Agricen, a Loveland Products Company, announced today that the Company’s groundbreaking farming film, "Prove it to me" has won two Telly Awards, one for videography and one in the green/eco-friendly category. “Prove It to Me” is a 26-minute documentary that follows five growers from Iowa and Arkansas during the 2015 growing season. It was produced for Agricen by Back Home Productions, a digital agency based in North Carolina. [node:read-more:link]
Immigrant workers from Myanmar make up a large percentage of the workforce at Dakota Provisions' turkey plant in Huron, South Dakota, and the community has made those immigrants feel welcomed. Huron, South Dakota, home of Dakota Provisions, has helped immigrants from Myanmar, and vice versa. Heuston, who began recruiting the refugees from Myanmar in 2007, said those workers are reliable and have helped Dakota Provisions have a low employee turnover rate. [node:read-more:link]
Low pathogenic avian influenza has been detected on a duck farm near St. Catharines [node:read-more:link]
Their latest experiment, documented in Biological Letters, showed that goats will gaze imploringly at their owners when they are struggling to complete a task, a trait common in dogs but not wolves, for example, who have never learned how to co-exist with humans. The team has also demonstrated that goats can work out how to break into a sealed box using levers, a task used to gauge intelligence in apes. They can even remember the skill four years later without prompting. [node:read-more:link]
The North Dakota Farmers Union will fight for better price protections for milk to stimulate the state's slumping dairy industry, the group's president said. Watne said the price paid by consumers is not representative of the price paid to producers. The national average price received by farmers for milk fell to $14.5 per hundred pounds in May compared with $16.8 a year ago and $24.2 per hundred pounds two years ago in May [node:read-more:link]
Cargill is selling its two Texas cattle feedlots as it continues to redefine its protein businesses. It is Cargill’s latest in a series of divestments in businesses with low margins, specifically those in meat. A year ago, Cargill sold its entire pork business to JBS USA Pork for $1.45 billion, a deal that combined two of the country’s largest pork processors. [node:read-more:link]
An animal welfare group says it found abuses at a Kinston poultry plant in the months preceding a new law that now deters the exposure of farm and other workplace conditions. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contends the abuses occurred at the Sanderson Farms poultry plant. The organization says it planted an employee there during the three months last year leading up to the law going into effect on Jan. 1. The company says it investigated after learning of the allegations from PETA in February, but found no evidence that any abuses had occurred.
The survey says farmland values are down about 9% from where they were last year. That number may change a bit as we wrap things up, but in order to get that thing to not be negative would be a real surprise, so I think the direction is pretty clear that we’re adjusting to the lower income environment, the lower price environment, the lowered expectations about what prices are going to be in the future. [node:read-more:link]
The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) has updated its Margin Protection Program (MPP) website -futurefordairy.com– with new materials to assist dairy producers considering enrollment in the third year of the federal dairy safety net program. The enrollment period officially opened July 1 and ends Sept. 30, 2016, for coverage in calendar year 2017. Farmers already participating in the program can change their coverage level during this three-month enrollment window. [node:read-more:link]
A regular update of agricultur law cases around the country. [node:read-more:link]
