A federal court denied a request from the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association (USPOULTRY) seeking a rehearing following a recent ruling issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requiring additional waste emissions reporting requirements for concentrated animal feeding operations. [node:read-more:link]
Farmers in Manitoba, Canada's third-largest pork producing province, are scrambling to contain a mysterious outbreak of a rapidly spreading virus that's deadly to piglets and threatens to harm their industry.There are 51 pork operations dealing with porcine epidemic diarrhea, up from about 40 at the end of last month, said Andrew Dickson, general manager of the Manitoba Pork Council."It caught us off-guard," Dickson said Monday. "We had a total of 10 cases in three years, so that's what's throwing us off for a loop ... [node:read-more:link]
Seth Watkins has impressive Iowa agriculture bona fides: He’s a fourth-generation farmer. He raises 600 cows and tends 3,200 acres east of Clarinda in southwest Iowa. His grandmother, Jessie Field Shambaugh, founded 4-H. Yet some Iowans have called him “nuts” for sowing grass where he could plant more corn, he told the Register.Watkins has broken out of the two-crop cycle in which so many farmers are caught. He grows corn but also oats, alfalfa and cover crops. [node:read-more:link]
In late June, Netflix debuted a new film by eclectic Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, “Okja.” The main story line is about a girl, the pig she raised (the “Okja” of the title), and how that pig is taken over and mistreated by corporate interests. Much of the story line, according to early reviews, is about how the girl vows to rescue Okja, with the help of animal activists.Being a satire, the characters are largely represented in extreme caricature — completely evil or positively saintly. [node:read-more:link]
Bayer AG and Syngenta AG face renewed pressure over their neonicotinoid farm pesticides after research funded by the companies supported accusations that the chemicals are responsible for harming bee colonies. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science at a time when the European Union’s executive arm is preparing to propose a ban on use of such pesticides in the countryside of the 28-nation trade bloc.Bee colony numbers tested in Hungary fell 24 percent by the spring and survival of colonies in the U.K. [node:read-more:link]
Rural hospitals may not save money when they treat an emergency-room patient via tele-medicine instead of transferring them to a larger facility, but patients do, according a new report. Previous studies haven’t reached a clear conclusion about whether avoiding transfer of an ER patient saves the hospital money. [node:read-more:link]
Dow Chemical Co.'s proposed $74 billion merger with DuPont Co. has garnered another two important antitrust clearances and heads into July on track for an August closing date, the companies confirmed by email June 28. Mexico’s antitrust authority and Canada’s Competition Bureau both cleared the deal with conditions on June 27, meaning that all of North America has cleared the merger.The merger is one of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemicals industry and the second deal to approach the finish line. China National Chemical Corp. [node:read-more:link]
Farm groups are cautioning the Trump administration not to open a "Pandora's Box" by claiming restrictions on steel and aluminum are needed to protect "national security." Eighteen agricultural groups wrote to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Tuesday, stressing that such a move would be a disaster for global trade, "and for U.S. agriculture in particular."The Trump administration is expected to decide any day whether to place tariffs on steel imports, stemming from an April investigation announced by the Commerce Department over whether those imports are harming U.S. [node:read-more:link]
New research suggests that warm spells at the top of the world can, surprisingly, cause unusually cold weather in parts of North America — and that could be hurting plants, damaging agriculture and even affecting the amount of carbon dioxide that goes into our atmosphere. Plus, it further reinforces a controversial but persistent theory suggesting that the fast-warming of the Arctic could be causing weather extremes in the heavily populated mid-latitudes as well. [node:read-more:link]
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue today gave the go-ahead to conduct emergency haying on Conservation Reserve Program lands to help provide feed for livestock in drought-stricken areas of Montana and North and South Dakota. “Because of the rapidly worsening drought and increasing degradation of existing forage, the Secretary is authorizing emergency haying beginning July 16,” the Farm Service Agency said in a notice. Farmers typically would be allowed to start haying on Aug. 1. [node:read-more:link]
