Agriculture

Many industries, such as health care and retail, make use of information-sharing services, but Agri Stats provides chicken producers with a rare level of detail, in uncommonly timely fashion. The company’s reports, portions of which Bloomberg Businessweek reviewed, contain exhaustive data about the internal operations of the nation’s biggest poultry corporations, including bird sizes, product mixes, and financial returns at participating plants. According to a 2011 presentation prepared by Agri Stats, the company gathers information from more than 95 percent of U.S. [node:read-more:link]

A pesticides ban in Europe could soon be overturned on the grounds that it was based on unreliable data. Meanwhile, revelations that one of the scientists behind the ban was also involved with a nongovernmental organization that campaigns against pesticides continue to undermine the ban’s integrity.  Two European chemical companies, Bayer and Syngenta, appeared before the European Court of Justice this week to argue that the European Union should revoke a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides. “Neonics,” as these sprays are known, were introduced in the 1990s as a safer, greener alternative. [node:read-more:link]

The value of farmland across the country continues to decline while credit remains tight for producers and net incomes fall. Low commodity prices, falling incomes, dropping land values and rising demand for credit are weighing down the nation’s agricultural producers, but Johansson told Agri-Pulse he will also be stressing to lawmakers that the farm economy is still strong when considered in a historical perspective. [node:read-more:link]

One of North Dakota's largest high-value crop farms has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Fargo.   McM, Inc., based in St. Thomas, N.D., north of Grand Forks, filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. The farm is one of the largest farms of high-value specialty crops in the region, including about 39,000 acres, with about 2,000 acres of sugar beets and about 4,200 acres of non-irrigated potatoes in 2016.

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Western Growers, which represents farmers in Arizona, California, and Colorado who produce half the nation’s fresh fruits, vegetables, and tree nuts, advises its members to begin preparing for increased worksite enforcement and renewed emphasis on Form I-9 audits.  Employers should be proactive to recognize and correct Form I-9 problems before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) comes knocking on the door. Now is the time to audit all Form I-9s to ensure they are completed fully and accurately. [node:read-more:link]

Three judges on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board have ruled that lucrative patents on the gene editing technology known as CRISPR belong to the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. CRISPR was first developed by Jennifer Doudna from the University of California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, then at the University of Vienna and now at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The University of California filed a patent in May 2012 for ownership of the technology as it applies to all of its uses, in all types of cells. [node:read-more:link]

There is an economic argument to limiting immigration to the U.S.: Cut down on the supply of foreign labor, and wages will improve for native-born Americans. But new research shows the equation isn’t that simple. A team of economists looked at the midcentury “bracero” program, which allowed nearly half a million seasonal farmworkers a year into the U.S. from Mexico. The Johnson administration terminated the program in 1964, creating a large-scale experiment on labor supply and demand.  The result wasn’t good news for American workers. [node:read-more:link]

Nearly two years ago, Brian Levin found himself in Japan, covered head-to-toe in beef and posing for a photograph with John F. Kennedy’s daughter. It was all part of a plan to get his product, a high-end beef jerky, into the Japanese market. Wearing a Velcro suit that allowed people to rip packages of beef jerky off it, Levin, the chief executive of a brand called Perky Jerky, appeared beside Caroline Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, at a trade show promoting U.S. food. It was a big opportunity for the brand, and others like it. [node:read-more:link]

Legislators in several states are looking to crack down on illegal immigration in one of the few ways they can: by requiring businesses to more thoroughly verify that applicants are authorized to work in the U.S. Amid President Donald Trump’s calls to build a wall along the Mexican border and to suspend immigration from seven majority-Muslim nations, the legislators see an opportunity for states to do their part. [node:read-more:link]

Since the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, there have been no dairy farms in Cambodia. Several large Western companies have tried to start dairy operations in the country, but all have failed. So most dairy products are imported from Thailand, Vietnam or Japan, and instead of fresh milk, Cambodians drink the powdered variety. But an Alpine family is on a mission to bring fresh milk to Cambodia and make some new friends in the process. This is the story of Moo Moo Farms. [node:read-more:link]