Newtrient would like to commend the Pennsylvania Senate for its passage of Senate Bill 799, which will open the door for dynamic, new technologies to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, address Pennsylvania’s growing drinking water crisis and support Growing Greener initiatives. Many factors contribute to Pennsylvania’s water quality problem, including agricultural runoff from Pennsylvania’s long-standing livestock population. Livestock, however, provides viable solutions for the state’s complex water challenges. [node:read-more:link]

An Arizona federal court jury returned a verdict in the amount of $6.5 million in favor of a 5-and-a-half-year-old child who suffered a brain injury because of a Salmonella Heidelberg infection from chicken produced by Foster Poultry Farms. The jury concluded that Foster Farms was negligent in producing Salmonella Heidelberg-contaminated chicken and that, based on epidemiological and microbiological evidence alone, it caused the boy’s illness. The jury attributed 30 percent of the fault to Foster Farms and 70 percent to family members for their preparation of the chicken. [node:read-more:link]

Cargill said the first three months of its Canadian beef sustainability pilot project produced encouraging results, proving the model works and showing significant potential to scale the program to bring a greater volume of certified sustainable beef to Canadian consumers. [node:read-more:link]

Frustrated with both President Trump and Congress, immigrant-rights activists increasingly are turning to the courts to try to alter the country’s immigration policies — with three new lawsuits filed on Thursday alone against the Department of Homeland Security. [node:read-more:link]

Weeds, feral cats, insects and other pests are invading the U.S. West, and state governors released a list of the worst offenders in hopes of helping people recognize and eradicate the invaders before they spread. The Western Governors' Association cataloged the top 50 invasive species in their region, saying the pests have already caused billions of dollars in damage to agriculture and infrastructure. Some of the species on the governors' list have been in the headlines before, including water-gulping salt cedar trees and quagga mussels. Others may be surprises, such as feral cats. [node:read-more:link]

NOAA issued its three-month U.S. Spring Flood Outlook today, highlighting a moderate risk of flooding in the Ohio River Valley basin and lower Mississippi River where streamflows and soil moisture are well above normal after major flooding from recent heavy rainfall. Drought is forecast to persist or worsen in the southern and central Plains, Southwest and California, according to the NOAA forecast as warmer and drier-than-normal weather is likely to engulf the region this spring. [node:read-more:link]

U.S. lawmakers launched their latest effort to ease restrictions on international food assistance programs, which they say would free hundreds of millions of dollars a year and get aid to millions more hungry people around the world. Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives introduced the “Food for Peace Modernization Act of 2018” which they want to include in the 2018 farm bill. Among other things, the bill would end a requirement that 100 percent of food aid commodities be produced in the United States, changing it to 25 percent. [node:read-more:link]

Frustrated by what they see as a continued watering down of the standards that define what foods may be labeled “organic,” Patagonia Provisions—the food business offshoot of the outdoor apparel company, organic body care and food products company Dr. Bronner’s, and the research-based Rodale Institute will begin offering a new organic certification program. [node:read-more:link]

Republican state lawmakers wrapped up three weeks of annual budget hearings by tearing into Governor Tom Wolf’s administration for several hours straight. The crime, as they see it? Making what the GOP alleges is an unconstitutional deal to close this fiscal year’s budget deficit. When they ended a long, bitter budget standoff in October, lawmakers left a $300 million hole in their revenue plan for Wolf to fill with money from the state’s special funds. GOP lawmakers had pushed hard to tap the funds in lieu of new spending, and expected Wolf to reroute existing money. [node:read-more:link]

Hydrofresh HPP, an affiliate of Keller Logistics Group, is constructing a $10 million pasteurization plant slated for opening in April in Delphos, that uses innovative high-pressure processing technology. [node:read-more:link]