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Agriculture News

Foreign-born workforce vital to local and national economy

Garden City Telegram | Posted on March 9, 2017

The President said in September that undocumented immigrants are costing the U.S. more than $113 billion annually. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) was reportedly the source of that number, and they noted that state and local governments pay the vast majority of that amount at $84 billion a year, but also reported that the actual net cost incurred by undocumented immigrants residing illegally in the U.S. is closer to $99 billion. But officials in various segments of the agricultural industry, including dairy, meat and produce, all seem to agree on one thing: the foreign-born workforce is vital to American agriculture, and in many ways it is still in need of enhancement. As for the local economy, Lona DuVall, president of the Finney County Economic Development Corporation, said the presence of foreign-born workers, undocumented or otherwise, has been a boon to the community.“We caution our community members and our business owners to realize that a lot of things they hear about in the national news just simply aren’t happening here,” DuVall said. “When they tell the stories of immigrants who may or may not be taking advantage of the system in some communities, we don’t feel like that’s happening here.”  DuVall said 5,000 jobs have been created in Finney County over the last few years, adding that the current level of job creation would not be sustainable without the immigrant influx. “I think it’s just important for people to ask the questions locally,” she said. “Don’t buy into the rhetoric. Don’t believe everything you hear or see that is happening in other places, because that’s not the situation in our community.” Kristi Boswell, the Washington, D.C.-based director of congressional relations on labor and immigration at Farm Bureau, said more than 80 percent of the agricultural workforce in the U.S. is foreign-born, and more than half are presumed to be undocumented.


With Farm Labor Getting Scarcer, Big U.S. Farms Are Preparing To Turn To Robots

Forbes | Posted on March 9, 2017

Buoyed by an inexpensive migrant workforce, California has been the United States’ agricultural mainstay for nearly a century, currently producing about 60 percent of the nation’s fresh produce. But as the state’s minimum wage approaches $15 an hour and competition from a growing Mexican economy mounts, producers face unprecedented operating costs and a workforce that has dropped by 60 percent since the 1990s.  Add to this President Trump’s moves to restrict immigration, which threatens to significantly curtail the sector’s already depressed labor supply. Leading California-based growers like Driscoll’s Berries and Taylor Farms are feeling the immediacy of Trump’s executive orders, as millions of dollars of specialty crops are growing right now that will require a workforce to pick them at the end of the season. Together they spend over a billion dollars on labor each year. “Nothing short of our businesses are at risk here,” said Kevin Murphy, CEO of Driscoll’s. And yet, unlike the CEOs of Tesla, Under Armour, and Johnson & Johnson, agribusiness leaders have not received their invitation to the White House to discuss agriculture’s place within the administration. Murphy and Taylor Farms CEO Bruce Taylor are both looking to automation – ie robots – to tackle their sector’s labor problems. “Everyone in this industry sees the limited nature of labor and its increasing cost, and I believe Driscoll’s Berries is in a position to accelerate the kinds of advancements we need so that people can pick twice as fast- and hopefully make twice as much as they do today.” Murphy said. “We can’t spend the next 10 years doing this, we’ve got to get this going in the next two to three.”


Data Coalition, Growers Join to Launch National Ag Data Cooperative

Hoosier Ag Today | Posted on March 9, 2017

A cooperative of growers and an agricultural data nonprofit have agreed to combine their technology platforms and create a vital resource for data-driven agriculture — a neutral, secure and private data storage repository controlled by growers. The combined platforms will be known as AgXchange™ and will be an independent data repository commercially available through the Growers Ag Data Cooperative (GADC) where producers can control, store, view and share their farm data assets.


New Holland Announces Data-Sharing Agreements

Wisconsin Ag Connection | Posted on March 9, 2017

New Holland has announced it has secured agreements to enable wireless data transfer capabilities between its PLM Connect precision land management system and service providers, including Decisive Farming, Encirca services, Onsite, and MapShots, Inc.  If they so choose, users of PLM Connect will have the ability to share their agronomic data from their management portal directly to and from these third-party providers.  "We are very excited to add these providers which will allow our customers to be able to seamlessly share their data through PLM Connect," said Luke Zerby, New Holland's Precision Land Management Marketing Manager. "New Holland has a long and storied history of providing their customers with the latest tools to help them be successful and profitable."  Depending on the services offered by the provider, these producers may elect to share yield maps, guidance line patterns and much more from any computer or tablet connected to the Internet. In return, the service providers will be able to send resulting prescriptions and analysis.


