State and federal environmental regulators issued a blanket waiver on Monday for Florida electricity companies to violate clean air and water standards without penalty for the next two weeks. [node:read-more:link]

Milk futures have taken a beating over the past month with prices experiencing very few days of higher closes. Technically, futures should be about ready to rebound in price retracing some of the losses experienced during that period of time.The bottom line is that there is just too much milk and product out there to warrant much higher prices. Yes, prices could increase to some extent and hopefully we will experience Class III futures back to $17.00 again before the end of the year, but there is significant lost ground to regain. [node:read-more:link]

Foreign seasonal farmworkers hired by Washington growers through the farm labor association WAFLA harvested $424.3 million in tree fruit value in 2015, a report says. WAFLA says it shows the economic value of foreign farmworkers in the state. [node:read-more:link]

A bubble in Oregon’s revered craft beer industry? Sales have slowed and some breweries have closed, but the state Office of Economic Analysis isn’t going on a bender about it. Senior Economist Josh Lehner, who has written extensively about the economic impact of the state’s “alcohol cluster,” said it’s likely the industry is maturing. [node:read-more:link]

It will take months to calculate the damage Hurricanes Harvey and Irma unleashed this summer on the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida: dozens of lost lives, hundreds of thousands of destroyed homes, tens of billions in property damage and untold suffering and disruption. Some losses will take years to mend, some can never be mended at all. For farmers, once conditions clear enough to inspect fields, a first order will be to assess losses to their crops. [node:read-more:link]

Expect challenges in the Midwest to so-called “ag-gag” laws, laws that criminalize certain forms of data collection and recording on farms and ranches, after a series of challenges have left Utah’s law permanently struck down and Wyoming’s on shaky ground. [node:read-more:link]

 Monsanto showed what it will tolerate, and what it won't tolerate, when it comes to states' reactions to the 2017 season's unprecedented dicamba drift damage complaints. The St. Louis-based company on Thursday said it has filed an aggressive petition to the Arkansas State Plant Board, demanding it reject the state's proposed in-season ban on dicamba herbicides within 30 days or risk legal action.That response contrasts with the company's newly announced take on actions in Indiana. [node:read-more:link]

Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the realignment of a number of USDA offices to improve efficiency, including merging the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration into the Agricultural Marketing Service [node:read-more:link]

As more people live into their 80s and 90s, researchers have delved into the issues of health and quality of life during aging. A recent mouse study sheds light on those questions by demonstrating that a high fat, or ketogenic, diet not only increases longevity, but improves physical strength. [node:read-more:link]

But when it comes to the profitability and survival of Pennsylvania farms, size apparently matters, according to a report compiled by economists in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Theodore Alter, professor of agricultural, environmental and regional economics, and Theodore Fuller, development economist, both in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, co-authored the report, Pennsylvania Agriculture: Where the Action Is! Incorporating data from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]