he owner of Lost Valley Farm, a controversial Eastern Oregon dairy that has drawn the ire of environmental groups and run afoul of state regulators, may soon be forced to sell off its entire herd. Greg te Velde, of Tipton, Calif., began operating the dairy near Boardman, Ore. in 2017, which was permitted for up to 30,000 cows — making it the second-largest dairy in the state, behind neighboring Threemile Canyon Farms. [node:read-more:link]

In November 2017, a series of two national surveys were conducted to evaluate market potential and consumer willingness-to-pay for poultry and eggs with various labels. The study, led by Jayson L. Lusk from Purdue University, gathered responses from more than 2,000 participants to determine if consumers are willing to pay more for particular product attributes in a retail environment. [node:read-more:link]

There has been a revolution in the way we produce and consume meat and fish. Chicken, beef, pork or salmon were once rare Sunday-at-best luxuries. Now billions of people around the world can afford to eat fish and meat daily. Intensive farming has made this possible: the realisation that money could be saved – and prices driven down – by increasing the scale of production, and reducing exposure to what were once seen as essential components of farming, such as sunshine, quality of life for the animals, space and natural grazing. [node:read-more:link]

Gov. Jeff Colyer has signed into law a measure aimed at luring large-scale poultry processors to set up shop in Kansas.Colyer signed the bill on Tuesday. [node:read-more:link]

Dairy farms around Vermont are struggling amid low milk prices that are in some cases well below the cost of production. The result is that an increasing number of farms are starting to go out of business. Last week, the iconic Nordic Farms in Charlotte auctioned off its cows and machinery. The Agency of Agriculture says 12 farms have called it quits just since January and that leaves the state with 750 dairy farms down from 813 last March. [node:read-more:link]

The revamped U.S.-South Korea accord unveiled earlier this week isn’t much different from the existing pact that Trump often condemned as “disastrous.” Most changes made to tariffs, automotive quotas and agricultural preferences were narrow in scope or incremental, according to trade experts. Trump has regularly threatened to cancel several trade deals -- including the one with South Korea -- if he didn’t secure major changes. [node:read-more:link]

Ted Matthews drove past acres of fields, racing to meet with a farmer who called threatening to kill himself. That’s when he got a call from another farmer in a different part of the state who was also threatening suicide. Since he couldn’t be in two places at once, he frantically got on his phone to try to find someone else who could help the second farmer.Matthews might have the toughest job in the state of Minnesota. [node:read-more:link]

Environmental Protection Agency staffers received a list of “talking points” this week instructing them to underscore the uncertainties about how human activity contributes to climate change. A career employee in the department’s Office of Public Affairs distributed the eight talking points to regional staffers. [node:read-more:link]

Expect an expanding global economy, strong U.S. consumer confidence and persistent economic recovery in many rural areas, but temper that optimism with another year of on-farm belt tightening due to lingering financial stress from low commodity prices, says a wideranging 2018 outlook report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division. “The rural economy is uniquely impacted by what happens in Washington, the broader U.S. economy and around the world,” says Dan Kowalski, vice president of CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division. [node:read-more:link]