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Agriculture News

Tyson sends 'open letter' to Leavenworth County; is exploring other options

Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on September 28, 2017

"[A]fter Monday’s reversal of support by the Leavenworth County commissioners, we will put our plans in your community on hold. We still have interest in Leavenworth County, but will prioritize the other locations in Kansas and other states that have expressed support," said Tyson Foods' group president of poultry, Doug Ramsey, in an "open letter" to the "Leavenworth County Community." Tyson Foods is weighing its options after the Leavenworth County Commission rescinded its “resolution of interest” to issue $500 million in revenue bonds to support a proposed $320-million chicken processing complex near Tonganoxie, Kan.


Cereal maker to acquire Bob Evans Farms

Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on September 28, 2017

Cereal maker Post Holdings announced it will acquire Bob Evans Farms Inc. in a $1.5 billion deal to gain a presence in the breakfast sausage category and strengthen its position overall in the higher-growth packaged foods market.


Canadian government gives pork packer a C$5.3 million boost

Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on September 28, 2017

Ontario is putting up C$5.3 million to help Conestoga Meat Packers boost productivity and expand its pork processing capacity by 86 percent, while creating 170 new jobs at the company’s Breslau plant, the provincial government announced today in a news release. Conestoga Meat Packers is Ontario's second-largest pork processor and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Progressive Pork Producers Co-operative Inc., a co-operative of 157 southwestern Ontario hog producers. 


USDA fails to monitor foreign owners of farmland

The New Food Economy | Posted on September 27, 2017

A law requiring foreign investors to report transactions of farmland to the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been on the books for almost 40 years.  But as the amount of foreign-controlled farmland doubled in millions of acres between 2004 and 2014, the USDA has lapsed in enforcing the law, a review of USDA documents has found. The Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act was passed in 1978 to combat fears about increasing foreign investment in farmland.About 27.3 million acres of agricultural land in the United States are controlled – either owned or under a long-term lease agreement – by foreign investors, according to a USDA database of foreign investment in farmland.But, since 2011, the USDA has only assessed 10 fines under the law, worth $115,724, according to records obtained by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting through the Freedom of Information Act. And no fines were assessed in 2015, 2016 or so far in 2017.


‘They’re scared’: immigration fears exacerbate migrant farmworker shortage

NPR | Posted on September 27, 2017

The pickers range in age from 21 to 65, and all of them are Mexican. As in the rest of the country, growers in heavily agricultural northern Michigan rely overwhelmingly on migrant laborers to work the fields and orchards. According to the farm owners, the workers either came from Mexico on temporary H2A visas or they have paperwork showing they are in the U.S. legally.Farmers from Georgia to California say they have a problem: not enough workers to harvest their crops.It's estimated anywhere from half to three-quarters of farm workers are in this country illegally, and some growers say that President Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric has made a chronic worker shortage even worse.Johnson Farms' owner, Dean Johnson, 67, says it's just about impossible to find Americans to do this work. "We've tried. We really have," he says. "Sometimes people come out on a day like today and they'll pick one box, and then they're gone. They just don't want to do it.""It's really sad," adds Johnson's daughter, Heatherlyn Johnson Reamer, 44, who manages the farm. "They'll come, they'll check it out, and usually they're gone within a day or two."What's behind the farmworker shortage?For one, a stronger U.S. economy that's driving many seasonal workers into better-paying, year-round work, like construction."There's a huge need in the trades," Reamer says, "especially when we have natural disasters like we've seen these last few years with the hurricanes and everything. And we've actually lost workers who said, 'Hey, I got a job. I'm gonna go work for this construction company in Florida.' And they would leave."Another factor: The children of migrants are upwardly mobile, and are leaving the fields behind. Many are going to college and finding better work opportunities in professions outside agriculture.Add to that: Trump's crackdown on immigration, which many growers complain is crimping their labor supply. "As we all know, there's a pretty good number of workers in this country illegally," Dean Johnson says. "They're scared. Those people don't want to travel anymore. They're in Florida and Texas. They won't come up from Mexico.""There wouldn't be food"


