AgClips :: a service of the regional offices of the council of state governments

OR:New state fair manager assumes post
New manager of the Oregon State Fair and Exposition Center Toni Payseno plans to work closely with farm groups. "They are one of the vital partners in the fair," Payseno said. "The fair started with agriculture as a major goal for having the fair."
Capital Press

Cattle Producers Show Surprise Interest in Expansion
While beef supplies will be very short for several more years, the USDA's Cattle report indicated that the very early stages of beef cattle expansion has begun as beef heifer retention has increased a modest one percent. However, the big picture is that beef cow numbers dropped 3 %last year and this will mean a smaller calf crop in 2012 that will keep cattle slaughter small for 2013 and 2014. If producers follow through with more heifer retention in 2012 and 2013, slaughter supplies will decline over the next two years and increase finished cattle prices even more.
farmdoc daily

MF Global Told S&P It Had ‘Never Been Stronger’ One Week Before Collapse
A week before MF Global Holdings Ltd. collapsed, its chief financial officer told Standard & Poor’s in an e-mail that the futures broker had “never been stronger.”
Bloomberg

Studies to discern what is killing dolphins in the Gulf
Since 2010, 630 dolphins have died in the Gulf of Mexico, according to scientist Suzanne Smith of the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. The deaths began a few weeks before the massive BP oil spill in the area, in which some 5 miln barrels of oil -- the worst spill in history -- contaminated the Gulf. Experts are trying to determine whether the oil spill or a virus is causing the dolphin deaths.
WKMG-TV (Orlando, Fla.)

State veterinarian provides overview of livestock zoonoses
Montana state veterinarian Marty Zaluski emphasizes the need for communication between animal health and public health officials in this article, which outlines many zoonotic diseases present in Montana livestock. Although the list of diseases is long and the infections in animals and people can be serious, routine hygiene and properly cooking meat are sufficient to prevent transmission in many cases.
Farm & Ranch Guide

F.D.A. Moves to Close a Queens Cheese Factory
A potentially deadly bacteria was discovered on more than one occasion at the plant of the Mexicali Cheese Corporation in Woodhaven.
NYTimes.com

Life Sciences Development Rebounds in Central New Jersey
With its concentration of pharmaceutical giants and academic powerhouses, the region could be a major center for life sciences businesses, developers say.
NYTimes.com

Golf course weeds are developing resistance to the herbicide glyphosate
If your golf game isn’t up to par, you may be able to blame it on those tufts of weeds on the course. Annual bluegrass is a problematic winter weed on many U.S. golf courses. After years of management with the herbicide glyphosate, resistant biotypes of this weed have developed, which will make keeping a clean fairway more challenging.
Science Daily

S.D. cheerleaders win ‘got milk?’ competition
A team of cheerleaders from South Dakota won the national ‘got milk? Be Strong Challenge by touting the benefits of chocolate milk. By emphasizing the sports aspect, the cheerleaders tapped into a growing body of research that chocolate milk is a good “recovery drink” after vigorous exercise.
Dairy Herd

While the short-term caution may be easy enough to understand, the longer-term optimism is a good deal more mystifying -- at least if you mean by that some positive market force reasonably implied by the hard-data status and dynamics of the latest cattle herd assessment.
DTN

Canadian Cattle, Sheep and Goat Producers Gain Market Access to Philippines
Canadian cattle, sheep and goat producers will benefit from new access to yet another international market.
MarketWatch

New Disease Hits Dutch, German Livestock
A new livestock disease causing deformities at birth has been detected in at least five European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany.
Victoria Times Colonist

Yellow-Cedar Are Dying in Alaska: Scientists Now Know Why
Yellow-cedar, a culturally and economically valuable tree in southeastern Alaska and adjacent parts of British Columbia, has been dying off across large expanses of these areas for the past 100 years. But no one could say why -- until now. "The cause of tree death, called yellow-cedar decline, is now known to be a form of root freezing that occurs during cold weather in late winter and early spring, but only when snow is not present on the ground," explains Pacific Northwest Research Station scientist Paul Hennon "When present, snow protects the fine, shallow roots from extreme soil temperatures. The shallow rooting of yellow-cedar, early spring growth, and its unique vulnerability to freezing injury also contribute to this problem."
Science Daily

