Delivering needed assistance to Minnesota’s 74,000 farmers, Governor Mark Dayton signed the bipartisan $35 million Rural Finance Authority legislation (H.F. 14) into law. The new funding will allow the Authority to continue offering eligible Minnesota farmers affordable financing and terms and conditions not offered by other traditional lenders. Without the investment, many Minnesota farmers would face a credit crunch caused by several years of low commodity prices and rising expenses. [node:read-more:link]

Rural America was front and center in the 2016 national election. Media headlines focused attention on our nation’s acute rural challenges – the decline of critical sectors like mining and manufacturing, technology-driven worker dislocation in those industries and agriculture, inadequate job opportunities for dislocated workers, infrastructure challenges, community health crises, and more. But a deeper understanding of rural America reveals a companion picture – one where innovation and collaborative local leadership are turning challenges into opportunities. [node:read-more:link]

For a 17th straight month, the Rural Mainstreet Index remained below growth neutral. • Almost one-third of bank CEOs indicated that soaring loan defaults represented the greatest Rural Mainstreet banking threat for 2017. • Almost nine often bankersreported thatlow agriculture commodity represented the biggest threat to the rural economic for 2017. • Eighty percent of bankers expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in the first half of 2017. [node:read-more:link]

HumaneWatch, a project of the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom, released a video rebutting Humane Society of the United States CEO Wayne Pacelle’s assertions on antibiotic use in animal agriculture. The video addresses Pacelle’s claim that overuse of antibiotics on farms is a public health menace, pointing to recent findings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that show nearly one-third of antibiotics prescribed to humans are unnecessary. [node:read-more:link]

NHPs, mostly monkeys, are the bridge between smaller animals and people. 95 percent of animal research is conducted with rats and mice. But they can only tell us so much. Once a disease or drug is understood in smaller species, it’s often then studied in monkeys. Monkeys are more predictive of how a disease acts or how a treatment will work in people.Primate research has led to medical devices, treatments, advancements and cures that have saved and improved millions of lives. [node:read-more:link]

The red berries of a weed found in the southern United States contain an compound that can disarm a deadly superbug, according to research published Friday.  Researchers from Emory University and the University of Iowa found that extracts from the Brazilian peppertree, which traditional healers in the Amazon have used for hundreds of years to treat skin and soft-tissue infections, have the power to stop methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections in mice. [node:read-more:link]

Washington tree fruit growers are asking legislators to set rules for paying piece-rate workers, effectively intervening in pending federal lawsuits spawned by a 2015 state Supreme Court decision. The ruling in Lopez v. Sakuma required growers to pay piece-rate workers separately for 10-minute rest breaks. The decision upset longstanding practice, left unresolved key questions and exposed growers to more lawsuits. The suits seek back pay for rest breaks for up to three years. [node:read-more:link]

In the opening weeks of the Trump administration, the state of animal welfare—as with so much other policy—is in upheaval. On February 9, the administration froze the implementation of the just-passed Organic Livestock and Poultry Practices (OLPP)—the only comprehensive federal law that regulates the welfare of animals raised for food.  The freeze comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) removing Animal Welfare Act inspection reports from its website. [node:read-more:link]

Tyson Foods executives announced that all Tyson consumer brand products would feature chicken with No Antibiotics Ever (NAE). The company also unveiled a new logo. [node:read-more:link]

few weeks ago, on an obscure climate-change blog, a retired government scientist named John Bates blasted his former boss on an esoteric point having to do with archiving temperature data. It was little more than lingering workplace bad blood, said Dr. Bates’s former co-workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr. Bates had felt he deserved his boss’s job at NOAA, they said, not the demotion he received. “He’s retaliating. It’s like grade school,” said Glenn Rutledge, a former physical scientist at NOAA who worked with Dr. Bates. [node:read-more:link]