Alternative milk is ascending as U.S. cow milk sales are dropping—as of June 2018, they’re down by 6 percent from the previous year. The way some struggling dairy farmers see it, the popularity of alternative dairy products (one of which is now the subject of a class action lawsuit in New York) has partly contributed to dairy farmers’ own travails. [node:read-more:link]
Trade in the market for cow’s milk has always been severely constrained by our understanding of the underlying biology needed to create and protect dairy products, by demand limitations related to tolerance and health implications, and by the state of economic infrastructure. Being close to a complete food, the potential demand for dairy produce has never been in question. As ruminants make good use of land unsuitable for cultivation and as, in any case, humans had learned to husband ruminants for meat production, bovine milk has never been limited in availability. [node:read-more:link]
Dairy farmers are well acquainted with managing volatile input and output prices. In the past 5 years, dairy farms experienced record high milk prices in 2014 followed by devastatingly low milk prices. In Minnesota, farms that contribute financial information to the FINBIN farm financial database reported the lowest average accrual net farm income, $407, in 2009, while the same sample reported an all-time average high of $236,544 just 5 years later in 2014 (FINBIN, 2018a). [node:read-more:link]
If you want to build something strong and beautiful, get creative people involved. That advice works whether you are building a house, a piece of art, or even a regional economy, says a Delta nonprofit leader who is helping develop the business skills of “creatives” in Mississippi.“I think some people forget how innovative the Delta really is,” says Tim Lampkin, the founder of Higher Purpose Co., a community development nonprofit based in Clarksdale, Mississippi. To help make that happen, Higher Purpose Co. [node:read-more:link]
The federal Ag Department’s programs address the fundamental goods and services that humans need to survive. Water, food, housing, electricity and more are all part of the department’s portfolio. A book that we have recently read, No Small Hope: Towards the Universal Provision of Basic Goods by Kenneth Reinert, makes the argument that there is a minimal set of basic goods and services that should be put into the hands of everyone in the world. Reinert is professor of public policy and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. [node:read-more:link]
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced it has approved Elanco’s Experior, the first animal drug that when fed to beef cattle under specific conditions results in less ammonia gas released as a byproduct of their waste. Studies of Experior indicated that the product partially reduces ammonia gas emissions from manure from an individual animal or a pen of animals in semi-controlled conditions in enclosed housing. [node:read-more:link]
New wastewater-disposal regulations imposed by the Washington Department of Ecology will collectively cost 68 of the state’s larger wineries more than $200,000 the first year, under a department proposal. Beginning July 1, the wineries must obtain permits to use wastewater on land or discharge to most sewer plants. Ecology can’t cite any case of a winery polluting groundwater, but the agency says water laced with cleansers, stems, leaves and wine sediment has the potential to pollute. [node:read-more:link]
When the 116th Congress heads to Washington in January, there will be a record number of women in the ranks — at least 123, according to the news website Axios, including the first Muslim women, the first Somali-American, and the first Native American women. There will be more scientists too. [node:read-more:link]
The appearance of imported water buffalo meat on U.S. retail shelves has alarmed U.S. bison producers, who worry the product isn’t being inspected or properly labeled. The National Bison Association has requested an investigation by the U.S. [node:read-more:link]
