likely to get hurt in a U.S.-China trade spat. First, prices on a lot of items will almost certainly rise, and second, China is going to hit back with tariffs on American products. The other knock is expected to come when China fights back. Senior Chinese officials have made it clear they'll take “necessary measures” to retaliate for Trump's tariffs. All indications from Beijing are that China's countertariffs will target goods and jobs in parts of the United States that voted for Trump. At the top of China's list are agricultural products such as soybeans and hogs.Soybeans and grains are the second-largest U.S. export to China. Trump carried eight of the top 10 soy-exporting states, and the critical swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin are in the top 15 soybean exporters, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Airplanes, the top U.S. export to China, could also end up on the hit list.
Cheese plant expansion signals South Dakota dairy poised for growth
Tri State Neighbor | Posted on March 22, 2018South Dakota officials have been working for decades to rebuild the state’s dairy industry, and now they’re seeing results. One of the state’s biggest cheese plants is expanding, tripling its production capacity to make it not only the largest plant in South Dakota, but one of the biggest in the U.S.Government officials and company leaders were in Lake Norden late last month for an official ground breaking celebration at the Agropur cheese and whey plant where construction is already started to make the plant capable of processing more than 9 million pounds of milk per day.
USDA rejects Mercy for Animals humane bird slaughter request
Fox News | Posted on March 22, 2018The U.S. Department of Agriculture has rejected a petition from an animal rights group that sought more humane treatment for turkeys and chickens sent to slaughter. California-based Mercy For Animals filed a petition in November asking the USDA to include poultry in the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, a 1958 law that makes it a crime to abuse or neglect pigs and cows during slaughter.The head of the USDA's Office of Food Safety said in denying the petition that other regulations ensure humane poultry treatment.
Farmer Suicides Mark Tough Times for New York Dairy Industry
edairynews | Posted on March 22, 2018Fred Morgan was already deep in debt from rebuilding his milking barn after a fire when milk prices plunged in 2015, setting off an economic drought that is now entering its fourth year — the worst in recent memory for dairy farmers in New York State. Mr. Morgan, 50, saw no way to save the dairy farm in central New York State that he took over as a teenager from his ailing father and ran with his wife, Judy, and their son, Cody.With the farm operating at a loss and facing foreclosure, Mr. Morgan believed his only solution was his $150,000 life insurance policy. He said he planned on killing himself so his family could receive the payout.“I’d sacrifice my life so my family could keep the farm,” Mr. Morgan said. His wife persuaded him otherwise.
Missouri Department of Agriculture program helps farmers bulk up branding
Hannibal Courier Post | Posted on March 22, 2018The Missouri Department of Agriculture has funds available to assist Missouri producers with the cost associated with relabeling Missouri agriculture products for retail sale.
Trump’s Under-Radar Farm Chief Remakes Agency
Bloomberg | Posted on March 22, 2018Perdue is the U.S. secretary of agriculture, running an agency with a $140 billion budget and a low profile. He may be the most aggressive enforcer of President Donald Trump’s pro-business and deregulatory agenda that the fewest Americans have ever heard of. The short Perdue list includes reversing a regulation to boost protection of the welfare of animals in organic-food production; supporting revocation of a 2015 clean-water directive; axing another Obama-era decree giving small poultry producers more power to sue big buyers such as Tyson Foods Inc.; and reorganizing the USDA to give more official power to staffers tasked with promoting production and trade rather than food safety or rural development. Yet there is at least one area important to farmers and Trump where the agriculture secretary has been at odds with his boss: trade. Trump wants to erect new barriers while Perdue and many farmers who depend on exports do not.
Technology can help clean Pennsylvania's water
The Daily Item | Posted on March 22, 2018Newtrient would like to commend the Pennsylvania Senate for its passage of Senate Bill 799, which will open the door for dynamic, new technologies to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, address Pennsylvania’s growing drinking water crisis and support Growing Greener initiatives. Many factors contribute to Pennsylvania’s water quality problem, including agricultural runoff from Pennsylvania’s long-standing livestock population. Livestock, however, provides viable solutions for the state’s complex water challenges. We know Senate Bill 799 is going to help because it will provide farmers with access to more than 100 new technologies to reduce manure impacts. SB 799 will direct taxpayer funding away from expensive infrastructure projects to low cost on-farm reductions. Senate Bill 799 will transfer the performance risk of reducing nutrient losses to that portion of the private sector, which can deploy comparatively low-cost technologies and have significantly greater impacts. Most importantly, many of these manure management technologies can reduce the nitrogen, phosphorus, ammonia and other greenhouse gas impacts from livestock manure that are the most costly and difficult to capture by the current publicly financed facilities.