The Humane Farming Association (HFA) is asking the US Dept. of Agriculture to take action against livestock owners who don’t protect their animals from severe weather. HFA filed a petition with the agency to cease payments to producers under USDA Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), which compensates livestock producers who incur losses from inclement weather. [node:read-more:link]
A Montana legislative committee has tabled a lawmaker’s attempt to clarify how private land is leased to oil companies. Speaker of the House Austin Knudsen, is the sponsor of House Bill 384, which would have revised language used on oil and gas leases to inform landowners of the associated costs of oil extraction from their land. Knudsen said leases tell landowners they will receive royalties from wells on their land. However, he said the oil industry tends to deduct transportation and operating costs from that royalty. That information isn’t generally on the lease. [node:read-more:link]
President Trump is still promising to bring back coal jobs. But the underlying reasons for coal employment’s decline — automation, falling electricity demand, cheap natural gas, technological progress in wind and solar — won’t go away. Meanwhile, last week the Treasury Department officially (and correctly) declined to name China as a currency manipulator, making nonsense of everything Mr. Trump has said about reviving manufacturing.So will the Trump administration ever do anything substantive to bring back mining and manufacturing jobs? [node:read-more:link]
Over the last 3 weeks we looked at the USDA Agricultural Projections to 2026 for corn, soybeans, and wheat. We used those projections to calculate the profit/loss per acre for the average US farmer for each of the 3 crops for the 10-year period from 2017 to 2026. For corn, the loss per acre for the 10-year period was $867 per planted acre. The cumulative loss for soybeans over the same period would be $314 per acre while for wheat the loss would be $980 [node:read-more:link]
A Florida firm’s plans to advance field trials of a genetically engineered virus that could make trees resistant to huanglongbing brings promise of relief from a disease that has devastated the citrus industry. [node:read-more:link]
China reported 96 human infections and 47 deaths linked to H7N9 avian influenza last month, and scientists at Hong Kong University say the virus readily mutates and has rapidly developed into a form that kills chickens quickly, posing a threat to the poultry industry. "I think this virus poses the greatest threat to humanity than any other in the past 100 years," said Guan Yi, one of the world's leading virologists. [node:read-more:link]
The cat wasn’t breathing when firefighters with the Pikesville, Md., Volunteer Fire Company pulled it out of a raging apartment blaze earlier this year. So medics strapped on a special pet-sized oxygen mask, got the kitty inhaling and exhaling again, and then “transported him just like a patient to the 24-hour vet center,” fire Capt. Scott Goldstein recalled. The feline resuscitation was no big deal for the company, nor is it for many others in Maryland. EMS responders in the town of Bel Air saved a cat with CPR and oxygen in February. [node:read-more:link]
In 2016, no money trickled in from Tallahassee through the budget for Florida Forever, the state’s main program for acquiring lands for conservation and recreation, which has seen its funds — once as high as $300 million — thaw to less than $20 million in the last three years. Gearing toward the May 5 deadline to pass a budget for the 2017–2018 fiscal year, the Florida House is earmarking no funds for Florida Forever, while the Senate is offering $10 million — a half of the dollars for all land protection programs. [node:read-more:link]
The public would appear to have made up its mind about the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit against Buena Vista, Calhoun and Sac counties over nitrate pollution of the Raccoon River. The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll reported Sunday that 60% of those surveyed believe the water works was right to sue drainage districts in the three counties for discharging polluted water into the river. Urban residents, small towners and even rural dwellers all show majority support for the water works position. [node:read-more:link]
Among other threats targeting Mexico during his election campaign, U.S. President Donald Trump harshly criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement. As Trump has pointed out, NAFTA contributed to a U.S. trade deficit with Mexico reaching US$63.2 billion last year. This is the country's fourth-largest trade deficit, after China, Japan and Germany. America's deficit with the other NAFTA nation, Canada, was slightly over US$11 billion in 2016.But that's only part of the story. Remove cars and auto part imports, for example, and the U.S. deficit with Mexico virtually disappears. [node:read-more:link]
