Agriculture

Attorneys for a once-neglected horse are filling an appeal after an Oregon judge dismissed their lawsuit last year, finding that animals don't have a right to sue. [node:read-more:link]

A panel of Idaho officials will meet next week to consider paying $260,000 for attorney fees and other costs after losing a lawsuit over an unconstitutional law that sought to criminalize surreptitious filming at agricultural operations. The law was dubbed the “ag-gag” law by critics. It was passed by the Legislature in 2012 after an undercover investigator for a group called Mercy for Animals filmed workers abusing cows at an Idaho dairy. [node:read-more:link]

The latest agriculture disaster spending bill provides further proof that despite all rhetoric, lawmakers are not concerned with helping farmers and ranchers protect themselves from risks they cannot manage on their own. Instead, it’s the latest instance of tapping the Treasury to socialize risks while privatizing profits. The result shovels more federal dollars to powerful interests who can – and should – do a better job of managing predictable risks in their chosen line of work. [node:read-more:link]

The Natural Resources Conservation Service is likely to receive a decidedly mixed bag of comments on a rule it issued last month that seeks to clarify when producers have wetlands on their farms. Wetland advocates are concerned that NRCS is trying to weaken its highly erodible land protections by allowing faulty maps to be used to determine whether wetlands exist on the landscape. [node:read-more:link]

United States tariffs on steel and aluminum will cost the nation nearly $2 billion in agricultural exports each year -- even if a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada is ratified, according to a study from Purdue University. Purdue economists said the trade deal would increase food exports to those countries by about $454 million annually. But if the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

In fact, a commonly proposed cut to crop insurance is a cap on crop insurance subsidies per recipient per year. For example, the President’s budget proposal for 2019 includes a $500,000 adjusted gross income crop insurance subsidy cap. The implication of an effective premium cap would be to fully subsidize small farms while subsidizing larger farms up to a point, after which all premiums would be unsubsidized. Since subsidy is a function of risk, coverage levels, unit structure, and insurance plan chosen, subsidies per acre across all crops vary (Figure 2). [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is improving the process by which it makes wetland determinations, updating guidance to improve consistency and timeliness as well as to responding to feedback from farmers and other stakeholders. The updates do not change the definition of a wetland for USDA program participation purposes, but rather provide greater clarity and uniformity in how NRCS makes determinations nationwide.Updates to the conservation compliance provisions include:Identifying that determinations will rely on precipitation data from 1971-2000. [node:read-more:link]

Smithfield announced last year that it will use covered lagoons and digesters on 90 percent of its hog finishing farms within 10 years, a move that could reduce greenhouse gasses, create renewable energy and open opportunities in the biogas sector. [node:read-more:link]

The future availability and price for veal in the state of California is cloudy following the passage of a law mandating space requirements for raising food animals, according to the American Veal Association (AVA).The organization is warning that the passage of Proposition 12 in California last year will force farmers in the Golden State to raise about 66 calves in a barn that was designed to hold 200 calves because of the act’s space requirements. Starting Jan. [node:read-more:link]

A new study calling for drastic reductions in meat and dairy products and for policy measures to disincentivize production of these food products is wrong and an attack on animal agriculture, said the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA). “Let’s call the EAT-Lancet Commission’s report what it is — yet another organized attack on animal agriculture that is not reflective of the current and accurate science on the industry’s substantial sustainability advances,” said Joel Newman, president and chief executive officer of the AFIA. [node:read-more:link]