The Outlook for U.S. Agriculture From USDA’s Chief Economist

Illinois Farm Policy News | Posted on March 6, 2017

Dr. Johansson noted that, “Farm income has fallen dramatically since 2013, falling almost 30 percent in real terms. That is the largest 4-year drop in farm income in 40 years, when real farm income fell more than 45 percent between 1973 and 1977.  We have seen record production in major commodities over the past few years, and as a result prices are down significantly.  Baseline projections show flat farm income throughout the 10-year forecast period.” With respect to farmland values, Dr. Johansson explained that, “While the farm income forecast is down by almost 50 percent in nominal terms since the peak in 2013, farmland values remain relatively strong. While they have come down off their highs from two years ago, those values continue to underlie a relatively strong debt- to-asset ratio, which is now expected to be 13.9 percent in 2017, up from the low point in 2012 of 11.3 percent, but well below the peak of more than 22.2 percent in 1985.


Federal Circuit Court Affirms $455M Award To Bayer In Dow Patent Case

Law 360 | Posted on March 6, 2017

The Federal Circuit upheld a $455 million award to Bayer CropScience NV after an arbitration panel found that Dow Agrosciences LLC infringed its patents on weed control technology, finding that Dow failed to meet the high bar for overturning such an award. The appeals court ruled that Judge Raymond Jackson of the Eastern District of Virginia correctly affirmed the award last year, although it agreed with Dow that the amount of interest on the award must be modified.


Dairy waste floods homes near Yakima

King 5 | Posted on March 3, 2017

An Outlook dairy has unleashed a flood of hazardous water into and around nearby homes. According to the Department of Agriculture, a small levee broke Wednesday in a nearby field owned by Deruyter Brothers Dairy. A mix of water and dairy waste then moved across another farm's compost piles, traveling further downhill toward a cluster of homes. At least four homes were damaged, with dairy waste flooding the living space of at least one of them. The Department of Health is working to test drinking water, but is alerting residents not to drink it. They are also working to give residents clean water. Meanwhile, officials from Yakima County and the Washington State Department of Agriculture were going door to door in the neighborhood Thursday to share the information and drinking water alert.


New York Governor:Farmers have saved $36.6 million since assessment rule changed

Times Union | Posted on March 2, 2017

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is noting that farmers have, since a change more than three years ago that lowered the rate at which farmland assessments can rise, saved a total of $36.6 million on property taxes. The shift lowered the maximum allowed rate of increase from 10 percent to 2 percent per year. The idea was to help keep property and school taxes bearable for the state’s farmers who may be land rich but cash poor. Here are the details along with a regional breakdown and a bushel full of happy quotes: Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced more than $36.6 million in savings for farmers across the state through the first three years of the Agricultural Assessment Cap. Governor Cuomo signed the cap into law in 2013, preventing agricultural assessments from being increased by more than two percent per year. The previous cap was set at 10 percent. By keeping assessment increases low, farmers can rely on a more predictable tax climate and better plan for the future.


A second chance at farming

Farm Futures | Posted on March 2, 2017

Dale McClellan rebuilt his grandfather’s bankrupt milk processing company into a leading business and became a champion for agriculture.  McClellan, who had grown up milking cows, was just 23 when the company — and his family — went broke.“I was young and just trying to survive, but I had a burning passion to get back into processing because I didn’t feel it was our fault that we got out,” McClellan recalls. “They bled him to death through pricing, but that happened to every family milk plant in the United States. National brands squished them. Then supermarket chains started building their own plants and squished the national brands.” He considers it a defining moment — a spark that ignited a lifelong effort to champion agriculture. Now M&B Dairy is thriving, despite tough times for dairy farms everywhere. That success happened, in part, because McClellan forced himself to climb out of his shell and become a face of the milk industry in west-central Florida.


Spotlight back on California's Prop 2

Feedstuffs | Posted on March 2, 2017

Attorneys general seek Supreme Court review of ongoing lawsuit challenging Prop 2, while first egg producer charged criminally regarding welfare standards. In 2008, California voters passed the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, also known as Proposition 2, with 63.5% support. Prop 2 requires that an egg-laying hen must be able to fully spread her wings without touching another animal or a side of the enclosure. In the battle over the law, state attorneys general have made new promises to challenge the law, while The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) led an investigation that will bring the first charges against an egg farm for violating Prop 2.


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