Federal

A northwest Washington nonprofit organization has received a four-year, $488,758 federal grant to encourage people receiving federal food assistance to eat more fruits and vegetables. Viva Farms in Skagit County will use some of the money to subsidize purchases of locally grown produce. People on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program also will receive information about nutrition and cooking. The grant was one of 32, totaling $16.8 million, awarded nationwide through the USDA’s Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive program. [node:read-more:link]

The prospect of ICE leasing space at a county jail in the heart of Idaho dairy country is creating fear among Hispanic workers and worry among dairymen and processors. [node:read-more:link]

Scientists have, for the first time, corrected a disease-causing mutation in early stage human embryos with gene editing. The technique, which uses the CRISPR-Cas9 system, corrected the mutation for a heart condition at the earliest stage of embryonic development so that the defect would not be passed on to future generations. [node:read-more:link]

The Pentagon and other security agencies’ outsize consumption of federal research money would grow further under Republican plans, while nondefense research spending would drop, sometimes dramatically, a new congressional report shows. [node:read-more:link]

The FDA implemented the VFD on January 1. What significant changes and impacts have been witnessed to date?Recently the animal health industry has taken significant steps to promote the judicious use of antibiotics. The process of administering “medically important” (aka those that treat human and animal disease) antibiotics in livestock has been found to contribute to antimicrobial resistance, a scenario in which bacteria can withstand and eliminate the effects of drugs and related chemicals. [node:read-more:link]

Federal immigration enforcement agents arrested 650 people last week during an operation aimed at families and children who illegally crossed the border and had been ordered deported, officials said Tuesday. Those arrested included 73 individuals who crossed the border as part of family units and 120 who entered as unaccompanied minors. [node:read-more:link]

Don Koehler says the fact that net farm income has fallen to half of what it was four years ago will make writing the 2018 farm bill a “challenge.” That and the fact no new money is available for funding the legislation, according to leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. [node:read-more:link]

After battling two brain tumors and breast cancer, Tina Hinchley still milks 130 cows twice a day. Not many people have jobs that are as physically demanding as Tina Hinchley’s. With her husband and four children, Hinchley, 51, milks 130 cows twice a day and works the corn and soybean fields on her family’s 2,500-acre farm in southeastern Wisconsin. To keep things running smoothly, Hinchley says the whole family needs to be healthy and strong. [node:read-more:link]

Attorneys general from 15 states filed a legal challenge on Tuesday over the Trump administration’s delay of Obama-era rules reducing emissions of smog-causing air pollutants. The states petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to overturn Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s extension of deadlines to comply with the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards.Pruitt announced in June he was extending the deadlines by at least one year while his agency studies and reconsiders the requirements. [node:read-more:link]

Shane Shifflett reported that, “For American producers who rely on the nation’s waterways to export and distribute billions of tons of grains, coal and chemicals each year, aging locks systems on rivers and the frequent delays they cause cost more than just time.“‘If we have a barge stopped on the Upper Mississippi…commodities sit there until the problem is fixed,’ says Rick Calhoun, president of Cargill Carriers, the Minnetonka, Minn.-based barge operator for the largest U.S. agricultural company by sales. [node:read-more:link]