AgClips
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As Wave Of Closures Continue, Iconic Charlotte Dairy Farm Auctions Cattle And Machinery
Vermont Public Radio | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Agriculture NewsDairy farms around Vermont are struggling amid low milk prices that are in some cases well below the cost of production. The result is that an increasing number of farms are starting to go out of business. Last week, the iconic Nordic Farms in Charlotte auctioned off its cows and machinery. The Agency of Agriculture says 12 farms have called it quits just since January and that leaves the state with 750 dairy farms down from 813 last March.
Trump’s U.S.-South Korea “great deal” isn’t much different from the existing one
Bloomberg | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in NewsThe revamped U.S.-South Korea accord unveiled earlier this week isn’t much different from the existing pact that Trump often condemned as “disastrous.” Most changes made to tariffs, automotive quotas and agricultural preferences were narrow in scope or incremental, according to trade experts. Trump has regularly threatened to cancel several trade deals -- including the one with South Korea -- if he didn’t secure major changes.
Minnesota is considering doubling its number of rural mental health counselors. To two.
Minnesota Post | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Agriculture NewsTed Matthews drove past acres of fields, racing to meet with a farmer who called threatening to kill himself. That’s when he got a call from another farmer in a different part of the state who was also threatening suicide. Since he couldn’t be in two places at once, he frantically got on his phone to try to find someone else who could help the second farmer.Matthews might have the toughest job in the state of Minnesota.
EPA staffers get talking points playing down human role in climate change
The Washington Post | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Federal NewsEnvironmental Protection Agency staffers received a list of “talking points” this week instructing them to underscore the uncertainties about how human activity contributes to climate change. A career employee in the department’s Office of Public Affairs distributed the eight talking points to regional staffers.
CoBank 2018 Year Ahead Report: Forces That Will Shape the Rural Economy
CoBank | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Rural NewsExpect an expanding global economy, strong U.S. consumer confidence and persistent economic recovery in many rural areas, but temper that optimism with another year of on-farm belt tightening due to lingering financial stress from low commodity prices, says a wideranging 2018 outlook report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division. “The rural economy is uniquely impacted by what happens in Washington, the broader U.S. economy and around the world,” says Dan Kowalski, vice president of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division.
3 Rural Iowa has a housing crisis. Here's how a handful of communities are solving it
Des Moines Register | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Rural NewsThe need for housing in southwest Iowa is so acute that each new obituary reads like a real estate listing. "The joke is that good homes sell at the funeral home," said Manning City Clerk Dawn Meyer.This story of Iowans desperately looking for suitable housing is hardly unique to Manning. At the inaugural Iowa Rural Development Summit in 2016, organizers heard the same complaint over and over: There just is not enough housing outside of Iowa's booming metropolitan areas.The problem is widespread, affecting small communities in every corner of the state.
Minnesota median farm income down again
Minnesota Star Tribune | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in NewsMinnesota farmers saw thin profits in 2017 for the fifth consecutive year, with one-third of them losing net worth and median farm income down again compared with 2016. “There is a lot of slow bleeding going on out there,” said University of Minnesota Extension economist Dale Nordquist, who worked on the latest analysis of farm finances. “It becomes a crisis for some individual farms who don’t have a strong enough balance sheet to withstand this extended downturn.”The marginal profits don’t come as a surprise, since bumper crops in the U.S.
The impact on Iowa of China's proposed tariff on pork
Iowa State Daily | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Agriculture NewsChina announced tariffs on $3 billion of U.S. products on Friday in response to President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on $60 billion of Chinese produced goods. There are 128 items on China’s proposed tariffs list including wine, steel and fruit. But most importantly for Iowa, pork is also on the list.Iowa is the number one pork producing state in the country. If these tariffs come into place, not only would agricultural trade decrease as a whole, but pork prices could also fall.China is the second largest market for United State’s agricultural exports.
Rural America gains populaiton for first time in 6 years
Daily Yonder | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Rural NewsNonmetropolitan counties saw an increase in population over the last year -- the first such gain since 2011. The increase was slight and confined to rural counties that are closest to cities, according to a report from the UNH Carsey School of Public Policy.
The FCCs blurry vision of satellite broadband
Daily Yonder | Posted onMarch 29, 2018 in Rural NewsThe availability of broadband soared from 2015 to 2016. Or did it? The claimed increase in broadband availability may have more to do with a bureaucratic change in the reporting system than in technology.