Agriculture

The future of the powerhouse pet food market lies with millennials. Consider this comment by David Lummis, lead pet market analyst for Packaged Facts, in a column for Pet Product News: “Much as computers have always been there for them, millennials know only a world where treating pets like fully entitled family members is normal, if not expected … and expensive.” Indeed. Pets being part of the family is as familiar and ingrained for millennials – something they seldom think about, if ever – as are mobile phones, social media and the air they breathe. [node:read-more:link]

The rise of the farm-to-fork movement has been accompanied by the growing popularity of agritourism, as more landowners open their ranches to people who want to experience the bucolic views of the countryside. But the proliferation of event centers, wedding venues and bed-and-breakfast inns on agricultural land has also increased tensions between those landowners and surrounding farms that see their normal activities impacted by nearby events. [node:read-more:link]

More than 43 million gallons’ worth of milk have ended up in fields, manure lagoons or animal feed, or have been lost on truck routes or discarded at plants, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That is enough milk to fill 66 Olympic swimming pools, and the most wasted in at least 16 years’ worth of data. Desperate producers are working to find new uses for the excess, like getting more milk into school lunches, and in revamped tacos and Egg McMuffins. [node:read-more:link]

Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding talks about the looming shortage of agriculture workers and his push to the next generation to consider jobs in agriculture.Brett Sholtis. [node:read-more:link]

German chemicals firm Bayer said it would not introduce genetically modified crops in Europe after its gigantic takeover of US seed and pesticide producer Monsanto. [node:read-more:link]

Wilson County farmer Gerald Tyner said right now his land is what can only be described as a big mess.
[node:read-more:link]

You've probably heard the bad news by now that bees were recently added to the endangered species list for the first time. But if you're part of the 60 percent of people who share stories without actually reading them, you might have missed an important detail: namely, that the newly endangered bees are a handful of relatively obscure species who live only in Hawaii. The bees you're more familiar with — the ones that buzz around your yard dipping into flowers, making honey, pollinating crops and generally keeping the world's food supply from collapsing? [node:read-more:link]

In the study, one group of hypertensive mice got bacteria carrying the protein, another group got just the bacteria, and a third group received no treatment at all. After four weeks of twice-a-day treatment, the researchers found that mice getting the tweaked probiotic had reduced blood pressure, reduced heart wall thickness, and better heart contraction than either the untreated group or the group that received only bacteria. [node:read-more:link]

Cuban authorities and officials from the U.S. state of Louisiana on Tuesday here signed memoranda pertaining to ports and agriculture after a business forum attended by a trade delegation headed by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards. The understanding signed by the Port Authority of Cuba and the Port Association of Louisiana includes installations in the New Orleans and Lake Charles areas, and the other agreement was signed by Cuba's Agriculture Business Group and the state's Department of Agriculture and Forestry. [node:read-more:link]

Production of biofuels and biobased products such as plant-derived plastics already support 4.2 million jobs, but the industry's future growth rate depends in part on oil prices and the availability of new government incentives, according to a study commissioned by the Agriculture Department. The study, authored by experts at Duke University and North Carolina State University, also said that the federal government itself has been slow to use the products despite USDA's efforts to promote them. The job estimate includes 1.6 million jobs directly involved in the biobased sector. [node:read-more:link]