Agriculture News
N.E. Oregon makes progress on water puzzle
Capital Press | Posted on January 9, 2019It was a crisis more than 60 years in the making. The Umatilla Basin in northeast Oregon is home to some of the state’s most productive farmland, famously growing more than 200 different crops including wheat, corn, potatoes and watermelon. Irrigation pivots dominate the countryside, transforming scrubby desert into lush, green fields.The development of the region’s farms and cities, however, came at a price underground. As early as 1958, regulators began to see groundwater declines in the Butter Creek area of Umatilla and Morrow counties. Between 1976 and 1991, the Oregon Water Resources Department designated four critical groundwater areas within the basin — Butter Creek, Stage Gulch, Ordnance Basalt and Ordnance Gravel — to address the shrinking aquifers.The designation allowed the Water Resources Commission to restrict groundwater pumping, taking once valuable agricultural land out of production or returning it to dryland crops.Reeder now serves as chairman of the Northeast Oregon Water Association, or NOWA, a nonprofit corporation founded in 2013 to seek and coordinate solutions to the basin’s water woes. The plan, revealed in 2014, involves building three massive new pipelines, up to 78 inches in diameter, to deliver Columbia River water to farms and ranches in the critical groundwater areas. By doing that, farmers would no longer have to pump water from the aquifers, allowing them to recharge.The water would be temporarily offset, or mitigated, by area municipalities with certified water rights that are transferred and left in the river.Wooed by promises of economic and environmental benefits, Oregon lawmakers approved $11 million in grants during the 2015 Legislature for the pipelines. After years of negotiating with key environmental groups and officials, Reeder said they are now on the cusp of moving forward.
Iowans hope to cash in big on hemp. But they need lawmakers' help to make it happen
Des Moines Register | Posted on January 9, 2019The farm bill's hemp provision opens up production of a plant that can be used for food and animal bedding, as well as to make cloth, high-protein feed, fuel and plastics that are biodegradable, said Christopher Disbro, the Iowa Hemp Association's board president. For example, North Face and Patagonia already use hemp fiber in their winter gear. And BMW uses it as a composite fiber in its doors, Disbro said."The real exciting part for Iowa farmers is that we can be the center of the next economic boom," Disbro said.But legislative leaders must consider a raft of issues before hemp seeds hit Iowa soil, decisions that could set up Iowa to cash in — or risk missing out on billions of dollars in the hemp industry, experts say.The choices lawmakers face include deciding whether to allow hemp to be used to make increasingly popular and lucrative cannabidiols — the non-psychoactive compound that's in everything from chocolates to body creams and dog treats to relieve a host of maladies."There will be a windfall of investment coming into this industry, from every direction, and we need to make Iowa a magnet," said Ethan Vorhes, a northeast Iowa cattle producer who wants to grow hemp as a feed supplement. "Or those investment dollars will go somewhere."Iowa is one of 11 states with no hemp production laws.
Court rules Iowa Ag-Gag law unconstitutional
Southwest Iowa News Source | Posted on January 9, 2019The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa on Wednesday struck down the Iowa Ag-Gag law, holding that the ban on undercover investigations at factory farms and slaughterhouses violates the First Amendment.Iowa’s Ag-Gag law criminalizes undercover investigations at a broad range of animal facilities including factory farms, puppy mills, and slaughterhouses, preventing advocates from exposing animal cruelty and environmental, workers’ rights, and food safety violations.
Farm Animal Deaths Due to Fire Nearly Doubled in 2018
VMD Today | Posted on January 9, 2019The number of farm animals that perished in potentially preventable barn fires in the United State doubled between 2017 and 2018. According to an Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) analysis of media reports, more than 150,000 farm animals died over the past 12 months. However, it is believed that the actual number of fires and animal deaths is likely higher because laws and regulations vary by state, and municipalities are not generally required to report barn fires and livestock losses that occur within their boundaries.
USDA Delays Deadline for Tariff Relief Applications
Ag Web | Posted on January 9, 2019USDA has delayed the deadline for applications for the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) payments. Farmers had until Jan. 15 to apply for the tariff relief payments, but applications were stopped by the partial government shutdown when Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices closed December 28. USDA will resume taking applications for MFP when the government shutdown ends. The deadline will extend for as many days as FSA offices are closed by the ongoing shutdown. The May 1 deadline for submitting 2018 production has not been changed according to a USDA spokesman. Farmers who applied for the program and had certified 2018 production before FSA offices closed on Dec. 28 will receive payments as scheduled despite the shutdown, according to USDA Under Secretary Bill Northey.
