AgClips
Recent AgClips
The E.U.-Japan Trade Deal: What’s in It and Why It Matters
The New York Times | Posted onJuly 10, 2017 in Agriculture, Federal NewsThe European Union and Japan announced a broad agreement on Thursday that would lower barriers on virtually all the goods traded between them, a pointed challenge to President Trump on the eve of a summit meeting of world leaders in Germany. Though the deal still needs further negotiation and approval before it can take effect, it represents an act of geopolitical theater, a day before a Group of 20 summit meeting begins in Hamburg.
EEOC seeks sanctions in JBS USA discrimination case
Meat + Poultry | Posted onJuly 10, 2017 in Energy NewsThe Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a motion to impose sanctions against JBS USA, a unit of São Paulo, Brazil-based JBS SA, for losing or destroying evidence in a religious discrimination and retaliation case. In a statement, JBS USA denied any wrongdoing.
Washington looks to WSU for elk hoof disease research
Skagit Valley Herald | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in Agriculture NewsThe state Department of Fish & Wildlife continues to investigate the cause and spread of a hoof disease affecting elk in the state, including in Skagit County. The disease is caused by a bacteria that can cause hoof deformities. The bacteria is known to also cause lameness in affected livestock.Its spread into northwest Washington remains a mystery, as the disease was first found in southwest parts of the state years earlier.
USDA says cranberry referendum marketing order fails
USDA | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in NewsThe U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced that a proposed amendment to the federal marketing order for cranberries grown in the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and New York (Long Island) did not pass in a referendum held from Jan. 23 through Feb. 13, 2017. As a result, the amendment proposed to allow the Cranberry Marketing Committee to receive and expend voluntary contributions from domestic sources will not be implemented.
Feds to pay local governments $465 million for 2017 land use
Capital Press | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in Federal NewsThe U.S. Department of the Interior will pay nearly $465 million this year to local governments primarily in rural areas that have come to rely on the funds because they cannot levy taxes on federal lands. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the sum in Nevada on Monday. The $13 million increase this year is slightly less than the average annual growth of $22 million over the last decade. Most of the money goes to Western states, where the Interior Department collects most its $8.8 billion in annual revenue from commercial activities on public lands.
New insecticide to remain on market despite ESA violation
Capital Press | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in Agriculture, Federal NewsCyantraniliprole, a new insecticide that’s significant for blueberry and citrus growers, will remain on the market even though a federal appeals court has ruled its approval violated the Endangered Species Act.
2nd pack of gray wolves spotted in Northern California
Capital Press | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in Agriculture, Rural NewsA female gray wolf, her mate and at least three pups are the second pack of wolves spotted in Northern California since the species went extinct there in 1924, state wildlife officials said. The gray pups were born this spring in Lassen National Forest to a female wolf of unknown origins. Her mate is the son of OR7, a wolf with a tracking device that was the first of its kind in almost a century to migrate into California from Oregon, the Department of Fish and Wildlife said.Biologists began surveying the Lassen National Forest area in May after they found evidence of wolf presence.
Baby eels have changed fortunes for Maine’s fishermen
Boston Globe | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in NewsOn tidal rivers and streams that course through coastal Maine, where salt- and freshwater collide, people wearing headlamps are flocking to the water’s edge in the middle of the night like 19th-century miners sifting the earth for specks of gold. They’re searching for baby eels, better known as elvers, pound for pound one of the most expensive live fish in the world. The first time Julie Keene caught $33,000 worth of baby eels in a single night, she started crying because she thought she’d done something wrong.
Opioid Overdoses Swamp Medical Examiners
Pew Charitable Trust | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in Rural NewsDr. David Fowler’s staff is scrambling to keep up with the surging stream of corpses flowing through the doors. In his 15 years as Maryland’s chief medical examiner, Fowler has seen natural disasters, train crashes and mass shootings. Heroin- and cocaine-related homicides have plagued this city for decades. But he says he’s never seen anything that compares to the opioid epidemic’s spiraling death toll. As fentanyl, carfentanil and other deadly synthetic opioids seep into the illicit drug supply, it’s only getting worse.
In North Carolina, areas that support GOP lawmakers are faring worse now
The News & Observer | Posted onJuly 9, 2017 in Rural NewsRepublicans have an iron lock on North Carolina’s General Assembly largely because of their support in rural areas, but after six years of Republican rule those areas are faring far worse than the state’s urban areas. A new report from the UNC Population Center shows that of the state’s 553 municipalities, 225 saw population decline in 2010-16. But those leaving – mostly younger people – are not leaving the state. Instead, they’re going to the new North Carolina, the larger cities that offer better jobs and a more diverse social life.