First, the FDA announced that it has recognized the first accreditation body under the voluntary Accredited Third-Party Certification Program created by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).The organization being recognized is ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB), an organization jointly owned by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the American Society for Quality (ASQ) based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This organization is being recognized because it met the applicable FDA requirements, validated through application review and on-site assessment. [node:read-more:link]

According to ag economists at the annual Wisconsin Agricultural Outlook Forum, dairy and crop farmers will be hit the hardest in the coming year. [node:read-more:link]

The two largest U.S. food distributors are accusing top poultry suppliers of conspiring to limit stocks and manipulate wholesale prices, fueling a legal battle that has pitted buyers and consumers against chicken processors.  Sysco Corp. and US Foods, which sell food to hundreds of thousands of food-service customers, alleged in separate lawsuits that they overpaid for chicken meat for years due to collusion among Tyson Foods Inc.,Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., Sanderson Farms Inc. and other companies in the $60 billion U.S. chicken industry. [node:read-more:link]

A recent working paper by the economists José Azar, Ioana Marinescu and Marshall I. Steinbaum examined job listings on CareerBuilder.com from 2010 through 2013 and found that tens of millions of Americans lived in areas where a relatively small number of employers posted most of the listings. They showed that wages fell when fewer employers in a geographic area listed most of the jobs in an occupation. The phenomenon appears to hit workers hardest outside major cities — areas where voters’ economic frustrations helped carry Donald J. Trump to the White House in 2016. Mr. Trump won Mr. [node:read-more:link]

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP 11) trade agreement has passed with its 11 remaining member nations despite the withdrawal of the United States a year ago, and will be signed in Chile in March, according to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. "We stuck with the TPP. There have been some hills and hollows and some twists and turns along the way since the APEC meeting in Lima in 2016, after it was known that President Trump would pull out," Turnbull told media. [node:read-more:link]

A variety of factors that aren't often part of the discussion may be influencing the ongoing problem of opioid abuse and overdoses in rural areas, according to a study by a Penn State economist. [node:read-more:link]

In mid-December, the California Public Utilities Commission established a new program that aims to reduce methane emissions from manure generated at dairies. The CPUC said the pilot program will incentivize at least five projects where dairy digesters produce renewable natural gas (RNG) from manure. The program was adopted pursuant to SB 1383, which established a goal to reduce California’s methane emissions 40 percent by 2030. As part of this goal, the bill authorizes funding of the dairy biomethane pilot projects to demonstrate interconnection to the gas pipeline system. [node:read-more:link]

Alaska's all-Republican congressional delegation three weeks ago praised Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke after he announced nearly all federal waters off the state's coast could be offered for oil and gas drilling. But after hearing from critics who do not want drilling in their home waters, U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young are backtracking.In a letter Friday to Zinke, the delegation requested that most Alaska waters from the state's Panhandle to the Bering Strait be removed from the proposed five-year drilling plan. [node:read-more:link]

A tanker of liquefied natural gas from a Russian company on the Treasury Department’s sanctions list is scheduled to unload the fuel this weekend, making it the first shipment of gas from the country to ever reach the United States. It’s arriving just after the U.S. announced increased economic penalties Friday against Moscow-linked people and businesses because of Vladimir Putin’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine. [node:read-more:link]