Agriculture News
How smart farms are making the case for rural broadband
Magic Valley | Posted on October 25, 2017New smart farm technologies can give America’s growers the ability to monitor crop conditions in real time, respond to technical problems before machinery breaks down in the field and consult with the world’s foremost agronomic experts with the push of a button. That is, as long as they’ve got five bars of service and plenty of internet bandwidth. If not, the smartest piece of technology isn’t worth its weight in good, quality fertilizer. And, according to Eric Lescourret, the Director of Strategic Marketing at AGCO Corporation, that dearth of rural bandwidth is the bottleneck that’s standing between American farmers and the next great breakthrough in agricultural productivity.“That’s the dilemma, that our farmers out there are collecting more data for every seed they plant than they can process,” Lescourret says. “All of them are located in rural areas, and the broadband infrastructure is not keeping up.” “There are a lot of areas that are very slow,” Lescourret says of AGCO’s use of Smart Farm technologies in rural areas. “We still have to rely on USB sticks to transfer data, and the reason is we don’t have cellular data coverage. If we don’t have it, we can’t transfer the data accurately.”And in a business like farming where hours and minutes can be the difference between success and failure, Lescourrett says having to hand deliver data from the farm site to agronomy experts could do more than endanger the source of America’s food crops-it risks the nation’s strategic geopolitical standing with its trade partners and competitors.
Positive Year For Manitoba’s Dairy Industry
edairynews | Posted on October 25, 2017Wiens notes the Manitoba dairy industry reached a new benchmark over the past year. “We’re producing well over a million litres a day now and so where we were restricted before simply because we didn’t have a home for all the milk, we’ve now sent signals out to producers to produce more and we’re seeing that right across the province and this will continue into the future.”He said one of the highlights from the past year was the opening of the Manitoba Dairy Ingredients plant in Winnipeg, which started to receive milk on October 5.“We now are going to have a home for all the milk, all the time,” commented Wiens. “We’ve been moving milk west and east and that will all be pulled back into the province now for this plant.”Another positive, according to Wiens, was the new Parmalat fluid plant that started processing earlier this spring.
Struggles similar on Massachusetts dairy farm
edairynews | Posted on October 25, 2017Dairy farmers in Massachusetts struggle to make good-quality feed, make ends meet when milk prices are low and push the limit on cow numbers to keep their farms afloat. At least that’s what a contingent from Wisconsin learned Oct. 9 when they visited the Jordan Dairy Farm near Rutland, Mass. The group of 25 visited the farm as part of a New England states tour organized by The Country Today and Viking Travel.The farm is not what some people might call a showplace dairy operation, but visitors were able to get a feel for similarities and differences between dairy farming in Massachusetts and Wisconsin.Brothers Randy and Brian Jordan represent the fifth generation of Jordans to operate the farm since the Jordans moved into Worcester County in 1885. The family has been operating at the Rutland location since 1943.Their herd size has grown from 60 cows in 1943 to about 300 today. They own and rent about 1,000 acres within a 22-mile radius of the farmstead.Jordan said the family increased its herd size out of necessity, not just to get bigger.“It was about sustainability more than anything,” he said. “It’s not that we want to milk 300 cows, it’s because we have to milk 300 cows. It’s just a sheer fact that at the end of the day, the bank needs to get its money whether we’re milking 100 or 300 cows.
Florida pays $437,000 in dispute over skim milk
edairynews | Posted on October 25, 2017No sense in crying over spilled milk, but what about $437,000 in legal fees? Florida’s paying that amount to the attorneys of Ocheesee Creamery, which is about 50 miles west of Tallahassee. State officials under Adam Putnam’s Department of Agriculture had pushed to label the dairy’s skim milk as imitation, because vitamins aren’t added to it, according to the Associated Press.The state defines skim milk as having Vitamin A. Ocheesee, an all-natural dairy that doesn’t add ingredients to natural products, objected.Florida taxpayers have paid more than $20 million since 2011 to cover expenses for lawyers who have sued the state.
