AgClips
Recent AgClips
'Big Chicken': The Medical Mystery That Traced Back To Slaughterhouse Workers
NPR | Posted onSeptember 11, 2017 in Agriculture, Food NewsReimert Ravenholt, a physician at the Seattle Department of Public Health, was puzzled. It was the winter of 1956, and for weeks now, local doctors had been calling him, describing blue-collar men coming into their offices with hot, red rashes and swollen boils running up their arms. The men were feverish and in so much pain they had to stay home from work, sometimes for weeks. The puzzle was not what was afflicting them. That was easy to establish: It was Staphylococcus aureus, or staph, a common cause of skin infections. Ravenholt happened to have a lot of experience with staph.
USDA help available for flood-damaged land
Victoria Advocate | Posted onSeptember 11, 2017 in Agriculture, Federal NewsThe USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service in Texas has established two special Environmental Quality Incentives Program sign ups to help farmers and ranchers that suffered damage to working lands and livestock mortality as a result of Hurricane Harvey. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program is available to help farmers and ranchers treat the on-farm/ranch problems caused by the high winds, rainfall and flood waters due to Hurricane Harvey along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Does it make sense to use poultry litter as fuel?
Watt Ag Net | Posted onSeptember 11, 2017 in Agriculture, Energy NewsOne of the disadvantages of industrial-scale use of poultry litter as a fuel is the high cost of hauling litter off the farm, because litter is high in moisture and isn't as energy dense as coal. Excel Energy plans to buy the Fibrominn 55-megawatt poultry litter-burning power plant in Benson, Minnesota, and shut it down. The plant has been in operation for 10 years and it is still the only one of its kind in the U.S.
This New Housing Complex Has A Bonus: A 23-Acre Farm
Fast Company | Posted onSeptember 11, 2017 in Agriculture NewsIn the St. Clair neighborhood in Pittsburgh’s South Side–a community struggling with poverty and filled with vacant lots–it can be hard to attract new residents. A development in planning now will try something new to achieve that: a housing complex will come with its own 23-acre urban farm.
What’s so bad about making food easier to produce?
Brooklyn Paper | Posted onSeptember 11, 2017 in Agriculture, Food NewsThe friend politely declined, which set Kennedy to thinking. His family drank conventional milk. Did that make him a dad who didn’t care about his kids’ safety, or the environment? That would be odd, since he was nominated for an Oscar for his film about a community garden blooming in South Central Los Angeles.
World Wildlife Fund launching egg sustainability study
Watt Ag Net | Posted onSeptember 11, 2017 in Agriculture NewsThe World Wildlife Fund, with support from U.S. egg farming groups, is launching a study to better understand the environmental impact of various types of egg production used around the globe. United Egg Producers President and CEO Chad Gregory, speaking at an area briefing in Des Moines, Iowa, on August 29, said the study could potentially provide additional credibility to arguments that cage-free egg production is not the best option for the environment.Since McDonalds Corp. announced its plans to sell only cage-free eggs at its restaurants in the U.S.
Few farmers pay federal estate taxes
Ag Web | Posted onSeptember 7, 2017 in NewsThe USDA estimates that only 0.6 percent of farms currently in business would someday have to pay estate taxes. For example, if every farm in the U.S. went out of business in 2016, roughly 38,000 of those farms would have to pay taxes according to USDA’s Economic Research Service. Today, any married couple with less than $11 million is assets is exempt from federal estate taxes and if the land will remain in agriculture for another 10 or more years, there’s an addition $1 million special use valuation.
Employment, Poverty, and Public Assistance in the Rural United States
University of New Hampshire, Carsey School | Posted onSeptember 7, 2017 in Federal, Rural NewsA large body of research focuses on the divide between the rural and urban United States. These studies tell us that poverty is higher in the rural United States, incomes are lower, and job growth is nearly non-existent. But, as demographer Kenneth Johnson states, “‘Rural America’ is a deceptively simple term for a remarkably diverse collection of places.In this brief, we provide a glimpse of the economic and demographic characteristics of life in the rural United States.
Dairy producers say GMO-free labeling is 'fear based'
USA Today | Posted onSeptember 7, 2017 in Agriculture, Food NewsA dairy-industry lobbying group has urged food companies to stop using labels such as “GMO-free” for marketing purposes, saying they have turned to "fear-based" labeling.The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, Va., says food manufacturers are raising fears about of things like genetically modified organism products, synthetic animal-growth hormones and high fructose corn syrup.In its “Peel Back the Label” campaign, the dairy industry trade group says nearly 70% of American consumers look to food labels when making purchase decisions, but that some of the information is m
Why John Deere just spent 305 million on a lettuce farming robot
WIRED | Posted onSeptember 7, 2017 in Agriculture NewsTractor giant John Deere just spent $305 million to acquire a startup that makes robots capable of identifying unwanted plants, and shooting them with deadly, high-precision squirts of herbicide. John Deere, established in 1837 to manufacture hand tools, announced it had acquired Blue River Technology, founded in 2011. Deere already sells technology that uses GPS to automate the movements of farm vehicles across a field to sub-inch accuracy.