Agriculture

A team of researchers from the University of Missouri (MU), Kansas State University (KSU), and biotechnology company, Genus plc, have successfully produced a litter of pigs genetically resistant to a deadly porcine virus through gene editing. Transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV), a coronavirus, is highly contagious and commonly infects pig intestines. The team edited the gene responsible for making the ANPEP enzyme, resulting in a litter of seven pigs with a null gene that did not produce the enzyme. [node:read-more:link]

In a first for the Bay Area, developers hoping to break ground on a new housing complex next year are wooing potential residents by offering a quirky but increasingly popular perk. It’s not a golf course, health club or even a pet spa — the big draw will be a farm, and access to all the tomatoes, zucchini and kale you can eat. [node:read-more:link]

he Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released it third quarter Ag Finance Databook last Friday and its headline read “Large Scale Financing Drives Ag Lending Activity Higher.” In summarizing its findings, the report said, “Large operating loans made by large agricultural banks led to a significant increase in farm lending in the third quarter of 2018. A sharp increase in the volume of loans exceeding $1 million was a primary contributor to the increase in non-real estate farm lending. [node:read-more:link]

A judge has further delayed an Arkansas hog farm's permit application to operate near the Buffalo River watershed. Newton County Circuit Judge John Putman issued a stay Wednesday on an order issued in August by the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. The order had reopened the permit application process for C&H Hog Farms. The farm is permitted to house about 6,500 hogs on Big Creek. [node:read-more:link]

DowDuPont Inc.’s agriculture unit is taking a $4.6 billion charge in the third quarter after the business lowered its long-term expectations on sales and profits, a move that underscores challenges agribusinesses are facing in the Americas. DowDuPont said in securities filings Thursday that it recalculated the fair value of goodwill and other intangible assets on the books of the merged Dow and DuPont company, and determined that the values of assets in its agricultural unit had fallen. [node:read-more:link]

“Non-real estate lending increased significantly in the third quarter, according to the National Survey of Terms of Lending to Farmers. The total volume of non-real estate farm loans was more than 30 percent higher than a year ago.  This sharp growth in farm lending followed steady increases earlier in 2018 and represents the largest annual percentage increase in the third quarter since 2002.” [node:read-more:link]

Over time working capital has deteriorated and debt-to-asset ratios have increased on grain farms across the Midwest. Average levels of working capital and debt-to-asset ratios still suggest an overall strong financial position for grain-based agriculture. However, averages mask diversity in financial positions across farms. Ranges in debt-to-asset and working capital positions are presented in this article using data on grain farms enrolled in Illinois Farm Business Farm Management (FBFM). [node:read-more:link]

Researchers have discovered a Cas9 enzyme that can target almost half of the locations on the genome, significantly widening its potential use. [node:read-more:link]

Many of the trees that Ford’s Forest Health Company removes are too thin to turn into conventional lumber products, such as boards and planks. So he chips them. And now, six years into his 10-year tree thinning contract with the Forest Service, he has far more chips than he can sell. Four orange-brown heaps of wood chips, as high as 20 feet tall, loom around his small sawmill in the mountain town of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. The heaps collectively cover five acres, he calculates. They’re so vast that his company has halved the area it thins per year to between 500 and 600 acres. [node:read-more:link]

The federal judge overseeing lawsuits alleging dicamba-based weedkillers have caused crop damage has denied requests by defendants Bayer AG unit Monsanto and DuPont that he dismiss several class action claims broader than those contained in the multidistrict litigation master complaint. U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh in Cape Girardeau, Missouri denied the companies’ motion to strike the claims from seven individual lawsuits, rejecting their arguments that allowing them to remain would harm judicial efficiency and violate civil procedure laws. [node:read-more:link]