A heavy burden – the potential future of the state’s dairy industry – now rests on the shoulders of the New Hampshire Legislature.  The Milk Producers Emergency Relief Fund Board met for the second time in as many weeks Tuesday and recommended that legislators approve a $3.6 million one-time payment to the state’s dairy farmers in response to this year’s drought.  The recommendation, one of three included in the board’s annual report, will be passed along to Gov. Maggie Hassan and House Speaker Shawn Jasper on Wednesday. [node:read-more:link]

The United States is awash in pork, beef, eggs, milk and bountiful harvests. U.S. meat companies are producing nearly 5 percent more beef than in 2015, thanks in part to plentiful feed supplies. In turn, the big food producers like Cargill, are seeing profits rise. The Minnesota conglomerate recently reported a 66 percent jump in profits because of demand for its steaks and hamburgers.  And yet the boom in supply is driving down prices at the grocery store, pinching retailer profits. [node:read-more:link]

One of the nation’s most popular travel booking sites is taking a stand on animal welfare by halting the sale of tickets to attractions that let tourists ride or touch wild or endangered animals. TripAdvisor announced plans to adopt the changes by early 2017, partly in response to pressure from animal rights groups to stop selling tickets to attractions that they feel exploit animals without offering any educational value. [node:read-more:link]

Gary Baise found this ruling on the impact if flooding on animal agriculture that is very pertinent to what our some of our coastal regions are facing.   The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United States without a permit, specifically an NPDES permit. Under the Clean Water Act, discharges from certain animal feeding operations that occur under certain rainfall conditions are subject to a narrow exemption from the NPDES regulations for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). [node:read-more:link]

A coalition made up of large agribusinesses and various consulting groups released its annual updated Global Agricultural Productivity report. The Global Harvest Initiative typically uses its agricultural productivity report to spotlight a particular topic in the U.S. as well as food production gains or challenges in a developing country around the world. This year the group tied together the needs of production, farmer economic needs in a down cycle and long-term sustainability goals for agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

Anita Krajnc has been arrested multiple times for incidents involving pigs that are being transported to slaughter.  While wanting to prevent pigs, chickens or other animals from suffering is a noble cause, when a person’s actions to get that point across break the law and become a drain on legal system resources, perhaps things have been taken too far. And being a nuisance to law enforcement officers and the court system appears to be just what Canadian animal rights activist and Toronto Pig Save co-founder Anita Krajnc has done. [node:read-more:link]

A recent WATT-Rennier Poultry Confidence Index poll predicted substantial changes in the use of antibiotics for broiler production.  In five years, 70 percent of respondents predicted that most antibiotic usage would be for the treatment of sick flocks, while the no-antibiotics-ever (NAE) category would represent 28 percent of broiler production. [node:read-more:link]

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has launched an attack on a Northern Indiana poultry operation. [node:read-more:link]

In a first-of-its-kind ruling, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved Pacific Ethanol’s registration of its Stockton ethanol plant to generate valuable credits by producing cellulosic ethanol with the same equipment the company uses to produce corn-based ethanol. The EPA approval now allows Pacific Ethanol to generate so-called “D3 RINs” (Renewable Identification Numbers) using proprietary technology from one of its partners, Visalia-based Edeniq. [node:read-more:link]

A new study says that human-induced climate change has doubled the area affected by forest fires in the U.S. West over the last 30 years. According to the study, since 1984 heightened temperatures and resulting aridity have caused fires to spread across an additional 16,000 square miles than they otherwise would have--an area larger than the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. The authors warn that further warming will increase fire exponentially in coming decades. [node:read-more:link]