AgClips
Recent AgClips
Keep ranchers on the land, and the land stays open
High Country News | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsIt turns out that the men and women who graze cattle on America’s public lands are largely a level-headed bunch. No one paying attention during the 41-day standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon could have missed the deafening silence from about 22,000 public-lands ranchers when Bundy and Co. urged all of them to tear up their federal grazing permits and start demanding the “return” of public lands to “the people.” Absent any substantive evidence that ranchers are radicalized, opponents of public-land grazing are reprising the argument that ranchers are subsidized.
Chemical safety law that gives EPA more power passes Congress
High Country News | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Federal NewsWednesday, June 8: The Senate Tuesday approved a major overhaul of Toxic Substances Control Act, sending it the President Obama, who is expected to quickly sign it. The normally divided Congress got together this week to take on a major overhaul of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, giving the Environmental Protection Agency broad new authority to regulate chemicals in millions of products American use every day. “When Americans go to the grocery store and hardware store, they assume products they buy have been tested and are safe; they aren’t,” Sen.
California Water board to refine enforcement procedures after ruling
Capital Press | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsCalifornia water regulators will re-examine the way they determine water rights violations in the wake of the State Water Resources Control Board’s dismissal of a proposed $1.5 million fine to a water district east of the San Francisco Bay area. Officials issued the fine to the Byron Bethany Irritation District at the height of the drought last summer, but the water board on June 7ww affirmed two hearing officers’ earlier ruling that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the district took water it wasn’t entitled to under its century-old water right. As a result, the board will refine how
N.Y. may lease state land to new farmers
WCAX | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsNew York state lawmakers want to give a helping hand to new farmers. Lawmakers this week passed legislation that directs the state to make a list of state-owned properties that could be leased or sold to those looking to get into agriculture.The bill also requires the state to create programs to advise new farmers about agricultural taxes, farm financing and other details that could help them enter the industry.
Small in size, Delaware is a giant in agriculture initiatives
The Produce News | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsAlthough growers in Delaware grow numerous fruit and vegetable crops, such as asparagus, broccoli, apples, cabbage cantaloupes, cucumbers, green beans, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, squash, strawberries and tomatoes, the bulk of its production is in sweet corn, watermelons and peaches. Delaware Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Kee said that, as with the majority of Eastern growing regions, crops are running a bit late due to cold and wet weather in recent months.
Safeguarding More Farm Land In Pennsylvania
WDAC | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsThe Pennsylvania Agricultural Land Preservation Board safeguarded an additional 1,926 acres on 26 farms in 16 counties through the state’s nation-leading farmland preservation program during Thursday’s June board meeting. Since the program began in 1988, federal, state, county and local governments have invested more than $1.3 billion to preserve 522,545 acres on 4,977 farms in 57 counties for future agricultural production. The board preserved farms in 16 counties including Berks, Chester, Cumberland, Lancaster, and York.
Coalition urges rejecting national organic checkoff
Feedstuffs | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Federal NewsA coalition representing more than 6,000 organic farmers from the western, midwestern and eastern U.S. has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to reject the Organic Trade Assn.'s (OTA) proposal to establish a national organic checkoff program. The 2014 farm bill included language that would allow USDA to institute a multi-commodity organic checkoff program, if desired by the industry.
Great Recession Changed U.S. Migration Patterns
Univsersity of New Hampshire | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Rural NewsThe economic shocks of the housing-market crisis and Great Recession were associated with striking changes in net migration patterns in both rural and urban America, with rural farming communities experiencing different migration trends than other rural areas, according to new research funded by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station. Ken Johnson, a demographer and professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire, and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin, found: As the economic situation deteriorated, fewer Americans migrated.
Mississippi catfish farmers fight for stricter safety laws
The Clarion Ledger | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsIn an industry that’s lost over half of its jobs in the past decade, Mississippi’s catfish farmers have by no means given up to heated competition from abroad. Rather, the state’s catfish farmers, which produce over half of U.S. farm-raised catfish, labor daily under strict safety inspection laws while fighting to make sure their industry rivals in Asia are held up to the same standards. After an eight-year battle, American catfish farmers rejoiced when the U.S.
North Dakota Fines Crop Insurance Agency, Orders Credits to Farmers
Insurance Journal | Posted onJune 16, 2016 in Agriculture NewsNorth Dakota Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm has fined an insurance firm that sold crop insurance in that state and ordered restitution to farmers. The North Dakota Insurance Department announced the multi-layered disciplinary action against The Climate Corporation a/k/a The Climate Insurance Agency (formerly known as Weatherbill), a licensed business insurance entity that sold crop insurance products in the state from 2011 to 2014.