The proposed policy change would allow civil or criminal penalties to be brought up against livestock haulers who handle animals in an inhumane manner when transporting them to slaughterhouses. [node:read-more:link]
The flood waters haven’t receded yet, but initial reports show that North Carolina’s agriculture industries took a beating from Hurricane Matthew. State agriculture officials do not have damage estimates, but the 48 counties affected by the storm are some of North Carolina’s largest agricultural counties. “The eastern counties represent 71% of the state’s total farm cash receipts,” agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler said. [node:read-more:link]
The public will have another month to weigh in on a controversial new mega-dairy proposed at the former Boardman Tree Farm property. More than 2,300 comments have already poured in to the Oregon Department of Agriculture and Department of Environmental Quality on the Lost Valley Ranch, an operation that would add 30,000 cows to the area and generate roughly 187 million gallons of liquid manure each year. ODA and DEQ are responsible for registering the dairy as a confined animal feeding operation, or CAFO. [node:read-more:link]
The avian influenza virus may be quickly inactivated by heat, a USDA researcher has shown. Erica Spackman, of USDA ARS, recently completed research that provides various time and temperature profiles to effectively inactivate the avian influenza virus in chicken litter. For example, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was inactivated after just one day at a temperature of 90°F (USDA recommends two days to ensure inactivation, though). [node:read-more:link]
Gary Baise found this ruling on the impact if flooding on animal agriculture that is very pertinent to what our some of our coastal regions are facing. The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States without a permit, specifically an NPDES permit. Under the Clean Water Act, discharges from certain animal feeding operations that occur under certain rainfall conditions are subject to a narrow exemption from the NPDES regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). [node:read-more:link]
A coalition made up of large agribusinesses and various consulting groups released its annual updated Global Agricultural Productivity report. The Global Harvest Initiative typically uses its agricultural productivity report to spotlight a particular topic in the U.S. as well as food production gains or challenges in a developing country around the world. This year the group tied together the needs of production, farmer economic needs in a down cycle and long-term sustainability goals for agriculture. [node:read-more:link]
Anita Krajnc has been arrested multiple times for incidents involving pigs that are being transported to slaughter. While wanting to prevent pigs, chickens or other animals from suffering is a noble cause, when a person’s actions to get that point across break the law and become a drain on legal system resources, perhaps things have been taken too far. And being a nuisance to law enforcement officers and the court system appears to be just what Canadian animal rights activist and Toronto Pig Save co-founder Anita Krajnc has done. [node:read-more:link]
A recent WATT-Rennier Poultry Confidence Index poll predicted substantial changes in the use of antibiotics for broiler production. In five years, 70 percent of respondents predicted that most antibiotic usage would be for the treatment of sick flocks, while the no-antibiotics-ever (NAE) category would represent 28 percent of broiler production. [node:read-more:link]
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has launched an attack on a Northern Indiana poultry operation. [node:read-more:link]
A new study says that human-induced climate change has doubled the area affected by forest fires in the U.S. West over the last 30 years. According to the study, since 1984 heightened temperatures and resulting aridity have caused fires to spread across an additional 16,000 square miles than they otherwise would have--an area larger than the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. The authors warn that further warming will increase fire exponentially in coming decades. [node:read-more:link]
