The signing of a renegotiated free-trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea is spurring optimism that export markets for American farm goods won’t shut down and may even expand. President Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in signed the agreement Monday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the first major trade deal the U.S. president has forged amid rising trade tensions. It’s welcome news for U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Trade and tariffs. These words stir emotions and elicit reaction, but the realities are more complex than the debate, and they impact consumers as well as farmers. My family and I farm in Illinois, where farmers like us send about 30 percent of the corn and 60 percent of the soybeans we grow to other countries. Nationally, more than 20 percent of agricultural products are exported. With America exporting more farm and ranch products than we import, the U.S. economy has had a trade surplus in agriculture for decades. Farmers have little control over price. [node:read-more:link]

Trade disruptions in Iowa looking at soybeans, pork and corn combined will impact the Iowa economy somewhere in the range of $1.68 billion to $2.216 billion looking at direct effects and additional related losses in different sectors of the economy. Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural and Rural Development looked at historical trade patterns, income and changes to the futures market to peg the near-term impacts of tariffs and trade disruptions on the state. [node:read-more:link]

In addition to an ongoing legal challenge in Montana, state beef checkoff programs in thirteen more states are now facing legal challenge.  Ranchers-Cattleman Action Legal Fund (“R-CALF”) seeks to expand the injunction it obtained in Montana to also include checkoff programs in Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The current beef checkoff litigation began in Montana where R-Calf filed suit against the United States Department of Agriculture in 2016. [node:read-more:link]

By Thursday afternoon, state estimates for the total number of North Carolina farm animal lives lost during Hurricane Florence and her aftermath had risen to 3.4 million birds and 5,500 pigs. The storm’s environmental impacts were beginning to come into focus, too: 57 hog waste lagoons had flooded, breached, or “overtopped,” and an additional 75 were in danger of overflowing. On Thursday morning, Duke Energy issued a high-level emergency alert as waters at a retired power plant flooded a lake adjacent to three coal-ash dumps. [node:read-more:link]

Vladimir Mishurov transformed the remnants of the “Lenin’s Path” collective farm in this village into a profitable business. He also helped make Russia the world’s largest wheat exporter for the first time since the last years of the czars. Over the past decade or so, Mr. Mishurov replaced his aging Russian equipment with a dozen high-tech machines from John Deere and other makers, and started using powerful new fertilizers and seeds. [node:read-more:link]

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have infected more than 100 people and that have been linked to pet store puppies appear to have spread at least in part because healthy dogs were given antibiotics — a decision that all but surely fostered antibiotic resistance. “This is shocking,” said Lance Price, head of George Washington University’s Antibiotic Resistance Action Center. [node:read-more:link]

A report from the North Carolina Pork Council (NCPC) on Saturday updated the public on how well pig farmers in the state planned and prepared for the predicted devastation from Hurricane Florence. Despite numerous reports to the contrary, the pork industry in the state made sure animals were safe from the storm and that environmental precautions minimized potential lagoon breaches.“Farmers have activated back-up power generation due to significant power outages,” he said. “On-farm reports indicate sporadic and minor wind damage to structures.  [node:read-more:link]

Many recent food innovations appeal purely to novelty, but these six show actual promise for the future of food. If you’re familiar with blockchain technology, you’re probably thinking, “but what does Bitcoin have to do with my dinner?” While most commonly associated with the enigmatic cryptocurrency Bitcoin, its first major application, blockchain is a much wider type of technology that be utilized in the medical industry, in elections, and in keeping tabs on our food. [node:read-more:link]

The Office of Management and Budget has received USDA’s final rule for the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard, according to the National Law Review. The bill mandating establishment of the standard was passed by Congress in summer 2016. [node:read-more:link]