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Agriculture News

Stewardship Stressed in Iowa

DTN | Posted on September 1, 2016

Iowa water quality is in the spotlight for various reasons, most notably a federal lawsuit by the Des Moines Water Works against upstream drainage districts and counties over high nutrient loads, mainly nitrogen. Iowa's nutrient reduction strategy calls for the state to cut nitrogen and phosphorus in water by 45% using various methods. Farmers are about halfway toward the no-till practices goal, but fall short in areas such as cover crops, wetlands and bioreactors at the end of tiling lines to lower those nutrient loads.   A forum highlighted actions farmers have already taken, while stressing that more needs to be done. Northey pointed out an array of groups are now championing soil health practices across Iowa. He specifically mentioned the Soil Health Partnership developed by the National Corn Growers Association, which is working to measure how much organic matter in soil can be affected by changes in cropping practices.  "We certainly see improvements when we use cover crops and when we do no-till," Northey said. "Yet, we always struggle to try to measure those. That effort (the Soil Health Partnership) is really to try to figure out how we can measure those improvements." These practices and strategies need to be quantified for farmers and the public, Northey said. Farmers need to be shown that implementing conservation practices can provide economic benefits while the public needs to know that voluntary conservation is translating into better water quality. Annette Sweeney, a former state representative who farms in north-central Iowa, noted more technology is being brought to bear toward understanding water flow and movement off fields. Earlier this year, Sweeney hosted a team from NASA and several universities that calibrated satellite imagery to see how much moisture is moving through the soil and how much evaporates after rain events. The emphasis was more on water quantity than quality, she said.


Agrium, Potash talk merger

Reuters | Posted on September 1, 2016

Canada's Agrium Inc and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc said they are in talks to merge, a deal that would create a fertilizer and farm retailing giant worth more than $25 billion but also trigger U.S. regulatory scrutiny.  Potash Corp, the world's biggest crop nutrient company by capacity and Agrium, North America's largest farm retailer, said in separate statements that the talks were at a "preliminary" stage about a possible merger of equals, adding that no agreement has been reached.


CoBank: Steepest Drop in Farm Income Since Great Depression

Ag Web | Posted on September 1, 2016

Brace yourself. According to a new study from CoBank, the drop in farm income over the past three farming seasons has been the biggest plunge since the Great Depression.  "The drop in farm income over the past three years is the steepest decrease since the Depression," says Tanner Ehmke, CoBank senior economist covering, the grains, oilseeds and ethanol, and farm supply sectors. "Producer incomes have fallen more than 50% from 2013 to today and their debt-to-income ratio is on the rise.”  When cash flow becomes an issue, farmers tend to put off whatever bills can wait. It’s not a surprise that total accounts receivable for ag retailers has also increased. “[Accounts receivable] posted an 11% gain for 2015, and that's expected to grow in the year ahead due to ongoing farmer cash flow challenges," Ehmke says. 


Judge dismisses lawsuit filed by former OK Foods grower

Watt Ag Net | Posted on September 1, 2016

A federal judge in the Eastern District of Oklahoma has dismissed a poultry grower's breach of contract claim against OK Foods after the company severed ties with the grower amid concerns over animal welfare standards.


US poultry industry foresees oversupply, lower efficiency

Watt Ag Net | Posted on September 1, 2016

Although U.S. poultry industry optimism about current conditions remained high during the third quarter of 2016, expectations for future conditions and profits took a tumble.  Oversupply was the primary reason cited for a weakening of future conditions. As one respondent noted, “(We’re) waiting on a surplus of total meat to roll through, especially pork and imported beef. Chicken egg sets are still too high.”


Lawsuit involving 600 Yakima Valley farm workers to go to trial

KIMA TV | Posted on September 1, 2016

A federal lawsuit affecting over 600 Yakima Valley farm workers will head to trial.  the lawsuit originally filed in 2014 says that Mercer Canyons out of Alderdale, Washington failed to inform previous local employees about higher paying jobs.  Mercer Canyons, one of the largest fruit and vegetable growers in the state applied for a federal temporary agricultural worker program called H-2A that allows employers to bring in foreign workers if they can prove that there are no local or U.S. workers that can do the job.  Federal Judge Stanley Bastian ruled in an earlier decision in 2015 that the lawsuit could proceed as a class action suit, representing the hundreds of people that may possibly be affected by the practices.  Bacilio Ruiz and Jose Amador, two farm workers representing the suit said they tried to get work at Mercer Canyons in 2013. They argued the corporation failed to inform them of vineyard jobs paying $12 an hour according to the release.


