An outbreak of a deadly virus is closing down an attraction at a local county fair. Organizers are figuring out how pigs were infected with the swine flu at the Shiawassee County Fair.Closed signs and fencing cloak the Shiawassee Fair's Swine Barn with not even one pig in sight.That's because on Thursday night, Fair Manager Ric Crawford and barn superintendents noticed that a group of pigs started looking sick. [node:read-more:link]
Economists say this phenomenon of "aging in place" is one of the main factors driving a shortage in housing nationwide. According to one analysis, people are living in their homes twice as long as they did before the Great Recession. Small towns like Ogallala are no exception to this trend. Ogallala's residents tend to skew older. [node:read-more:link]
USDA on Friday raised its estimate for corn and soybean production, citing record or near-record yields. Futures fell following the reports.Farmers will harvest 14.586 billion bushels of corn, USDA said in its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, up 356 million bushels from its July projection while down slightly from last year’s output of 14.604 billion bushels. The national yield per harvested acre is projected at a record 178.4 bushels, the first survey-based estimate of the year. That’s 4.4 bushels higher than last month’s trend-based projection. [node:read-more:link]
A standardized animal welfare program for Canadian feedlot operators should result in healthier, more profitable cattle. Better animal care has a spin-off benefit because it improves performance, health and reduces the chronically ill or railers, that is, animals that must go to slaughter before they reach market weight.It is a companion to the national beef code of practice but addresses specific issues in feedlots.Canadian facilities JBS and Cargill Meats, and Tyson’s at Pasco, Washington, are involved with the program as are retailers and some companies like McDonald’s. [node:read-more:link]
Europe is projecting it’s largest apple crop which increases competition for Washington apples overseas in the coming year of sales. [node:read-more:link]
he Food and Drug Administration is poised to weigh in on labeling claims in the organic market after a recent op-ed piece by a former FDA official accused the food industry of deceiving consumers. “I'm going to put out more detailed information on what different terms mean on food packaging, to help consumers best use claims like organic, antibiotic free, etc.,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote this week, beginning a series of Tweets on the subject. [node:read-more:link]
“Adopt A Cow” Year-Long Learning Experience. Forget the guinea pig. How about adopting a 1,500-pound dairy cow your classroom mascot? Don’t worry about finding a pen big enough to hold her. The photos and stories we’ll send you about her life on the farm will make her “come alive” for your students! Here is an opportunity to use the “Discover Dairy” Lesson Series to create a year-long discovery for your students to explore where their food comes from. [node:read-more:link]
While some of poultry efficiency can be attributed to genetics and improvements in nutrition, bringing birds inside also improved production. “We were able to control their environment, and we were able to protect the animal,” Pescatore said. However, with the separation between farming and the general public continuously growing, there is an increased interest from consumers to better understand where their food comes from — hence the increased interest in free-range poultry production, he explained. [node:read-more:link]
Apparently, Congress can afford to put off revamping the H-2A guestworker program. But farmers can’t.Called the H-2A visa, it allows farmers to bring in guestworkers from outside the U.S. to do the work that Americans will not do. To qualify to bring H-2A workers to their farm to harvest fruits or vegetables, prune trees or do other work, farmers first have to advertise the jobs to Americans. Once they can’t get enough domestic workers, they can apply for foreign workers, but they have to pay to get the paperwork through the federal government. [node:read-more:link]
A federal judge refused to overturn the government’s decision to permanently remove about 150 wild horses from Eastern Oregon’s Three Fingers Management Area despite a legal error. [node:read-more:link]
