The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, a nonprofit organization that supports innovative science addressing food and agriculture challenges, today announced the first New Innovator in Food and Agriculture Research Award recipients.  The nine New Innovators will receive a total of $4.8 million over five years. Matching funds from each awardee’s respective institution will leverage the Foundation’s investment of up to $300,000 per recipient. [node:read-more:link]

Susan Sosnowski is a state senator, but she is also a farmer who grows vegetables and raises sheep and turkeys on 60 acres in West Kingston. So she understands the need for farmers to get legal advice on everything from contracts to licensing to estate planning, and she also understands how hard it can be for them to cover that expense.  “We often run on such thin financial margins that there isn’t extra funding to pay for attorneys,” said Sosnowski, D-South Kingstown, New Shoreham, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

Nearly a quarter of the food businesses in Oregon from groceries to dairies are overdue for safety inspections, according to an audit from the Secretary of State's office.The 2,841 companies are at least three months' past due, the audit said. [node:read-more:link]

Midwestern American agricultural practices will be showcased in China at an Iowa demonstration farm set to be built starting next year.  The farm in Hebei Province will be modeled after one operated by Rick and Martha Kimberley, who live near Maxwell, about 25 miles northeast of Des Moines. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Kimberley farmstead in 2012. Then China's vice president, he met with friends he made in Iowa in 1985 while he was a Hebei Province party official and director of the Feed Association of Shijiazhuang Prefecture. [node:read-more:link]

A team of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and their collaborators have established a strong link between honey bee health and the effects of diet on bacteria that live in the guts of these important insect pollinators. In a study published in the November issue of Molecular Ecology, the team fed caged honey bees one of four diets: fresh pollen, aged pollen, fresh supplements, and aged supplements. [node:read-more:link]

A woman who illegally helped immigrants work at dairy farms in Michigan's Thumb region was sentenced Wednesday to two years and three months in federal prison. In her plea deal, Yolanda Stewart admitted that she conspired with farms for years. She said she enabled at least 10 farms, especially in Huron and Tuscola counties, to benefit from the labor of more than 100 people who were in the U.S. illegally. Defense attorney Paul Beggs said the 60-year-old Marlette woman regrets her actions. But he called it a stiff sentence for "something so many people do." "She's Hispanic. She's a U.S. [node:read-more:link]

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Aftershocks are still being felt in New Zealand as the country tries to recover from a massive earthquake, and the devastation will impact the major dairy producing nation from exporting its goods. Fonterra, the world’s biggest dairy exporter, said some of its farms were without power and would likely have to dump milk, while other shipments are expected to be late.  That area accounts for roughly 13 percent of the New Zealand’s milk output. Analysts expect the earthquake to lift milk prices at the Global Dairy Trade event. [node:read-more:link]

Consumers were significantly less likely to pay for food across several categories in November and last week's elections may have contributed to the sharp decline, according to Oklahoma State University's latest Food Demand Survey (FooDS) monthly survey.  Ag economists say the decline in willingess-to-pay may reflect “post-election uncertainty,” as the surveys were completed just two and three days after the Nov. 8th vote. [node:read-more:link]

Do you produce fruits, vegetables or other specialty crops? Are you interested in protecting your crops with crop insurance, but struggling to find crop insurance that works for the diversity of fruits or vegetables you produce on your operation?  Or maybe you’re a crop insurance agent who is interested in strengthening crop insurance options for specialty crop producers. [node:read-more:link]