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Agriculture News

Policy Change Would Allow Civil Or Criminal Action To Be Taken Against Livestock Haulers

CDL Life | Posted on October 17, 2016

The proposed policy change would allow civil or criminal penalties to be brought up against livestock haulers who handle animals in an inhumane manner when transporting them to slaughterhouses. Current law hold owners of farms and slaughterhouses solely responsible for instances of animal abuse in connection with slaughter.  The FSIS believes that the policy change will improve the welfare of the livestock by making sure that proper procedures for handling the animals are followed: “Many of these individuals are not employed by the establishment and thus are not required to follow instructions from the establishment on the handling of livestock in connection with slaughter.”


Hurricane Matthew inflicts significant damage on Carolina ag

Feedstuffs | Posted on October 17, 2016

The flood waters haven’t receded yet, but initial reports show that North Carolina’s agriculture industries took a beating from Hurricane Matthew. State agriculture officials do not have damage estimates, but the 48 counties affected by the storm are some of North Carolina’s largest agricultural counties.  “The eastern counties represent 71% of the state’s total farm cash receipts,” agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler said. “While lots of crops were harvested before the storm, many crops, such as soybeans, sweet potatoes, peanuts and cotton, were just in the early stages of harvest.”  In addition to crops, eastern North Carolina also has large poultry and swine populations. Initial reports show that 1.9 million birds, mostly broiler chickens, have died as a result of the storm. However, considering the extent of the flooding, state veterinarian Doug Meckes expects that number to rise.


Comments pour in about big Eastern Oregon dairy

Capital Press | Posted on October 14, 2016

The public will have another month to weigh in on a controversial new mega-dairy proposed at the former Boardman Tree Farm property.  More than 2,300 comments have already poured in to the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality on the Lost Valley Ranch, an operation that would add 30,000 cows to the area and generate roughly 187 million gallons of liquid manure each year.   ODA and DEQ are responsible for registering the dairy as a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO. But first, the agencies must approve a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit, which outlines how Lost Valley will manage wastewater and monitor for potential groundwater contamination. A public hearing was held July 28 at the Port of Morrow, where a majority of people favored approving Lost Valley’s permit application. Speakers included the project designer, local contractors and Marty Myers, general manager of neighboring Threemile Canyon Farms, which runs an even larger dairy with 70,000 cows. “Sustainable agriculture is really what we’re talking about here,” Myers said during the hearing.However, the bulk of written comments oppose Lost Valley, arguing such large dairies have a negative impact on air and water quality. Wym Matthews, CAFO program manager for ODA, said the sheer number of comments they received was unprecedented.


Heat inactivates avian influenza, researcher finds

Meatingplace (registration required) | Posted on October 14, 2016

The avian influenza virus may be quickly inactivated by heat, a USDA researcher has shown.  Erica Spackman, of USDA ARS, recently completed research that provides various time and temperature profiles to effectively inactivate the avian influenza virus in chicken litter. For example, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was inactivated after just one day at a temperature of 90°F (USDA recommends two days to ensure inactivation, though).


How does flooding impact NPDES permits?

North Carolina Dept. of Justice | Posted on October 13, 2016

Gary Baise found this ruling on the impact if flooding on animal agriculture that is very pertinent to what our some of our coastal regions are facing.   The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States without a permit, specifically an NPDES permit. Under the Clean Water Act, discharges from certain animal feeding operations that occur under certain rainfall conditions are subject to a narrow exemption from the NPDES regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). See§3.0, p 16 of EPA’s 1995 Guide Manual on NPDES Regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, EPA 833-B-95-001 (December 1995) (hereinafter “EPA’s 1995 CAFO Guide Manual”). According to 40 CFR 122, Appendix B, an animal feeding operation is not a CAFO if it discharges only in the event of a 25-year, 24-hour storm. See §3.1, p. 16 of EPA’s 1995 CAFO Guide Manual. 40 C.F.R. §411 defines a 25-year, 24-hour rainfall event as a rainfall event with a probable recurrence interval of once in twenty-five years as defined by the National Weather Service in Technical Paper Number 40, “Rainfall Frequency Atlas of the United States”, May 1961, and subsequent amendments, or equivalent regional or State rainfall probability information developed therefrom. In most of eastern North Carolina, this event is 5, 6 or 7 inches, depending on the precise location. This exemption applies to all feedlots, including CAFOs designated as such on a case by case basis.


