AgClips
Recent AgClips
Farm income to sink even more than expected, USDA says
Agri-Pulse | Posted onDecember 1, 2016 in Federal NewsUSDA says that an already grim financial picture in the farm sector has actually gotten worse and will continue to do so. In its November update of its farm sector income forecast, USDA's Economic Research Service predicts a drop in farm income for the third consecutive year. Net cash farm income is forecast at $90.1 billion, down 14.6 percent from 2015, and down from $94.1 billion seen in August. Net farm income, meanwhile, is seen at $66.9 billion, a 17.2 percent drop from last year.
Derrell Peel discusses decline in cattle imports from Canada, Mexcio
Meatingplace (registration required) | Posted onDecember 1, 2016 in NewsTotal cattle imports from Canada and Mexico are down 19.8 percent year over year for the first ten months of the year including a 13.9 percent decrease from Canada and 24.3 percent fewer cattle from Mexico compared to one year ago. Total cattle imports for the year to date include slaughter cattle, which are up 10.9 percent through September. Slaughter cattle account for 31.5 percent of total cattle imports so far in 2016, up from 22.7 percent of total imports for the same period last year.
NASS Surveys Have Direct Impact on Critical Farm Programs
Farm Doc Daily | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Agriculture NewsThe NASS mission is to provide timely, accurate, and useful statistics in service to U. S. Agriculture. Crop yield forecasts tend to be our most well-known publications, but NASS measures agriculture in many different ways, ensuring that the full scope of agriculture is accounted for. NASS surveys the hog and pig industry, the total cattle herd and cattle on feed, fruit and vegetable production, and the vast overall economic impact of agriculture across Illinois and the rest of the United States. We even measure maple syrup!
Wisconsin governor orders agencies to apply digester technology to farms
Capital Press | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Agriculture NewsGov. Scott Walker has directed three state agencies to come up with ideas on how dairy farms can use manure digesters to protect water quality. Walker announced during a stop in Kewaunee on Thursday that he has directed the Public Service Commission, Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and the Department of Natural Resources to come up with recommendations by Dec. 1 on how dairy farms in environmentally sensitive areas can use digester technology.
Students have trouble judging the credibility of information online, researchers find
Science Daily | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Rural NewsWhen it comes to evaluating information that flows across social channels or pops up in a Google search, young and otherwise digital-savvy students can easily be duped, finds a new report from researchers at Stanford Graduate School of Education. The report, released by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), shows a dismaying inability by students to reason about information they see on the Internet, the authors said. Students, for example, had a hard time distinguishing advertisements from news articles or identifying where information came from.
Reconnecting Rural & Urban America
PR Newswire | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Rural NewsAs we've seen long before the election, there is a clear, and growing, wall being built between urban and rural America as a result of the recent and ongoing media consolidation that RFD-TV has been witnessing now for the past several years. If it's not a drought, a disaster, or something bad happening in rural America, there is no longer national news coverage of any kind. There is also a total disconnect by many executives in major cities who now really do view this as flyover country. In May 2014, after RFD-TV was dropped by Comcast Cable in Colorado and New Mexico, I was invited to t
Lower cattle prices starting to pull down retail prices
Meatingplace (registration required) | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Agriculture NewsLower cattle prices have begun to spill over into the retail price market, according to USDA’s latest Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook report.
U.S. pork industry to produce record volumes in Q4
Meatingplace (registration required) | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Agriculture NewsOn the basis of October and early November slaughter data, USDA raised its forecast for fourth-quarter commercial pork production by 30 million pounds to just under 6.7 billion pounds, or 3 percent higher than a year ago.
Organic foodmaker fined $22,000 by ecology
Capital Press | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Food NewsA maker of organic granola bars and cereals in Blaine, Wash., has been fined $22,000 for water quality violations, mostly by releasing acidic wastewater into a city sewer system, the state Department of Ecology announced. Nature’s Path Foods, based in Richmond, British Columbia, violated its wastewater permit 39 times over a two-year period that ended in July, according to Ecology. The company violated permit conditions for flow, dissolved oxygen levels and suspended solids, according to Ecology. The agency, however, singled out acidic wastewater as the primary problem.
Farmers’ Grain Bounty, Crop Exports Buoy U.S. Railroads
Wall Street Journal | Posted onNovember 30, 2016 in Agriculture NewsRail traffic is still recovering from years of steep declines in coal, oil shipments. Shipments of grain and soybeans are up around 6.5% this year, and set a record of over 26,000 carloads a week during the peak of the harvest in October, according to the Association of American Railroads, a trade group. Leasing company GATX Corp. said every one of its grain cars was in use during the third quarter. CSX Corp., the third-largest U.S. railroad, said grain shipments shot up 27% in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, helping fuel a rally in the company’s stock.