While local school boards, Parent Teacher Associations, and most recently the Trump administration weigh in on food served in schools, the dialogue around flavored milk is more multifaceted than in years past. There is opportunity for both plain and flavored milk in schools. [node:read-more:link]

The opioid crisis has hit rural America especially hard where workers tend to have higher injury rates with many jobs requiring physical labor and involving more risk. A December survey by the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation found that as many as 74% of farmers have been directly impacted by the opioid crisis.  The opioid crisis has hit rural America especially hard where workers tend to have higher injury rates with many jobs requiring physical labor and involving more risk. [node:read-more:link]

We are now more than a month past the deadline for DACA’s expiration. DREAMers have been on pins and needles since President Trump cruelly announced the end of the program in September, and the widespread implications for our communities across the country are being realized on social and economic levels. Many trends, including a report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service, point toward widespread depopulation in rural areas. [node:read-more:link]

In November, the Keystone Pipeline spilled hundreds of thousands of barrels of highly-polluting tar sands oil, leaving a visible stain across a swath of South Dakota farmland. It came at an inopportune time: four days before a Nebraska commission was set to vote to approve an extension of that pipeline, the Keystone XL, which would move 830,000 extra barrels of oil per day through the Midwest to refineries in Texas and Illinois. [node:read-more:link]

Have you heard of Double Up Food Bucks Arizona? It has been around since 2015, but program organizers said not enough people are using it.  If you or someone you know is receiving SNAP benefits, which were formally known as food stamps, they can use Double Up Food Bucks Arizona to get more healthy fruits and vegetables directly from Arizona farmers. SB 1245 is making its way through the state legislature with broad bipartisan support right now and it would allocate more money to the program.  Participants can go to farmers market locationsand spend up to $20 on SNAP-eligible items. [node:read-more:link]

As the sale of cell-cultured foods become closer to a reality, lawmakers in Missouri want to protect its livestock and poultry producers. If you don’t know what cell-cultured foods are, another name to which I have heard them referred is laboratory-grown meat. However, the latter name is exactly what the legislators don’t want to hear or seen used in the Show Me State.Bills in both the state’s Senate and House of Representatives have been proposed that if passed, would prohibit companies from advertising and promoting those products as meat.Rep. [node:read-more:link]

The USDA has determined a wheat cultivar that’s gene-edited for higher fiber content doesn’t need to undergo the deregulatory process for GMOs because it’s not a potential plant pest. [node:read-more:link]

Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law that will help prevent animal-abuse offenders from owning pets. Ponce’s Law is named after Ponce, a Labrador retriever puppy found beaten to death in Ponce Inlet last year. The puppy’s owner, Travis Archer, is awaiting trial on felony animal cruelty charges. What the animal-cruelty law does do is allow judges to bar offenders from owning a pet for a court-ordered period of time.The law also increases the chances of offenders receiving a sentencing that includes jail time. Ponce’s Law increased the severity ranking of an animal abuse-related crime. [node:read-more:link]

A new study finds rising production costs, not cheap natural gas, was the lead factor that drove thousands of coal mines across Appalachia to close. The analysis, published last week by the nonpartisan, environmental think tank, Resources for the Future, scrutinized the impact that natural gas prices, stagnant electricity demand and rising costs had on the ability of coal mines to stay in business.  The researchers created a model that allowed them to study different factors that affected the profitability of coal mines using public data from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, U.S. [node:read-more:link]