A national animal rights group will ask millions of its supporters to boycott vacationing in Iowa to protest the state's new "ag gag" law. "People who care about animal rights, who don't want abusers protected, won't be visiting Iowa," said David Matulewicz-Crowley, legal advocacy counsel for Mercy For Animals.Animal welfare groups say the law prevents exposure of abuses, such as slamming piglets into concrete floors and confining animals in small cages.Gov. [node:read-more:link]

The Canadian government is investing up to $31 million to increase the number of meat-sniffing dogs in its employ as Canada’s pork industry remain on edge about a global outbreak of a deadly pork virus called African Swine Fever. [node:read-more:link]

After successive years of devastating wildfires, California's fire agency announced a plan Tuesday that would dramatically increase the removal of dead trees and other forest management efforts with the help of the National Guard. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection released a list of 35 priority fuel-reduction projects it wants to start immediately across the state over roughly 90,000 acres. [node:read-more:link]

A tornado in New Mexico that damaged homes and injured people also hit several dairies, forcing at least one farm to euthanize more than 150 cattle. [node:read-more:link]

A quarter of vulnerable vertebrate species are affected by human-made threats to over 90 per cent of their habitat, and approximately 7 per cent are affected by human activity across their entire range. “These species will decline and possibly die out in the impacted parts of their habitat without conservation action. Completely impacted species will almost certainly face extinction,” says James Allan at the University of Queensland in Australia.Allan and his colleagues mapped the habitats of 5457 threatened terrestrial birds, mammals and amphibians around the world. [node:read-more:link]

Much like a canary in a coal mine, Florida chickens have warned researchers of a rare but deadly mosquito-borne virus in their midst. These sentinels have revealed that eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) originates in the state's panhandle and then spreads as far north as Nova Scotia, Canada, the new study found. [node:read-more:link]

Natalie Jones Bonner, a 58-year-old entrepreneur in Biloxi, Mississippi, who has used cannabis to reduce inflammation in her knees and wrists, wanted her fellow Mississippians to experience the drug’s medical and economic benefits. So she volunteered to collect signatures for a ballot initiative to legalize its medical use. But the Navy veteran, who is black, was disheartened to discover that the campaign included few African-Americans. Mississippi is 38 percent black — the highest percentage in the nation — but four white people were leading the campaign. [node:read-more:link]

Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles announced today that sales of Kentucky hemp products in 2018 were more than 3½ times higher than the previous year and that the amount that farmers were paid for their harvests more than doubled.“When I became Commissioner of Agriculture, I promised to make Kentucky the epicenter of hemp production in the United States,” Commissioner Ryan Quarles said. “Look at us now. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is launching a new “Pests and Diseases” webpage. The new page lists all pest and disease programs managed by APHIS as part of its mission to protect American agriculture and natural resources. On the new page, users can search by type (plant, animal), keyword (avian, fruit fly, cotton), or by the specific pest or disease (coconut rhinoceros beetle, brucellosis). [node:read-more:link]

 February Survey Results at a Glance: • Overall index moves above growth neutral for the 11th time in past 12 months. • Bank CEOs project a 6.1 percent decline in farm equipment sales over the next year. Last February, bankers expected a 6.9 percent reduction. • Weak farm income has pushed almost two-thirds of banks have increased collateral requirements on farm loans. • Almost one-third of banks have increased the farm loan rejection rate due to anemic farm income. [node:read-more:link]