Iowa water quality is in the spotlight for various reasons, most notably a federal lawsuit by the Des Moines Water Works against upstream drainage districts and counties over high nutrient loads, mainly nitrogen. Iowa's nutrient reduction strategy calls for the state to cut nitrogen and phosphorus in water by 45% using various methods. [node:read-more:link]
Deere & Co. was sued by U.S. antitrust officials seeking to block its purchase of Monsanto Co.’s Precision Planting LLC equipment business, a deal the government says would eliminate competition and raise costs for farmers. Deere’s acquisition would combine the only two significant U.S. providers of high-speed precision planting systems used by farms, giving the company control of close to 90 percent of the U.S. market, the Justice Department said Wednesday in a complaint filed in federal court in Chicago. [node:read-more:link]
In Finland, St1 is preparing to deliver the first Cellunolix® ethanol plant using forest industry residues as feedstock to North European Bio Tech. The project is under construction in Kajaani and is expected to come online before the end of 2016. Recently a letter of intent was signed for a similar facility in in Follum, Norway. In its H1 2016 financial reporting, the company said net sales were up by a half million euros over the same period in 2015. [node:read-more:link]
This month in Finland, a team of intrepid researchers herded one thousand European cows one-by-one into a glass “metabolic chamber” to measure their methane emissions, digestion, production characteristics, energy-efficiency, metabolism, and the microbial make-up of their rumens. The Project is known as RuminOmics, but if it had been titled The Truman Show II: When the Cows Come Home, we wouldn’t have been a bit surprised. [node:read-more:link]
"Today's farm income forecast underscores the unique ability of American farmers and ranchers to plan ahead and make sharp business decisions in a challenging market, as net farm income for 2015 was revised up significantly to $80.7 billion-an increase of 43 percent since the February forecast. Falling production expenses, including the price of fuel and inputs, was the largest contributor to this latest rally by farmers. Just last week, farm exports for 2016 were revised up to one of the highest levels on record, demonstrating that U.S. farmers and ranchers continue to beat expectations. [node:read-more:link]
Cargill, General Mills, Wal-Mart and several other giant food, agricultural and environmental groups will announce a partnership on Wednesday to accelerate programs and research to improve soil health and water quality on farms. The idea evolved from a meeting of CEOs that Wal-Mart held two years ago at its Arkansas headquarters. The topic: how the companies could help support agriculture in the Midwest. Among other things, it was clear that companies were increasingly making commitments to customers that their products would come from fields or barns where farming is done susta [node:read-more:link]
Canada's Agrium Inc and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc said they are in talks to merge, a deal that would create a fertilizer and farm retailing giant worth more than $25 billion but also trigger U.S. regulatory scrutiny. Potash Corp, the world's biggest crop nutrient company by capacity and Agrium, North America's largest farm retailer, said in separate statements that the talks were at a "preliminary" stage about a possible merger of equals, adding that no agreement has been reached. [node:read-more:link]
Jim Matheson, a Democrat who was elected to seven terms in the U.S. House from a reliably Republican district in Utah, knows something about what it takes to work across party lines and buck political headwinds. He'll need that experience in his new job as CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which argues that the Obama administration's climate regulations will drive up consumer costs and put some of its many coal-dependent co-ops out of business. President Obama's Clean Power Plan is the cornerstone of the U.S. [node:read-more:link]
Brace yourself. According to a new study from CoBank, the drop in farm income over the past three farming seasons has been the biggest plunge since the Great Depression. "The drop in farm income over the past three years is the steepest decrease since the Depression," says Tanner Ehmke, CoBank senior economist covering, the grains, oilseeds and ethanol, and farm supply sectors. "Producer incomes have fallen more than 50% from 2013 to today and their debt-to-income ratio is on the rise.” When cash flow becomes an issue, farmers tend to put off whatever bills can wait. [node:read-more:link]
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced an initiative that will use USDA's rural development resources to help fill the need for transitional housing for people recovering from opioid and other substance use disorders. In January, President Obama tasked Vilsack, who is chair of the White House Rural Council, with leading a federal interagency effort focused on rural opioid use. [node:read-more:link]
