Hormel Foods Corp. today reported record net income in the fourth quarter and all of fiscal 2016 and told industry analysts that it is working on a goal to post overall annual margins of as much as 19 percent by 2020. [node:read-more:link]

If President-elect Donald Trump is successful with his proposed $1 trillion, 10-year program to fix America’s disintegrating and inadequate infrastructure, the states have a list of critical projects handy for him. And while a trillion could be a decent down payment, it’s not nearly enough. [node:read-more:link]

Federal judges struck down Wisconsin’s legislative map as illegally partisan, an unusual ruling that will require the Supreme Court to once again consider whether political gerrymandering violates the Constitution.  It is a question the court has addressed in the past without resolution. In its last attempt, Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February, wrote that it was impossible for courts to come up with a test to decide when partisan line-drawing goes so far as to violate the rights of those who don’t belong to the party in power. [node:read-more:link]

The state’s health commissioner announced Monday that the opioid addiction crisis is an official public health emergency in Virginia and created a standing order that anyone can obtain a rescue drug at pharmacies to treat overdoses. State Health Commissioner Marissa Levine announced at a news conference that the drug naloxone, which can be used to treat narcotic overdoses in emergencies, can now be obtained at pharmacies without a prescription or any explanation as to why it is needed. [node:read-more:link]

When President-elect Donald J. Trump met with the British politician Nigel Farage in recent days, he encouraged Mr. Farage and his entourage to oppose the kind of offshore wind farms that Mr. Trump believes will mar the pristine view from one of his two Scottish golf courses, according to one person present. The meeting, held shortly after the presidential election, raises new questions about Mr. [node:read-more:link]

Farms are getting bigger and the smallest farms aren’t real farms — that’s what I told you last week in a story about how the official definition of “farm” in the national Agricultural Census obscures the consolidation that the farming industry has experienced over the last 30 years. But there’s another important part to this story: Consolidation isn’t the same thing as the loss of family farms. Ninety-seven percent of US farms are family-owned, according the most recent Agricultural Census. Even big farms are usually family owned. [node:read-more:link]

As Virginia declares opioid addiction a public health emergency, the state is making a popular overdose antidote available without a prescription. State Health Commissioner Marissa Levine issued a standing order that lets Virginians purchase the drug Naloxone over the counter. Essentially, she issued a prescription to everyone in the state so they can access the drug. The state government expects a 77 percent increase in fatal opioid overdoses from five years ago by the end of the year. Fatal drug overdoses are the number one cause of unnatural death in Virginia. [node:read-more:link]

Twenty years from now, the most important tool for putting food on your table won’t be a harvester, combine or a plow. It will be a piece of software.  Agriculture is in the process of transitioning into a fully high-tech enterprise. This is a long-overdue revolution in the way things have been done for centuries. To put it in perspective, if we keep doing farming the old-fashioned way, two billion more people will go hungry by the year 2050.  World population growth is driving the urgent need for a radical boost in farm productivity. Incremental advances in output simply won’t cut it. [node:read-more:link]

For decades, marine chemists have faced an elusive paradox. The surface waters of the world's oceans are supersaturated with the greenhouse gas methane, yet most species of microbes that can generate the gas can't survive in oxygen-rich surface waters. So where exactly does all the methane come from? This longstanding riddle, known as the "marine methane paradox," may have finally been cracked, thanks to a new study. [node:read-more:link]

This blog post will focus on the rules related to Open Space Valuation (“OSV”).  Passed in 1978, more than a decade after Agricultural Use Valuation, this method is governed by Article VIII, Section 1(d)(1) of the Texas Property Code and Sections 23.51-59 of the Texas Tax Code.  This valuation method may also frequently be referred to as “1(d)(1) valuation.”  A one-time application must be filed with the County Appraisal District. [node:read-more:link]