Foodservice businesses may have an easier time living up to their promises to source only cage-free eggs than retailers, Cal-Maine Foods CEO Dolph Baker said.Baker pointed out that for now, there is currently an oversupply of cage-free eggs. [node:read-more:link]
Indiana egg farmer John Brunnquell’s 1.3 million hens don’t live in cages. They also get to go outside, making his company, Egg Innovations, the nation’s largest free-range operation in the industry. It wasn’t always so. Brunnquell, 54, grew up on a traditional chicken farm, and he says he “could argue all the benefits of cages.” That changed in the early 1990s, when his first glimpse of a cage-free barn convinced him that the freer system was better for the birds. He spent the next decade overhauling his own.Along the way, he admits, things weren’t always better for his flocks. [node:read-more:link]
How do you start a dairy industry overnight in a wealthy desert nation with its transport links closed? You buy 4,000 cows from Australia and the U.S. and put them on airplanes. That is what Qatari businessman Moutaz Al Khayyat told Bloomberg he is doing. The airlift will require as many as 60 flights on Qatar Airways, but Al Khayyat said, "This is the time to work for Qatar."Last week, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates all cut ties to Qatar. [node:read-more:link]
Value Added Poducer Grantss were authorized as part of the Agriculture Risk Protection Act of 2000, which amended the Federal Crop Insurance Act to strengthen the safety net for agricultural producers by providing greater access to more affordable risk management tools and improved protection from production and income loss. It was later amended by the 2002 farm bill. [node:read-more:link]
Fifty-eight percent of U.S. [node:read-more:link]
A Central Washington irrigation district and an employee have been fined for misapplying an herbicide that blew into a pear orchard and caused an estimated $220,000 to $300,000 in damage, according to the state Department of Agriculture.The Cascade Irrigation District was fined $1,100, the maximum penalty for a first-time offense, while the employee, Kelton Montgomery, was fined $450 and will have his applicator’s license suspended for seven days in mid-July, according to orders issued June 1 by WSDA.The Ellensburg-based district irrigates some 12,500 acres in Kittitas County by drawing fro [node:read-more:link]
A large Sunnyside dairy has sold and another apparently sold thousands of dairy cows indicative of tough times for Lower Yakima Valley dairies.DeRuyter Bros. Dairy planned to sell 3,100 head of Holstein in a May 31 auction, according to Toppenish Livestock Commission. [node:read-more:link]
The Oregon Water Resources Department is facing two new lawsuits related to water rights, one from Klamath-area irrigators and the other from environmental groups opposed to a new dairy in the eastern part of the state. [node:read-more:link]
Opponents of a 30,000-cow dairy farm in Morrow County are pressuring state regulators to change their minds on a recently approved water pollution permit for the facility, or risk taking the matter to court. A coalition of groups has filed what’s known as a petition for reconsideration, asking the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality to take a closer look at Lost Valley Farm and either tighten protections or reject the dairy outright. Lost Valley Farm received its confined animal feeding operation permit on March 31. [node:read-more:link]
Rabobank analysts say when California dairy producers see clearly on their milk check that the majority of them are losing money in the state’s quota program, the tide will turn on support. [node:read-more:link]
