In Oregon and Washington, the changing climate tops the governors’ legislative agendas. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee hope to help stanch global climate change by capping carbon production in their states. Though both proposals would exempt farmers and ranchers directly, the prospect of higher costs for fuel, energy and fertilizers caused by the caps poses a concern for agriculture. Meanwhile, in Idaho, legislators and new Gov. [node:read-more:link]

The new session of the Republican-controlled Legislature began on a bipartisan footing Wednesday with the Democratic attorney general and lawmakers from both parties uniting behind a package of bills to reform civil asset forfeiture. [node:read-more:link]

Even as calls for “Medicare for All” grow louder among Democrats in Washington, D.C., at least 10 states are exploring whether to allow residents to pay premiums to “buy in” to Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor. Currently, Medicaid recipients pay for their coverage in only a handful of states, and the buy-in plans that states are considering might not offer the full range of benefits available to traditional beneficiaries. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. taxpayers will buy about $5 million in pork products from a Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm under President Trump’s bailout program, which was designed to help American farmers hurt by the administration’s trade war.  JBS. one of the biggest meatpacking companies in the world, will sell 1.8 million pounds of pork products through a Trump bailout program that buys surplus commodities from farmers and ranchers, say records published by the Agricultural Marketing Service. [node:read-more:link]

There was a time when if you didn’t grow up on a farm, you at least knew a farmer. Times have changed. In 2018, Wisconsin lost 638 dairy farms – a 7.25 percent decline, according to the latest data from the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. It’s the biggest decline since records started in 2004. “It’s a part of life that not many people get to live,” says Stephanie Kate Hoff. “I think it’s special.”She knows firsthand. The UW–Madison life sciences communication major grew up on a farm in Thorp, Wis., that raised pigs and beef cattle. [node:read-more:link]

After more than 20 years, trade officials in Japan announced the country reopened its borders to lamb and beef exports from the United Kingdom, which is estimated to be worth more than $146 million in the next five years. The ban was imposed in 1996, after bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered in UK cattle. The agreement, effective Jan. [node:read-more:link]

New cattle barns and an unfinished milking facility, which were part of the Ohio prison farm system and brought to a close when Ohio Gov. John Kasich decided to sell the farms in 2016, were more costly than first realized.  The state-owned farms were operated by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, along with the Ohio Penal Industries, and used inmate labor to produce food for the prisoners. A report by the Ohio Inspector Generalshows that the new facilities cost the state a little more than $13 million, compared to roughly $8.6 million spent on the buildings. [node:read-more:link]

While Americans consumed nearly 37 pounds per capita in 2017, it was not enough to reduce the country’s 1.4 billion-pound cheese surplus, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The glut, which at 900,000 cubic yards is the largest in U.S. history, means that there is enough cheese sitting in cold storage to wrap around the U.S. Capitol. The stockpile started to build several years ago, in large part because the pace of milk production began to exceed the rates of consumption, says Andrew Novakovic, professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University. [node:read-more:link]

The strain of bovine tuberculosis detected in a British Columbia cow has not previously been documented in Canada or the US, says Canada's Chief Veterinary Officer Jaspinder Komal. All of the cows in the herd were tested, and three others had the same strain of TB. [node:read-more:link]

The Environmental Protection Agency has abandoned plans to roll back a set of protections for farmworkers, including a proposal to ease Obama-era regulations requiring anyone working with dangerous pesticides to be at least 18 years old.Passed in 2015, the rules became a target of the EPA a year after President Trump’s election. [node:read-more:link]