Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, Westchester County, introduced legislation Thursday that would change New York law to allow veterinarians to prescribe medical marijuana to animals. "Medical marijuana has helped countless people in the management and treatment of chronic and debilitating illnesses," Paulin's bill states. "Research suggests that animals can also benefit from cannabis use to similarly treat their ailments." Nevada and California are also considering legislation to legalize medical marijuana for animals, saying it could help pets with chronic illnesses. [node:read-more:link]

Prof Eleanor Riley, director of the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, said new techniques will soon allow breeders to genetically engineer disease resilience and, in some cases, immunity into pedigree animals, saving farmers millions of pounds a year. “Genes can be modified to massively increase resistance and resilience to infection,” she said. [node:read-more:link]

Harrisburg Dairies said taking in small farms affected by Dean Food’s recent decision to downsize due to a surplus in the market was a no brainer. “It really made the decision for us, when it came to needing our milk supply to be independent producers that we can have a direct relationship, monitor and inspect ourselves,’ said Alex Dewey Assistant General Manager of the Harrisburg Dairies. [node:read-more:link]

The new tariffs are in direct response to China’s overproduction of steel and aluminum, keeping costs artificially low so that other countries can’t compete — a practice widely known as “dumping.” While the administration has called this act out as cheating, it fails to acknowledge that U.S. agricultural policy has done the same for decades, with an even more critical resource: food. [node:read-more:link]

Politicians, economists and executives agree China isn't playing fair on trade. But there's a lot of disagreement about whether President Trump's hefty tariffs are the right weapon for fighting back. American farmers and Walmart shoppers are likely to feel pain in this fight, and a lot of them voted for Trump. There are two ways Americans are highly likely to get hurt in a U.S.-China trade spat. First, prices on a lot of items will almost certainly rise, and second, China is going to hit back with tariffs on American products. The other knock is expected to come when China fights back. [node:read-more:link]

House Republicans will pursue a law reauthorizing food assistance and farm subsidies without Democratic support after negotiations over changes to the so-called food-stamp program broke down, the chairman of the chamber’s Agriculture Committee said. [node:read-more:link]

Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith will be going to the U.S. Senate next month. Gov. Phil Bryant formally tapped the Republican agriculture and commerce commissioner to fill the unexpired term of Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, who is poised to go out with a win on an omnibus spending bill. Currently in his seventh term, Cochran is resigning effective April 1 for health reasons. [node:read-more:link]

South Dakota officials have been working for decades to rebuild the state’s dairy industry, and now they’re seeing results. One of the state’s biggest cheese plants is expanding, tripling its production capacity to make it not only the largest plant in South Dakota, but one of the biggest in the U.S.Government officials and company leaders were in Lake Norden late last month for an official ground breaking celebration at the Agropur cheese and whey plant where construction is already started to make the plant capable of processing more than 9 million pounds of milk per day. [node:read-more:link]