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USDA fails to monitor foreign owners of farmland

The New Food Economy | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Agriculture, Federal News

A law requiring foreign investors to report transactions of farmland to the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been on the books for almost 40 years.  But as the amount of foreign-controlled farmland doubled in millions of acres between 2004 and 2014, the USDA has lapsed in enforcing the law, a review of USDA documents has found.


‘They’re scared’: immigration fears exacerbate migrant farmworker shortage

NPR | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Agriculture, Federal News

The pickers range in age from 21 to 65, and all of them are Mexican. As in the rest of the country, growers in heavily agricultural northern Michigan rely overwhelmingly on migrant laborers to work the fields and orchards. According to the farm owners, the workers either came from Mexico on temporary H2A visas or they have paperwork showing they are in the U.S.


EPA seeking input on ‘potential reductions’ in RFS volumes

Agri-Pulse | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Agriculture, Energy, Federal News

A notice from the Environmental Protection Agency has the biofuels community up in arms as they face the prospect of a potential hit to renewable fuel blending levels.  the EPA released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) giving public notice and inviting comment on “potential options for reductions in the 2018 biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel, and total renewable fuel volumes, and/or the 2019 biomass-based diesel volume under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.” A 15-day comment period will be triggered when the NODA is published in the Federal Register.  In July, the EPA ann


Pregnant women warned against cows’ milk alternatives such as soya or almond milk

I News | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Food News

Popular alternatives to cow’s milk such as soya or almond milk may leave consumers at risk of iodine deficiency, a study has found. UK researchers examined the iodine contents of 47 milk-alternative drinks including soya, almond, coconut, oat, rice, hazelnut and hemp, but excluding those marketed specifically at infants and children, and compared them with that of cows’ milk.Popular alternatives to cow’s milk such as soya or almond milk may leave consumers at risk of iodine deficiency, a study has found. 

 


Forced to Farm? California Lawsuit Raises Question

Ag Web | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Agriculture News

A new lawsuit in California is asking the question if county government can force producers to keep farming in order to keep your own land.


Guggenheim Museum Is Criticized for Pulling Animal Artworks

The New York Times | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Agriculture News

Artists and museums are often in the thick of free speech debates — think of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s battle with the Brooklyn Museum over a Virgin Mary artwork with elephant dung and more recently a fight over an exhibit that evoked Emmett Till’s mutilated corpse. Typically the art world holds its ground, emerging bruised but resolute.


‘No more agriculture in Puerto Rico,’ a farmer laments

The Seattle Times | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Federal, Rural News

Hurricane Maria wiped out about 80 percent of the crop value in Puerto Rico — making it one of the costliest storms to hit the island’s agriculture industry. Entire plantations, dairy barns and industrial chicken coops are gone. Hurricane Maria made landfall here Wednesday as a Category 4 storm. Its force and fury stripped every tree of not just the leaves, but also the bark, leaving a rich agricultural region looking like the result of a postapocalyptic drought. Rows and rows of fields were denuded.


Syngenta Corn Settlement Reached

DTN | Posted onSeptember 27, 2017 in Agriculture News

Syngenta  announced a settlement with farmers who sued the company following the release of Agrisure Viptera and Agrisure Duracade MIR 162 corn traits. Details of the settlement have not been released at this point, but other media outlets reported on Tuesday the settlement was worth about $1.5 billion.According to a news release from Syngenta, the settlement, which is subject to court approval, would create a settlement fund for the "submission of claims by eligible claimants" who contracted to price corn or corn byproducts after Sept.


Gassy Cows Warm The Planet. Scientists Think They Know How To Squelch Those Belches

National Public Radio | Posted onSeptember 23, 2017 in Agriculture News

Cattle pass a lot of gas, and the methane from their flatulence and especially, their belches, is an expanding burden on the planet. The greenhouse gas has a warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide.


Florida residents prohibited from using solar energy after Hurricane Irma

Inhabitat | Posted onSeptember 21, 2017 in Energy News

Millions of Florida residents lost power after Hurricane Irma raged through the state. But homeowners with solar energy installations couldn’t use them during the outage – or they’d be breaking the law. State code requires people to connect their homes to the local electric grid – and when parts of it were damaged after the hurricane, even those homeowners with solar power were legally obliged to sit in the dark.


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