EPA seeking input on ‘potential reductions’ in RFS volumes

Agri-Pulse | Posted on September 27, 2017

A notice from the Environmental Protection Agency has the biofuels community up in arms as they face the prospect of a potential hit to renewable fuel blending levels.  the EPA released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) giving public notice and inviting comment on “potential options for reductions in the 2018 biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel volumes, and/or the 2019 biomass-based diesel volume under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.” A 15-day comment period will be triggered when the NODA is published in the Federal Register.  In July, the EPA announced Renewable Volume Obligations for 2018 as well as biomass-based diesel for 2019 at levels that didn’t exactly thrill biofuels supporters. The biodiesel RVO was proposed at 2.1 billion gallons, the same level proposed for 2018. That negated some of the happiness about the Trump administration leaving room for 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuel, the amount called for in the legislation that created the RFS.In the NODA, the agency discusses reductions of biomass-based diesel by 315 million gallons, lowering the advanced biofuel and total renewable fuel RVO by the equivalent of 473 million ethanol Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. The NODA cites concerns over biodiesel imports which it says “could affect our analysis” of factors used to set the Renewable Volume Obligations in the first place.


Forced to Farm? California Lawsuit Raises Question

Ag Web | Posted on September 27, 2017

A new lawsuit in California is asking the question if county government can force producers to keep farming in order to keep your own land.
The Pacific Legal Foundation is stepping in to defend Willie Benedetti, owner of Benedetti Farms and Wille Bird Turkeys.He wants to build a house on his land for his son, but Marin County’s new land use plan requires landowners who currently use their land for agricultural purposes to remain “actively and directly engaged” in agriculture in perpetuity.For Benedetti, that would mean he must choose between working forever or retiring and giving up his property. He is suing the county and the California Coastal Commission for this unconstitutional condition on his right to use his property.


Guggenheim Museum Is Criticized for Pulling Animal Artworks

The New York Times | Posted on September 27, 2017

Artists and museums are often in the thick of free speech debates — think of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s battle with the Brooklyn Museum over a Virgin Mary artwork with elephant dung and more recently a fight over an exhibit that evoked Emmett Till’s mutilated corpse. Typically the art world holds its ground, emerging bruised but resolute. But in two recent controversies, the protesters seem to be winning.On Monday, the Guggenheim decided to pull three major works from a highly anticipated exhibition after pressure from animal-rights supporters and others over the show “Art and China After 1989: Theater of the World.” This, together with the Walker Art Center’s recent move to dismantle Sam Durant’s sculpture “Scaffold” in response to protests, has art leaders concerned that museums are setting worrisome precedents when threatened with organized pressure tactics. “When an art institution cannot exercise its right for freedom of speech, that is tragic for a modern society,” the artist Ai Weiwei said in a telephone interview, referring to the Guggenheim’s decision. “Pressuring museums to pull down artwork shows a narrow understanding about not only animal rights but also human rights.” The three works in the Guggenheim show, which opens Oct. 6, were created between 1993 and 2003 and were intended to symbolically depict oppression in China. One video, “Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other,” shows four pairs of pit bulls on nonmotorized treadmills, trying to fight even as they struggle to touch. Another video, “A Case Study of Transference,” shows two pigs mating in front of an audience. And an installation — “Theater of the World,” a central work of the show — features hundreds of live crickets, lizards, beetles, snakes, and other insects and reptiles under an overhead lamp.


Syngenta Corn Settlement Reached

DTN | Posted on September 27, 2017

Syngenta  announced a settlement with farmers who sued the company following the release of Agrisure Viptera and Agrisure Duracade MIR 162 corn traits. Details of the settlement have not been released at this point, but other media outlets reported on Tuesday the settlement was worth about $1.5 billion.According to a news release from Syngenta, the settlement, which is subject to court approval, would create a settlement fund for the "submission of claims by eligible claimants" who contracted to price corn or corn byproducts after Sept. 15, 2013."Information concerning the settlement fund, claims process and other details will become available after the parties execute and submit the proposed settlement agreement and other papers to the court later this year," the company said in a news release.


Gassy Cows Warm The Planet. Scientists Think They Know How To Squelch Those Belches

National Public Radio | Posted on September 23, 2017

Cattle pass a lot of gas, and the methane from their flatulence and especially, their belches, is an expanding burden on the planet. The greenhouse gas has a warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide.

Livestock account for 14.5 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, with over half of that coming from cattle, according to a 2013 report from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Given that, some environmentalists might choose to eschew milk and beef, but scientists think they've figured out a way for us to one day have our cattle and eat them, too — gas-free.

The key is breeding less-gassy cattle, and scientists now know it's possible because of a study that won the Public Library of Science Genetics Award on Thursday. The study, originally published in the journal PLoS Genetics last year, showed that a cow's genetics determine which microbes populate its gut — and some of those microbes produce the methane that eventually makes its way into the atmosphere.


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