AgClips
Recent AgClips
Soil loss from the Midwest floods
Daily Yonder | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Agriculture, SARL Members and Alumni NewsAs devastating images of the 2019 Midwest floods fade from view, an insidious and longer-term problem is emerging across its vast plains: The loss of topsoil that much of the nation’s food supply relies on. Today, Midwest farmers are facing millions of bushels of damaged crops such as soybean and corn.
Ag woes keep Nebraska at back of pack in income gains
Lincoln Journal Star | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Agriculture NewsHigh-paying blue-collar jobs lifted incomes in West Virginia, New York and Illinois last year, even though the states lost residents, while farmers and government workers shared the pain of more stagnant income in Nebraska, Maryland and Washington, D.C.The new per-capita income numbers show how national policies and international markets directly affect state and local pocketbooks. Deregulation in the United States and a heat wave in China boosted coal demand in West Virginia, for example, while overseas mining and farming led to more giant truck manufacturing in Illinois.
Rural America's future isn't written
The Hill | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Rural NewsA recent New York Times opinion piece suggested that no one knows how stop the undermining of rural America from economic forces. While these forces have driven a growing divide between urban and rural communities, we can’t allow the past or the scale of the challenge deter from incremental progress or big ideas.It is time to have a serious and thoughtful discussion about the issues that are affecting small towns across this country. In an era of fragmentation, isolation and divisiveness, it is easy to discount rural communities and the people who live in them.
U.S. hit with two billion-dollar disasters so far in 2019
Farm and Dairy | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Agriculture, Rural NewsThe so-called bomb cyclone that brought heavy snow, blizzard conditions and major flooding to the Midwest in March landed with a resounding meteorological “ka-boom!” and became one of two billion-dollar weather and climate disasters this year. The other was a severe storm that struck the Northeast, Southeast and Ohio Valley in late February. And it’s only April.
ASF could wipe out a quarter of Chinese hog population
Watt Ag Net | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Agriculture NewsAfrican swine fever (ASF) is widespread in China, spreading elsewhere around the world and carries significant potential to impact all animal protein industries in 2019 and beyond.
EPA given 90 days to make decision on chlorpyrifos
Agri-Pulse | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Agriculture NewsThe 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has given the Environmental Protection Agency 90 days to decide whether to allow the use of chlorpyrifos. The appeals court issued a three-paragraph order today giving the agency until mid-July to respond to objections from farmworker and environmental groups to EPA's 2017 decision permitting continued use of the insecticide.
Missouri House backs landowners fighting wind energy line
AP News | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Energy, SARL Members and Alumni NewsThe Missouri House passed legislation that could effectively block one of the nation’s largest wind energy projects by prohibiting its developers from using eminent domain to run a high-voltage power line across the Midwest. The House vote targets a $2.3 billion project that would carry electricity generated by Kansas windmills on a 780-mile (1,255-kilometer) path across rural Missouri and Illinois before hooking into a power grid in Indiana serving eastern states.The project’s private developers say it has the potential to bring affordable, renewable energy to millions of homes.
N.J. approves $300M nuclear bailout — and your utility bill just went up
NJ.com | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Energy, SARL Members and Alumni NewsNew Jersey utility customers are officially committed to paying $300 million each year for the next three years to keep the state’s three remaining nuclear reactors open. The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities decided Thursday to award Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G), the state’s largest utility, three “Zero Emission Certificates” — massive subsidies that have been fiercely debated in Trenton for well over a year.
Scott Pruitt left the EPA mired in scandal. Now he is lobbying Indiana lawmakers.
Indy Star | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Energy NewsScott Pruitt, the embattled former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, registered Thursday as a lobbyist with state regulators. Pruitt's filings with the Indiana Lobby Registration Commission identify him as a self-employed consultant and list RailPoint Solutions LLC as his sole client.
America’s record high energy consumption, explained in 3 charts
Vox | Posted onApril 24, 2019 in Energy NewsThe US Energy Information Administration dropped some troubling new data this week: US energy consumption hit a record high in 2018 in large part due to the growing use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels provided 80 percent of total energy used in 2018. Consumption of natural gas and petroleum grew by 4 percent, while coal consumption declined by 4 percent compared to the year before. Renewable energy production also reached a record high last year, climbing 3 percent relative to 2017.