Agriculture

A new Senate Bill is trying to make water and milk the default options for children's meals.
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One area that needs greater clarity – and which has been the subject of much discussion of late – is the wide variety of plant-based foods that are being positioned in the marketplace as substitutes for standardized dairy products. Many of these plant-based foods use traditional dairy terms (e.g., milk, yogurt, cheese) in the name of the product. [node:read-more:link]

In a move hailed by environmentalists and nearby landowners, New Mexico’s top water-rights official has dismissed as speculative a company’s application to tap billions of gallons of groundwater from a closed basin deep beneath the Plains of San Agustin in western New Mexico.The denial is the latest twist in the 11-year quest by Augustin Plains Ranch LLC to siphon off 54,000 acre-feet, or 17.6 billion gallons, of water annually and pipe it to as-yet-undetermined communities in Central and Northern New Mexico.Douglas Meiklejohn, executive director of the Santa Fe-based New Mexico Environment [node:read-more:link]

Charity evaluators have knocked HSUS for its practices—and they’re not the only ones. Anonymous reviews posted to employer review site Glassdoor by current and former HSUS staff reveal an insider’s look at HSUS. And it’s rough.  One recent review from an employee who has worked at HSUS for more than a decade calls the organization “toxic” and littered with “incompetent managers” who have undue influence in the organization. [node:read-more:link]

Launched in 2008, the Buy Local, Buy Wisconsin (BLBW) competitive grant program is designed to strengthen Wisconsin’s agricultural and food industries by working to reduce the marketing, distribution, and processing hurdles that impede the expansion of sales of Wisconsin’s food products to local purchasers. Managed by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP), the grants can help farms and business more efficiently process, market and distribute food in local markets including stores, schools and institutions. [node:read-more:link]

Some residents of a southern Nevada town that has long embraced a local herd of burros want the federal government to do more to control the wild donkey population. Residents of Beatty are complaining that the burros are causing disruptions by knocking down fences, trampling sensitive habitat and damaging property, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported .The town has celebrated the animals as symbols of the community’s roots, growing from the early 20th-century mining camp. [node:read-more:link]

ascade, Idaho, rancher Phil Davis said wolves killed three of his cows in early August. Separately, three other cows were killed nearby. “We lost three cows to wolves this last week, three days in a row,” said Davis, who for decades has studied Idaho wolf issues and has been outspoken about wolves’ impacts on livestock. The kills were Aug. 2-4 on Davis Cattle Co. property.USDA Wildlife Services confirmed the three cows were killed by wolves, as well as three other cattle on property close by, Public Affairs Specialist Tanya Espinosa said. [node:read-more:link]

Reparations for the worst-ever U.S. natural gas leak will involve cow-dung duty. That’s the takeaway from Sempra Energy’s $119.5 million settlement with Los Angeles and California agencies over the leak almost three years ago at the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility owned by the company’s Southern California Gas utility. Almost a quarter of the money will go to fund a program to capture methane from dairy farms that can be processed into something called renewable natural gas. This RNG can be substituted molecule for molecule for the fossil fuel version and injected into the vast U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Michigan's dairy industry is getting a huge boost. Two investments totaling $510 million are expected to create nearly 300 jobs with the building of a new dairy processing facility in St. Johns, Michigan. Glanbia has partnered with Select Milk Producers Inc. and Dairy Farmers of America to form Spartan Michigan LLC, which will develop a new $425 million, 146-acre dairy processing facility in St. Johns, which is expected to create 259 new jobs. The facility will process more than 8-million pounds of milk per day. [node:read-more:link]

Following nine years of research and extensive public outreach, the State Water Resources Control Board today released a final draft plan to increase water flows through the Lower San Joaquin River and its tributaries—the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers—to prevent an ecological crisis, including the total collapse of fisheries.  By limiting water sent to cities and farms and keeping more for fish, the proposal by the State Water Resources Control Board's staff likely will ignite a round of lawsuits and political squabbles. [node:read-more:link]