Agriculture

Egg Farmers of Canada has weighed in on Tuesday’s Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) announcement. [node:read-more:link]

The nine-month Saudi-led embargo of Qatar has an undisputed mascot for Doha’s defiance: the cud-chewing American cow. Thousands of airlifted dairy cows landed in Qatar in the first months of the boycott that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt established against the country in June. The airborne bovines created a spectacle that highlighted the gas-rich sheikdom’s ability to overcome sanctions and provide fresh milk to its 2.7 million residents.The herd settled at Baladna Farms, 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of Doha. [node:read-more:link]

A month after Scott Pruitt began leading the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the former Oklahoma attorney general rejected an Obama-era recommendation from agency scientists to ban a widely used pesticide from use on food crops. That means farmers can continue to spray chlorpyrifos on crops ranging from corn to cranberries. The change was welcomed by farm groups and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which said farmers need access to the chemical to stop infestations. [node:read-more:link]

Immigrants working on a remote Kansas ranch toil long days in a type of servitude to work off loans from the company for the cost of smuggling them into the country, according to five people who worked there. There are no holidays, health insurance benefits or overtime pay at Fullmer Cattle Co., which raises calves for dairies in four states. The immigrants must buy their own safety gear such as goggles.One worker spent eight months cleaning out calf pens, laying down cement and doing other construction work. Esteban Cornejo, a Mexican citizen who is in the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

“Right now, some of the toughest we’ve had in my 35 years,” says Daniel Pearson, an organic dairy farmer in River Falls. “It’s definitely a time to more than tighten your belt, but really look at expenses and really look at doing as much as you can to market everything that you have.” Now, robotics companies are hoping to fill gaps in the industry. Pearson says the labor shortage and low milk prices are factors in the tough market. So how is the problem being addressed? Enter: farm robots. [node:read-more:link]

An AVMA working group has taken up the task of providing needed information to help veterinary professionals contribute productively to the national response to human opioid addiction. Veterinarians prescribe or dispense opioids for very limited uses, and do so relatively infrequently; however, it is critical for certain animals to receive these medications. [node:read-more:link]

This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) announced 2018 veterinary shortage areas for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program (VMLRP). In total, NIFA has designated 187 areas across the country as having inadequate access to livestock and public health veterinarians. Now, NIFA is accepting applications for veterinarians who want to apply for a VMLRP award to serve in one of these areas. [node:read-more:link]

Diseases that afflict livestock and wildlife are increasingly emerging in Alaska, said Bob Gerlach, DVM, state veterinarian.  Other diseases are increasing in northern-tier states and Canada due to climate change, increase in human population, and worldwide movement of agricultural products. Alaska’s cool climate and isolation has for millennia helped protect wildlife and the people who subsist on it from many of the diseases that thrive in warmer, lower latitudes, according to Dr. Gerlach. But that’s changing, as Alaska is no longer isolated from what’s happening globally, he said. [node:read-more:link]

Western Illinois might be close to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, but it's the driest part of the state this year. "We really haven't really had any measurable rain since the middle of October," says Ken Schafer, who farms winter wheat, corn and soybeans in Jerseyville. "I dug some post-holes this winter, and it's just dust."  His farm is in an area that the U.S. Drought Monitor considers "severe." Some of the nation's worst areas of drought are in southwest Kansas, much of Oklahoma and a slice of Missouri. [node:read-more:link]

Perdue Foods and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) have reached an agreement in which Perdue will pay an administrative penalty of $77,300 and an associated $7,601 assessment for expenses associated with the DNREC’s investigation into the company’s violations of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. [node:read-more:link]