Farming needs a new policy direction
Western Producer | Posted on January 9, 2019Canadian dairy farmers have been deprived of 3.5 percent of our dairy market to European cheese under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, 3.5 percent more to Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership countries, and under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, dairy farmers will lose an additional 3.9 percent of Canada’s market. The USMCA also removes our dairy sector’s ability to counter the U.S. dairy industry’s aggressive dumping of high-protein milk ingredients into Canada, and it gives the United States the power to monitor and approve changes to Canadian dairy policy. The $98 million “compensation” package will inevitably pit dairy farmers against each other because funds are being provided to help automate and computerize farms, which will increase production in a shrinking market. This is a recipe for farm consolidation, price depression, job loss, a downward spiral in local economies and further dispossession of the next generation of aspiring farmers. It is hard to imagine how it is possible to compensate for the damage done by recent trade agreements. The Alberta government recently announced it will impose production discipline on the province’s oil companies to bring the price of bitumen-based oil above its cost of production — essentially supply management for the energy sector. Why is it so difficult for the federal government to understand the importance of supply management in agriculture?
High court rejects animal cases
DTN | Posted on January 8, 2019The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied attempts to make oral arguments before the court by 15 states in lawsuits against California and Massachusetts over claims of regulating agricultural production across state lines. Without commentary, the Supreme Court denied a pair of court cases, including Missouri and 12 other states versus California. The Supreme Court also denied a similar case led by Indiana and 12 other states against Massachusetts, though the court also noted that Justice Clarence Thomas would have granted the motion for a hearing.The cases are similar, and most of the same states joined Missouri or Indiana in one or both cases. Missouri initiated a case against California's law involving cage standards for egg-laying hens for those eggs to be sold in California.Massachusetts has a similar law blocking the sale of eggs, pork and veal in the state based on confinement standards, as well, prompting Indiana to lead a lawsuit.The Humane Society of the United States on Monday praised the Supreme Court for the decision, as well as the Supreme Court rejecting another case that bans the sale of foie gras from force-fed birds.
US-China: farmers count the cost of the trade war
Financial Times | Posted on January 8, 2019The final 230 miles of the Mississippi river have long reinforced American might in global food markets. Ten grain terminals tower like fortresses along its bends, receiving crops from upstream farms, banking them in concrete silos and sending them over the levees into the holds of foreign ships. Together they can export 500,000 tonnes a day. Yet this year the autumn high season never came. The amount of grain and oilseeds moving through Mississippi river ports has dropped by 9 per cent since the autumn of 2017, according to the Federal Grain Inspection Service. Buoys for mooring vessels bob unused.Cargill, the world’s biggest agricultural trading house, repeatedly idled its two terminals on the river, including a five-day shutdown in November when workers stayed home unpaid.“We’ve never done that [before],” says Jeremy Seyfert, the terminal manager. “We had the ability to take the plant down for five days because we didn’t have anything to load.” Between September and December, soyabean volumes shipped through Cargill’s river terminals in Louisiana are down 40 per cent year on year, Mr Seyfert says.
New York:New law boosts top speed for slow-moving vehicles to 35 mph
Herald Courier | Posted on January 8, 2019Farm tractors and other slow-moving vehicles will be allowed to travel a little faster on New York roads under a new law. Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently signed legislation that raises the speed at which slow-moving vehicles can travel from 25 mph to 35 mph. Farm vehicles and construction equipment must have orange triangular signs indicating that they are slow-moving vehicles.
New York Announces More Than $42 Million Awarded to Agricultural Projects through the Regional Economic Development Councils
New York State | Posted on January 8, 2019New York State Agriculture Commissioner Richard A. Ball today announced that more than $42 million awarded through Governor Cuomo’s 2018 Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) initiative will support the growth of the New York’s farms and food and beverage industries across the State. The REDC awards were announced by the Governor on December 18, with more than 80 agriculture-related projects identified as key to advancing the State’s ten regional economies.