From Health Food To Health Risk: Sprouts Slip Off The Menu
The Beaumont, Tex.-based Jason's Deli chain announced that it would no longer serve fresh sprouts, citing frequent recalls due to bacterial contamination.  Meanwhile, European health officials met in Brussels this week to discuss the serious outbreak caused by sprouts last year. More than 50 people died and thousands were sickened in Germany and France, after eating fenugreek sprouts contaminated with E. Coli 0104. At the time, health officials warned Europeans to shun sprouts unless they were well cooked.
National Public Radio

Drought, high feed costs push beef prices higher
Low cattle supplies in 2012 are expected to drive up beef prices for the second year in a row, stretching consumers still coping with high unemployment and only modest wage increases. The Agriculture Department reported Friday there were about 91 miln head of cattle in the U.S. on Jan. 1, down 2 %from a year ago and the lowest level since 1952.  Retail beef prices, now near record levels, will likely rise 4 %to 5 %this year following a 10 %increase in 2011, according to Agriculture. John Nalivka, owner of consulting firm Sterling Marketing, estimates prices could rise as much as another 10 %— more than double the inflation rate for all food.
The Tennessean

Grassley investigates FDA monitoring of whistleblowers
A senior Senate Republican has launched an investigation into the Food and Drug Administration’s secret e-mail monitoring of scientists who warned that unsafe medical devices were approved over their objections, saying whistleblowers often are treated “like skunks at a picnic.”  In a five-page letter released Wednesday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) demands that FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg disclose who authorized the monitoring, how many employees were targeted and whether the agency obtained passwords to their personal e-mail accounts, allowing their communications on private computers to be intercepted. Grassley also wants to know whether the monitoring is still going on.
The Washington Post

Late-summer hit for area crops?
The Upper Midwest could be hit with a hot, dry late summer, which might hurt crops, a weather expert said.  “We could see a very hot August, a very hot September, and with a lack of precipitation,” said Leon Osborne, president and chief executive officer of Meridian Environmental Technology in Grand Forks, N.D.   Though the region isn’t necessarily headed for drought, “We may have turned a climate-shift corner,” he said.
AgWeek

Ethanol, livestock, tax issues key for Mo Corn
Missouri Corn Growers Association members have gathered in Jefferson City for their annual meeting and lobby day Tuesday. Their CEO Gary Marshall outlined Missouri Corn’s three main legislative priorities this session.  Ethanol incentives are one, says Marshall,“We want to make sure that the government here in Missouri follows through with the last of the incentives for our ethanol industry. We still have two plants that are vulnerable, we think, particularly with the federal subsidies going away now. So, we want to make sure and protect those.
Brownfield Network

Contentious farm bill debate expected
Many farm policy experts are predicting a highly contentious debate on the 2012 Farm Bill. University of Nebraska extension policy specialist Brad Lubben is among them.  “We’re going to restart the process and it’s going to be pretty contentious,” Lubben says, “not just from the non-ag interests in Congress, but even the ag interests in Congress that didn’t really have a voice in the closed-door negotiations last fall. “It will test that old coalition that always came together to support a farm bill.”
Brownfield Network

Agriculture sector unhappy with trade agency merger proposal
In a bid to shrink government, the White House has proposed merging the United States Trade Representative, the Small Business Administration, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Trade and Development Agency, and several functions of the Commerce Department into a yet-to-be-named new agency. This would be done only if Congress grants President Obama new powers to force such consolidation.  Several agricultural and commodity organizations have come out against the proposal. Next week, a coalition of such groups is expected to send a letter to the White House expressing displeasure over the merger.
Delta Farm Press

GMO crops get big backer in Bill Gates
Self-made Bilnaire, software magnate and philanthropist Bill Gates may not know everything about agriculture, but when it comes to addressing the problem of world hunger, he understands the meaning of making sound investments in the future. “Right now, just over 1 Biln people—about 15 %of the people in the world—live in extreme poverty. On most days, they worry about whether their family will have enough food to eat. There is irony in this, since most of them live and work on farms. The problem is that their farms…don’t produce enough food for a family to live on,” writes Gates in his Fourth Annual Letter, released online by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Western Farm Press

