A new and interactive tool released by FAO allows farmers, policy makers and scientists to calculate meat, milk and eggs production as well as greenhouse-gas emissions from livestock to make the sector more productive and more climate-friendly.  GLEAM-I the Global Livestock Environmental Assessment Modelinteractive, provides answers to a wide range of questions. For example, as a small livestock keeper or a pastoralist, how can you get your animals to produce more milk, meat or eggs? [node:read-more:link]

Ensuring animal welfare is a human responsibility that includes consideration for all aspects of animal well-being, including proper housing, management, nutrition, disease prevention and treatment, responsible care, humane handling and, when necessary, humane euthanasia. Seems straightforward, right? In reality, animal welfare assessment may be much more complex and challenging to assess; real-life situations may present advantages in one area and disadvantages in another, and an assessment often depends on weighing which elements of welfare are most important to the animals. [node:read-more:link]

The kinds of energy policies we'll all have to adopt in the coming decades are already on display in New England. The region barely uses any coal, and the six states there are embracing renewables like it's 2050. In 2014 Rhode Island and Vermont were the only two states in the US that didn't use any coal at all. That makes Rhode Island the most logical place for the nation's first offshore wind farm, called Block Island Wind Farm. The wind farm will generate 30 megawatts of energy — enough to power every home on Block Island. [node:read-more:link]

If our new friends in the eat-no-meat movement are to be believed, then which on-farm practice is the next target?  While I have no inside track on the strategies of the Humane Society of the U.S. (HSUS) and its cohorts, I’m guessing the next target will be the broiler industry specifically and poultry production of all varieties broadly, if only because we raise and kill more than 9 billion birds a year for food. [node:read-more:link]

Scientists have genetically modified a common soil bacteria to create electrical wires that not only conduct electricity, but are thousands of times thinner than a human hair. [node:read-more:link]

At COP21 last year, the EU committed to cutting its total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030. As part of its climate and energy plans, the EU also has set an objective to achieve at least 27 percent renewable energy use by 2030. The European Commission already has signaled that these ambitious objectives will require substantial 12 to 20 percent GHG emission reductions and 12 to 14 percent renewable sources in transport. [node:read-more:link]

As Pennsylvania continues its push to reduce the loading of farm nutrients into the Chesapeake Bay, the state is now calling on the 41 county conservation districts in the bay watershed to conduct on-farm inspections. It’s a decision that was announced in May, as part of Gov. Tom Wolf’s “Bay Reboot” strategy, that would shift conservation district staff from conducting 100 educational farm visits, to conducting 50 farm inspections a year. The goal is to inspect 10 percent of the state’s farms each year — eventually inspecting all the farms in the watershed. [node:read-more:link]

Agricultural soil phosphorus levels held steady or trended downward in at least 80 percent of Ohio counties from 1993 through 2015.  The findings, part of the college’s Field to Faucet initiative, represent good news for Ohioans concerned about protecting surface water quality while maintaining agricultural production, according to college researchers Elizabeth Dayton, Steve Culman and Anthony Fulford. “Soil phosphorus levels are strongly related to runoff water phosphorus levels. Less phosphorus in the soil should result in reduced phosphorus runoff risk,” Dayton said. [node:read-more:link]

The Produce Marketing Association (PMA), in conjunction with the Delaware Department of Agriculture, hosted FDA officials earlier this month for a tour of local state farm and packinghouse visits designed to highlight the industry and inform policymakers of the challenges facing the produce supply chain in light of the new rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).  “These tours are part of PMA’s ongoing work to connect the policymakers who regulate our industry with fruit and vegetable producers’ realities and experiences, to encourage them to develop real-world workable solutio [node:read-more:link]

For more than two decades, the National Park Service monitored the wolf packs in Alaska’s Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Now, so many of the predators have been killed by the state’s Department of Fish and Game that the feds have had to drop the program. It's no longer feasible to conduct research.  The state has been shooting the wolves when they wander outside the boundaries of the federal preserve, to try to increase populations of moose and caribou for human hunters. [node:read-more:link]