New Zealand farmers get tough on security

Meat + Poultry | Posted on September 1, 2016

Cows outnumber people 2-to-1 in New Zealand, but when 500 bovines go missing it’s sure to draw attention.  That’s what happened to a dairy farmer in the town of Ashburton.


Pioneer and John Deere investing in Iowa Business Accelerator

Innovation America | Posted on September 1, 2016

Four investors have signed on to support a new startup business accelerator that will further establish Central Iowa’s reputation as a global leader in cutting-edge agriculture technology. The Greater Des Moines Partnership and the Cultivation Corridor announced today that they will form an Ag Tech Accelerator (The Accelerator) with the support of investors DuPont Pioneer, Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance Company, John Deere and Peoples Company. Each investor company has committed to support the Accelerator in the amount of $100,000 for the first year. The Accelerator is designed to build upon one of the state’s key industries of agriculture and the entrepreneurial activity that can advance technology in the industry.  The Accelerator will be modeled after the Global Insurance Accelerator, which The Partnership launched in 2014. The Global Insurance Accelerator has graduated two classes of six startup companies that are advancing technology in the insurance industry. The Ag Tech Accelerator will bring that same level of focus to another key industry.


California farmworker overtime expansion sent to Gov. Jerry Brown

The Sacramento Bee | Posted on September 1, 2016

The California Assembly on Monday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a hard-fought and historic expansion of overtime rules for farmworkers, but it remains uncertain whether the Democratic governor will sign off on the measure.  A nearly identical bill fell three votes short of passage on the Assembly floor in May, with 15 Democrats voting against the measure or declining to vote. But on Monday, an amended version of the measure, now contained in Assembly Bill 1066, passed on a 44-32 vote.  Agricultural workers already receive some overtime pay under California law thanks to a 2002 state directive that entitles them to extra wages if they work more than 10 hours in a day or more than 60 hours in a week. AB 1066 would expand that to bring it more in line with other industries, offering time-and-a-half pay for working more than eight hours in a day or 40 in a week and double pay for working more than 12 hours a day. The pay boosts would kick in incrementally over four years, and the governor could suspend them for a year if the economy falters.

 

 

 


Cloning beef cattle for meat quality sparks debate

Capital Press | Posted on September 1, 2016

Ty Lawrence still talks about it as his “lightbulb” moment. He was in a Texas slaughterhouse in 2010 when two absolutely beautiful beef carcasses rolled by. Each was the pinnacle of USDA grading: “Prime” and “Yield Grade One.”  Only 2 to 5 percent of U.S. beef is graded Prime, and Yield Grade One meant there was lots of it. By Lawrence’s estimate, only 1 in 3,300 beef carcasses will have those two attributes simultaneously. And here went two of them within a couple minutes of each other.  What happened next was either scientific breakthrough or unnecessary genetic fiddling, depending on your perspective.  Lawrence, a professor of meat science at West Texas A&M University, called his department head that night and proposed forming a research team. Here’s what he wanted to do: Clone a herd of superior cattle by working backwards from superior beef.  ViaGen created a bull, named Alpha, from the steer carcass, and three heifers — Gamma One, Gamma Two and Gamma Three — from the cow carcass. Artificial insemination of the Gammas with semen from Alpha has resulted in 13 calves, the first bovine offspring of two cloned parents. Seven of the offspring, all steers, were raised in a conventional manner, including finishing time at a grain feedlot, and slaughtered. Lawrence said the results are promising, especially given the small sample size. The offspring tended to produce better grade beef than average, and yield grades were ones and twos. The carcasses had 9 percent larger ribeye steaks than average and 45 percent more marbling, the desirable white specks of intramuscular fat. They had 16 percent less “trim” fat, the waste fat that doesn’t improve taste. The work is continuing.


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