Agriculture

Refusing the European Union’s request leaves the door open for retaliatory measures.  The Trump administration has refused to accept European Union alternatives to U.S. safeguard tariffson importedsolarproducts, according to a joint statement issued by the World Trade Organization.Safeguard measures are permitted under WTO rules if a country faces serious injury due to a surge in imports of a particular product. However, the country implementing the safeguards must compensate their trading partners in other areas, or accept that other countries can put up their own barriers. [node:read-more:link]

Prof Eleanor Riley, director of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, said new techniques will soon allow breeders to genetically engineer disease resilience and, in some cases, immunity into pedigree animals, saving farmers millions of pounds a year. “Genes can be modified to massively increase resistance and resilience to infection,” she said. [node:read-more:link]

Harrisburg Dairies said taking in small farms affected by Dean Food’s recent decision to downsize due to a surplus in the market was a no brainer. “It really made the decision for us, when it came to needing our milk supply to be independent producers that we can have a direct relationship, monitor and inspect ourselves,’ said Alex Dewey Assistant General Manager of the Harrisburg Dairies. [node:read-more:link]

Politicians, economists and executives agree China isn't playing fair on trade. But there's a lot of disagreement about whether President Trump's hefty tariffs are the right weapon for fighting back. American farmers and Walmart shoppers are likely to feel pain in this fight, and a lot of them voted for Trump. There are two ways Americans are highly likely to get hurt in a U.S.-China trade spat. First, prices on a lot of items will almost certainly rise, and second, China is going to hit back with tariffs on American products. The other knock is expected to come when China fights back. [node:read-more:link]

South Dakota officials have been working for decades to rebuild the state’s dairy industry, and now they’re seeing results. One of the state’s biggest cheese plants is expanding, tripling its production capacity to make it not only the largest plant in South Dakota, but one of the biggest in the U.S.Government officials and company leaders were in Lake Norden late last month for an official ground breaking celebration at the Agropur cheese and whey plant where construction is already started to make the plant capable of processing more than 9 million pounds of milk per day. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has rejected a petition from an animal rights group that sought more humane treatment for turkeys and chickens sent to slaughter.  California-based Mercy For Animals filed a petition in November asking the USDA to include poultry in the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act, a 1958 law that makes it a crime to abuse or neglect pigs and cows during slaughter.The head of the USDA's Office of Food Safety said in denying the petition that other regulations ensure humane poultry treatment. [node:read-more:link]

Fred Morgan was already deep in debt from rebuilding his milking barn after a fire when milk prices plunged in 2015, setting off an economic drought that is now entering its fourth year — the worst in recent memory for dairy farmers in New York State. Mr. Morgan, 50, saw no way to save the dairy farm in central New York State that he took over as a teenager from his ailing father and ran with his wife, Judy, and their son, Cody.With the farm operating at a loss and facing foreclosure, Mr. Morgan believed his only solution was his $150,000 life insurance policy. [node:read-more:link]

The Missouri Department of Agriculture has funds available to assist Missouri producers with the cost associated with relabeling Missouri agriculture products for retail sale. [node:read-more:link]

Perdue is the U.S. secretary of agriculture, running an agency with a $140 billion budget and a low profile. He may be the most aggressive enforcer of President Donald Trump’s pro-business and deregulatory agenda that the fewest Americans have ever heard of. [node:read-more:link]

Newtrient would like to commend the Pennsylvania Senate for its passage of Senate Bill 799, which will open the door for dynamic, new technologies to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, address Pennsylvania’s growing drinking water crisis and support Growing Greener initiatives. Many factors contribute to Pennsylvania’s water quality problem, including agricultural runoff from Pennsylvania’s long-standing livestock population. Livestock, however, provides viable solutions for the state’s complex water challenges. [node:read-more:link]