Agriculture

Last year started off on a promising note for dairy exports and was projected to possibly set new records. Tariff wars with China and Mexico along with a drop in cheese consumption, however, weighed heavy on prices. Milk sales were down 2.2% over the first 10 months of 2018. As for exports, during the first 10 months, the U.S. exported 16.3% of milk solids, most of which occurred before the tariffs. Experts say there were 30,000 few cows on average during August through October. [node:read-more:link]

The AVMA, Canadian VMA, and Federation of Veterinarians of Europe are calling for continuous monitoring of antimicrobial use and resistance at a global level. The AVMA also has created definitions of antimicrobial use for treatment, control, and prevention. A new joint statement from the AVMA, CVMA, and FVE "describes broad steps and strategies veterinarians around the world can take to preserve the effectiveness and availability of antimicrobial drugs while safeguarding animal, public and environmental health," according to a Dec. 6 announcement. [node:read-more:link]

A Marinette County farm is receiving backlash after a video surfaced of an employee using an electrically heated hot iron to burn the horn buds of the heads of calves. The video shows an employee using the hot iron on approximately 12-week-old calves without giving the calves an anesthetic or giving them pain relief afterwards. During the incident, the calves were kicking their legs, bellowing, flinching and attempting to pull their heads away from the hot irons. The employee also used metal restraints on them. [node:read-more:link]

The dairy market has been a tough market says Bryan Doherty, Vice President of Stewart-Peterson.Doherty relates that monthly increases in milk production and efficiency per cow still climbing have made the market difficult to turn around, largely because of the high supply of milk. However, things appear to be changing.“Prices are low enough where demand is on the grow,” Doherty says.Global dairy prices have continued to pick up steam through the New Year and beef prices are higher, too. [node:read-more:link]

Gov. Ralph Northam announced Thursday the recipients of fiscal year 2019 farmland preservation grants. Six localities have been awarded a total of $633,831 from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Office of Farmland Preservation. The funds will be used to permanently preserve working farmland through local Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs. PDR programs compensate landowners who work with localities to preserve their land permanently by voluntarily securing a perpetual conservation easement. [node:read-more:link]

Tyson Foods and the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced a partnership to develop initiatives aimed at accelerating sustainable food production. The partnership will focus first on helping Tyson meet its land stewardship goal, announced in April 2018, to work with farmers to improve practices across two million acres of corn production by 2020. [node:read-more:link]

Delegates urged the administration and Congress to work together to end the government shutdown as soon as possible. The current shutdown means farmers and ranchers are being delayed in securing loans and crop insurance as well as disaster and trade assistance. Delegates voted to favor negotiations to resolve trade disputes, rather than the use of tariffs or withdrawal from agreements. [node:read-more:link]

A Mansfield man was arrested Jan. 14, after he admitted to setting more than a dozen race horses loose from the Stark County Fairgrounds, along Wertz Avenue.One horse ventured onto Meyers Lake, which was partially frozen, and drowned while first responders attempted a rescue effort. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Forest Service has built its first corral for wild horses, which could allow it to bypass federal restrictions and sell the animals for slaughter. The agency acknowledged in court filings in a potentially precedent-setting legal battle that it built the new pen in Northern California for mustangs gathered this fall on national forest land along the Nevada border because of restrictions on such sales at other federal holding facilities.The agency denies claims by horse advocates it has made up its mind to sell the more than 250 horses for slaughter. [node:read-more:link]

Speaking at the Irish Grassland Association’s (IGA) Dairy Conference on January 9 in Co. Cork, John Roche from Down to Earth Advice presented on the topic of producing marginal milk to the large crowd in attendance on the day. “In the Irish system of milk production, base milk is cheap and marginal milk is very expensive to produce. [node:read-more:link]