Cattle inventories drop to lowest level in 60 years
A record-breaking drought across Texas and much of the Southwest and reactions to a shortage of forage acres have caused cattle inventories in Texas and across the U.S. to fall to their lowest levels since at least 1952. The latest USDA analysis of the cattle inventory also indicates the current calf crop is the lowest since 1950.  The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service released their cattle production numbers and values of all cattle and calves in January indicating the inventory of all U.S. cattle and calves in the U.S. as of Jan. 1, 2012, totaled 90.8 miln head, a drop of 2 %below last year’s beginning inventory. In Texas alone the herd dropped 11 %or 1.4 miln head, the biggest decline in more than 150 years. Oklahoma is down by 12 %on all cattle and calves since numbers reported in January 2011.
Southwest Farm Press

Senator Baucus wants money continued for rural schools
U.S. Senator Max Baucus (MT) announced that 34 Montana counties will share nearly $20.5 miln this year to fund schools, roads, search and rescue and other county programs. These are the last payments counties will receive unless the program is reauthorized. Baucus stated that rural counties rely heavily upon the funding which comes from the Agriculture Department's Secure Rural Schools Program. Along with the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, rural counties are able to invest in construction projects, roads, education and forest conservation to make up for their inability to collect taxes on large swaths of public lands.
KXLF-TV, Butte, Montana

Less Meat and Potatoes in School Meals Rankle Industry Groups
An Obama administration effort to add more fruits, vegetables and whole grains to U.S. school meals may limit educators’ ability to deliver a balanced diet to 32 miln children, meat- and potato-industry groups said.  The first major overhaul of the school meal standards in 15 years, unveiled yesterday, came at the expense of some agriculture interests, by limiting potatoes at breakfast and dropping a requirement that meat be served at the morning meal.
Bloomberg News

New Light in the Forest
New federal rules for the management of national forests are a great improvement on existing guidelines and are more protective of the environment.
NYTimes.com

Researchers find genetic links to meat tenderness
An Australian team of scientists is using genetics to create better-tasting, tender lamb. Researchers say they have identified new genetic markers to allow producers to manage their flocks for eating quality while also increasing the lean meat yield and productivity of their sheep. A common problem among breeders is that genetic selection for increased growth and muscling often leads to tougher and less flavorsome meat.  The findings are an important component of the broader genomics research program being conducted by the Sheep CRC and MLA, which will provide sheep breeders with the ability to use DNA testing early in an animal’s life to identify a wide range of traits – from meat quality through to wool length.
Meatingplace.com

Chicken industry margins have recovered, analyst says
The total protein availability of beef, pork and chicken is expected to drop 3.2 %to the lowest level since 1991, although the average chicken producer is back in the black. Operating margins (based on spot chicken prices and rolling spot feed costs) have recovered and are currently running at about $0.05 per pound, according to one industry analyst. Deutsche Bank’s Christina McGlone said that eggs set continue to run below year ago levels, now in the 5-6 %range and that breeding flock contraction has continued with pullet placements down consistently since July.  Weights have finally come in, leading to lower ready-to-cook pounds on the market, wrote McGlone, who reported that the cutbacks are helping items like tenders and wings more than breasts owing to the structural increase in bird sizes.
Meatingplace.com

Heartland Return for Chinese Leader
This small city on the Mississippi River has long boasted that Mark Twain briefly called it home in 1854. Now, residents realize they have a more unusual bragging point: Muscatine played a minor but memorable role in the ascent of Xi Jinping, the man expected to become China's top leader this fall. Twenty-seven years ago, Mr. Xi, then an up-and-coming official in a pig-farming region in China, led an animal-feed delegation to Iowa. He toured farms, visited a Rotary Club and watched a baseball game. He spent two nights in the split-level home of a Muscatine couple, sleeping amid the Star Trek toys on display in the bedroom of their two boys, who were away at college. After he visits the White House for the first time, Mr. Xi, now China's vice president, plans to return to Muscatine and share tea with the people he met in 1985. His trip back to the American heartland appears intended to showcase what makes him so different from China's current leader, Hu Jintao—a confident, personable style and easygoing familiarity with the U.S.  Chinese leaders have staged photo opportunities in the U.S. before. Deng Xiaoping donned a cowboy hat at a Texas rodeo in 1979. But none has ever made such a clear attempt to demonstrate a long personal connection to America. Over the years, Mr. Xi, who is 58 years old, has made periodic trips to the U.S. His daughter attends Harvard. He has had regular dealings with U.S. officials and business leaders, including Henry Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary. When Vice President Joe Biden visited China last August, Mr. Xi accompanied him to the western province of Sichuan and shared dinner with him at a local restaurant.
Wall Street Journal