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The summary of principles are largely broad in scope and would leave much of the nuts and bolts of a farm bill up to Congress. USDA wants a "fiscally responsible" farm bill that reflects the Trump Administration's budget goals. USDA also wants to reduce the regulatory burdens on USDA customers as well. Perdue said the principles come after traveling to more than 30 states to hear from people in agriculture.USDA's farm bill concepts call for "a farm safety net that helps American farmers weather times of economic stress without distorting markets or increasing shallow loss payments." [node:read-more:link]

Canada’s dairy industry says it shouldn’t bear any additional hardship in NAFTA talks after having been forced to give up so much in past trade deals. If the United States wants increased access to Canada, it should rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partnership that granted a 3.25 per cent quota that was expected to be filled mainly by the U.S., said Dairy Farmers of Ontario CEO Graham Lloyd.“The TPP is the vehicle that they should be going to,” he said in an interview Wednesday. [node:read-more:link]

Gov. Scott Walker is proposing a new $50 million annual investment in rural economic development projects. [node:read-more:link]

Last year, 2.3 million people attended Iowa’s 105 volunteer-driven, youth-oriented county and regional fairs. That means a lot of people in close contact with farm animals — and, as a result, the chance for outbreaks of zoonotic disease. “I see fair officials doing due diligence to reduce the risk of visitors getting sick,” notes Iowa Sen. Dan Zumbach, who, like many farmers, has been a 4-H leader and is active on his county board. [node:read-more:link]

Missouri State Representative J. Eggleston was in surgery all day in order to help a complete stranger, and to secure an organ donation for his wife, Cathie. For years, Cathie Eggleston has suffered from kidney failure.Rep. Eggleston has a different blood type than his wife, so he's not able to donate his kidney directly to Cathie. [node:read-more:link]

While more than 90 percent of U.S. consumers eat meat at least occasionally, nearly half (47 percent) of respondents in a recent survey agreed with the statement, “I support a ban on slaughterhouses.” [node:read-more:link]

California’s attorney general said the state plans to sue the Trump administration over its repeal of Obama-era rules meant to address public safety concerns in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on federal lands. The federal government’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2015, under Democratic President Barack Obama, issued rules that would have required companies to provide data on chemicals used in fracking and to take steps to prevent leakage from oil and gas wells on federally-owned land. [node:read-more:link]

A group of Arkansas state legislators has approved a ban on dicamba use between April 16 and Oct. 31 of this year, meaning that soybean and cotton growers will not be able to use Monsanto's Xtendimax or BASF's Engenia for over-the-top applications. The action by the state's Legislative Council came without discussion this morning. [node:read-more:link]

You might think that the kind of extreme poverty that would concern a global organization like the United Nations has long vanished in this country. Yet the special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, recently made and reported on an investigative tour of the United States. Surely no one in the United States today is as poor as a poor person in Ethiopia or Nepal? As it happens, making such comparisons has recently become much easier. [node:read-more:link]

Bipartisan voices have recognized the importance of adequately funding the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with the House and Senate proposing $1-2 billion in increased funding. We may be tempted to breathe a sigh of relief that greater support from the federal government is forthcoming.  But we shouldn’t.  Current proposals, while increases, fail to bring the NIH up to historical funding levels after correction for inflation. And equally importantly, they don’t adequately address support for the myriad other federal agencies which play key roles in supporting medical research. [node:read-more:link]