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On the floors of a poultry processing plant in Murrayville, workers speak 13 different languages. Fieldale Farms President Tom Hensley said he estimates about 50 or so refugees and other immigrants come to Murrayville from the metro Atlanta area daily to work in the plant.“They come up in 15-passenger vans full, so there’d be five or six vans every day coming from Clarkston up to Murrayville and going back from Murrayville to Clarkston every day,” he said. But Hensley could use 200 more people right away at the company’s locations in Gainesville, Murrayville and Cornelia. [node:read-more:link]

While our planet's average annual temperature has increased at a steady pace in recent decades, there has been an alarming jump in the severity of the hottest days of the year during that same period, with the most lethal effects in the world's largest cities. [node:read-more:link]

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought collective bargaining rights for farmworkers, satisfying a request from New York Farm Bureau. The lawsuit challenged a more than century-old law that exempts farm workers from the right to organize. Filed in May by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), a not-for-profit focused on defending civil liberties and civil rights, the lawsuit asked the state Supreme Court to declare the exclusion unconstitutional.“The Court’s decision is a major victory for New York’s family farms,” Farm Bureau stated in a release announcing the Jan. [node:read-more:link]

The air leaving Iowa hog confinements contains manure and should be illegal under state law, according to a petition filed with the state.  Four northeast Iowa residents want the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to regulate the release of manure through the air in the same way it regulates the release of liquid manure.  The state requires that manure be retained until it's applied as fertilizer to farm fields, the petition says.  "We contend the 24/7/365 discharge through air vents or blowers contain excreta/waste/manure," according to the petition filed by Bob Watson and Dick Janson, b [node:read-more:link]

Canada's dairy industry says it has given up enough in past trade deals and shouldn't bear any additional hardship in NAFTA renegotiations. The head of the Dairy Farmers of Ontario says the U.S. should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership if it wants increased access to Canada. Graham Lloyd says giving the Americans any more access to Canada won't solve massive overproduction but would cause serious harm to the Canadian dairy farmer. He says Canada should have recalibrated the amount of foreign access permitted under TPP when U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the trade deal. [node:read-more:link]

America’s agriculture industry has benefited from significant improvements in recent years, touching virtually every aspect of a modern farming operation. These upgrades have ranged from the use of global positioning satellites (GPS) that allow for more precise operations to new seeds that better resist droughts. But it is hard to imagine that anything has been as important to America’s agricultural community over the last two decades than the sustained success provided by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). [node:read-more:link]

A Trump administration outline for farm legislation calls for pushing some food-stamp recipients back to work, a GOP priority.A four-page document released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday called for supporting "work as the pathway to self-sufficiency, well-being and economic mobility for individuals and families" on food stamps. The administration didn't specify how it would change the law or whether it wants to cut funds for the program. [node:read-more:link]

New York state will require internet providers to observe net neutrality or risk losing eligibility for state contracts under an executive order issued Wednesday by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The new policy aims to protect consumers by using the state's lucrative information technology contracts as leverage over internet companies. It's similar to one enacted through executive order Monday by Democratic Gov. [node:read-more:link]

Some state lawmakers are proposing new work requirements for people receiving food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, and for people receiving government-subsidized health insurance under Medicaid. Others want welfare recipients to pass drug tests. Many are looking to crack down on fraud by requiring recipients to prove their eligibility more frequently and with better documentation. Efforts to ban the purchase of junk food and soda with food stamps are also ongoing. In Wisconsin, Republican Gov. [node:read-more:link]