Welcome to farming’s litigious age. When physical injury occurs in agriculture, the loss often leads directly to a courtroom. While producer eyes are quick to focus on the fine print and penalties of OSHA regulations, sledgehammer civil suits approach from the blind side, capable of swallowing an operation whole. Mirroring the U.S. mainstream, agriculture has entered an era of litigation and legal wrangling. Lawsuits against farmers once were a rarity. Yet, today’s producer is often popularly perceived as a wealthy, land-rich businessman with substantial assets. [node:read-more:link]

A spokesperson for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association says the U.S. Coastguard national response center could crash when the livestock industry files air emissions reports later this month. Chief environmental counsel Scott Yager tells Brownfield more than 200,000 livestock producers will have 24-hours to call the Coastguard on January 22, to meet a new air emissions requirement. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) today announced its continued effort to modernize inspection systems through science-based approaches to food safety. USDA is proposing to amend the federal meat inspection regulations to establish a new voluntary inspection system for market hog slaughter establishments called the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS), while also requiring additional pathogen sampling for all swine slaughter establishments. [node:read-more:link]

Attorneys representing farmers from across the country who filed multiple lawsuits alleging off-target dicamba damage to their crops will try to convince a federal panel of judges next week that the cases should be heard in a single court. The seven-judge U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is slated to hear oral arguments on Jan. 25 in Miami, Florida, on a motion by attorneys representing farmers in Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas and Missouri to move all the cases to one court.The question at hand will be what venue would best serve the interests of all the litigants. [node:read-more:link]

Panera Bread has petitioned the FDA to define what an "egg" is.The soup and sandwich restaurant said a number of its competitors — such as Burger King, Taco Bell and Dunkin — sell egg patties that contain more than five ingredients. [node:read-more:link]

An executive with the poultry processing company in Delaware that's been cited for spraying wastewater with excessive nitrate levels onto nearby fields says Mountaire Farms is willing to pay for drilling deep wells for concerned property owners. [node:read-more:link]

Gene editing technologies should be largely exempted from EU laws on GM food, although individual states can regulate them if they choose, the European court’s advocate general has said. The opinion may have far-reaching consequences for new breeding techniques that can remove specific parts of a plant’s genetic code and foster herbicide-resistant traits.Hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in the technology, which could be subject to labelling, authorisation and safety checks, if the court decides it falls under the EU’s GM legislation later this year. [node:read-more:link]

Whole Foods employees say stores are suffering from food shortages because of a newly implemented inventory-management system called order-to-shelf, or OTS. Whole Foods says the system reduces unnecessary inventory, lowers costs, and frees up employees to focus on customer service.Employees acknowledge that less food is spoiling in storage rooms, but they describe OTS as a "militaristic" system that crushes morale and leads to many items being out of stock."Last week, we ran out of onions and potatoes twice," an employee of a Brooklyn Whole Foods store said. [node:read-more:link]

In its January 2018 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), EIA forecasts that total fossil fuels production in the United States will average almost 73 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2018, the highest level of production on record. EIA expects total fossil fuel production to then set another record in 2019, with production forecast to rise to 75 quadrillion Btu. [node:read-more:link]

A new report from CoBank has some good news and bad news for the farm economy in 2018. The co-op bank’s Knowledge Exchange Division projects an expanding global economy, strong U.S. consumer confidence and persistent economic recovery in many rural areas. However, it also forecasts another year of belt-tightening due to “lingering stress” from low commodity prices.“The rural economy is uniquely impacted by what happens in Washington, the broader U.S. economy and around the world,” says Dan Kowalski, vice president of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division. [node:read-more:link]