Klamath farmers lose ‘takings’ lawsuit
High Country News | Posted on October 25, 2017The Klamath River, in southern Oregon and Northern California, once hosted the West Coast’s third-largest salmon run, until dams and irrigation disrupted it. During severe drought in 2001, the feds shut off farmers’ water to save endangered fish and uphold tribal water rights. The farmers sued for $29 million plus interest for the federal “taking” of their water. In 2002, they got to irrigate, but the resulting salmon die-off enraged tribes. Stakeholders eventually negotiated an end to the fighting. In late September, Federal Claims Judge Marian Blank Horn ruled that the government’s actions did not require compensation. While acknowledging the farmers’ hardships, Horn said the water cut-off was forced by senior rights held by the Klamath, Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribes. The decision will help “protect the economies and traditions of tribal and coastal communities that rely on salmon and other fish,” said Todd True, an Earthjustice senior attorney, in a statement.
Lawmakers Urge Consistent Approach to Federal Regulation of Biotechnology
DTN | Posted on October 25, 2017In a letter to three federal agency heads on Tuesday, a group of 79 bipartisan members of the United States House of Representatives expressed concern about the direction being taken to regulate agriculture biotechnology. In particular, in the letter to Scott Pruitt, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Scott Gotlieb, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the lawmakers pointed to two regulations currently being re-drafted.
Canada and Mexico prepare for life without NAFTA
CNN | Posted on October 25, 2017Officials from the two nations are meeting with counterparts from Peru and Chile for the first time in Colombia this week to discuss a potential trade deal. Canadian officials hinted that the talks may be a message to President Trump and the U.S. The meeting in Colombia "sends a strong signal to the world on the importance of free trade to increase growth and prosperity," Canada's Ministry of International Trade said in a statement.
Smithfield to sell pork on line in China
Meat + Poultry | Posted on October 25, 2017JD.com’s exclusive products will include bone-in cuts and variety meats, with a focus on small packaged frozen products. Smithfield specializes in these products and they are the types of products in high demand in China.
The future of dairy lies in exports
edairynews | Posted on October 25, 2017Right now, exports account for 15 percent of the nation’s dairy sales. Vilsack and Gallagher said they are working on a plan to increase that to 20 percent within three to five years. “The reality is, we can’t stay at 14-15 percent. We have to expand exports … To do that, Tom Gallagher mentioned the word trust and it’s incredibly important we go out and establish trust not with our own consumers, but with consumers around the world. If they trust us, they will try our products. If they try our products, they will absolutely love them. If they love them, they will continue to consume them,” Vilsack said.In order to make the 5 percent jump, it will require additional sales of 200,000 metric tons more of cheese and 450,000 metric tons more of dairy ingredients. Mexico will be a target country. Although U.S. products are already No. 1 in their market, accounting for 75 percent of all their dairy imports, Vilsack said he would like to see that number increase.
Canadian government gives over $1 million for animal welfare projects
Meatingplace (free registration required) | Posted on October 25, 2017The Canadian government announced an investment of up to C$1.31 ($1.03 million) to support its livestock sector in efforts to raise healthy, productive and well-cared for animals. The investment will be divided among four projects:Up to C$223,929 ($177,540) to develop a new livestock transport on-line certification program that will simplify, standardize and provide an opportunity for truckers, shippers and receivers to more easily access the training necessary to improve handling practices. Up to C$160,713 ($127,410) to update the Transportation Codes of Practice for the care and handling of farm animals during transport. Up to C$813,200 ($644,683) to develop an emergency management plan for the Canadian livestock industry to help mitigate, to respond to, and to recover from major hazard emergencies. Up to C$112,180 ($88,933) to revise the Chicken Farmers of Canada's (CFC) animal care assessment program to meet the new Code of Practice for hatching eggs, breeders, chickens and turkeys. The project will strengthen the poultry industry's capacity to respond to ever increasing demand by markets to demonstrate effective animal care standards.