Global Harvest Initiative examines down cycle in annual ag productivity report

DTN | Posted on October 13, 2016

A coalition made up of large agribusinesses and various consulting groups released its annual updated Global Agricultural Productivity report. The Global Harvest Initiative typically uses its agricultural productivity report to spotlight a particular topic in the U.S. as well as food production gains or challenges in a developing country around the world. This year the group tied together the needs of production, farmer economic needs in a down cycle and long-term sustainability goals for agriculture. "Our board wanted us to have a stronger focus on the five public-policy areas and really go into those," Margaret Zeigler, executive director of the Global Harvest Initiative, said in an interview with DTN. "And they also wanted to put an emphasis on the current global agricultural cycle." So the Global Harvest Initiative opted to place more emphasis this year on ways to look at the state of farming around the world and what kind of policies or strategies can support farmers during the current ag-business cycle. Zeigler said some of that decision was based on a letter an Iowa farmer sent her last year noting that farmers cannot stay in business when faced with a longer-term trend of lower commodity prices and what that means to food security.


Animal activist Anita Krajnc: Thug, buffoon or both?

Watt Ag Net | Posted on October 13, 2016

Anita Krajnc has been arrested multiple times for incidents involving pigs that are being transported to slaughter.  While wanting to prevent pigs, chickens or other animals from suffering is a noble cause, when a person’s actions to get that point across break the law and become a drain on legal system resources, perhaps things have been taken too far. And being a nuisance to law enforcement officers and the court system appears to be just what Canadian animal rights activist and Toronto Pig Save co-founder Anita Krajnc has done. Krajnc recently went on trial for criminal mischief charges for allegedly giving water to pigs in a truck that were headed to slaughter. She was asked by the driver to stop, but she did not. Some may wonder what harm that did. According to a Tornoto Sun opinion piece written by Keith Warriner, University of Guelph food science professor, Krajnc posed a threat to food safety. Canada, as well as other countries, has strict food safety regulations that are designed to prevent any cross contamination of ingredients, while ensuring no external agents come in contact with the production line. Doing something as simple as giving pigs headed to slaughter water violates those food safety regulations.


Substantial changes ahead in poultry antibiotic usage

Watt Ag Net | Posted on October 13, 2016

A recent WATT-Rennier Poultry Confidence Index poll predicted substantial changes in the use of antibiotics for broiler production.  In five years, 70 percent of respondents predicted that most antibiotic usage would be for the treatment of sick flocks, while the no-antibiotics-ever (NAE) category would represent 28 percent of broiler production.


PETA Attacks Indiana Poultry Operation

Hoosier Ag Today | Posted on October 13, 2016

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has launched an attack on a Northern Indiana poultry operation. PETA videos claiming animal abuse on farms are well known for their slick, one-sided, and often misleading claims.  The video released about the Culver Duck farm in Middlebury has many of these elements.  The heavily-edited video  claims to be an eyewitness account of animal cruelty; however, it spends more time  preaching vegan philosophy than documenting animal abuse, “Go vegan today and enjoy all the  flavor and nutrition and none of the cruelty.”  The abuse that is shown in the video is actually not abuse but the industry standard for euthanizing poultry, says Paul Brennan, with the Indiana State Poultry Association, “Part of what they are showing is cervical dislocation which is the standard AVMA approach for euthanizing sick or dying birds. Though it may not look great on video, the practice is acctually the most humane practice and is the industry standard.”


Climate change has doubled western US forest fires, says study

EurekAlert | Posted on October 13, 2016

A new study says that human-induced climate change has doubled the area affected by forest fires in the U.S. West over the last 30 years. According to the study, since 1984 heightened temperatures and resulting aridity have caused fires to spread across an additional 16,000 square miles than they otherwise would have--an area larger than the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. The authors warn that further warming will increase fire exponentially in coming decades. The study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Fires in western forests began increasing abruptly in the 1980s, as measured by area burned, the number of large fires, and length of the fire season. The increases have continued, and recently scientists and public officials have in part blamed human-influenced climate change. The new study is perhaps the first to quantify that assertion. "A lot of people are throwing around the words climate change and fire--specifically, last year fire chiefs and the governor of California started calling this the 'new normal,' " said lead author John Abatzoglou, a professor of geography at the University of Idaho. "We wanted to put some numbers on it." Warmth drives fire by drying out the land. Warmer air can hold more moisture, and the air ends up sucking it out of plants, trees, dead vegetation on the ground, and soil. Average temperatures in forested parts of the U.S. West have gone up about 2.5 degrees F since 1970, and are expected to keep rising. The resulting drying effect is evident in the rise of more fires. Williams published a study last year showing how climate-driven removal of moisture from land worsened the recent California drought, which was accompanied by widespread fires.


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