With the price of a gallon of milk dropping to the lowest 10 years might be good for consumers, it has meant New York farmers are making less money than they used to. And the impact is apparent: New York has 6,000 fewer dairy farms than it had it in 1989. [node:read-more:link]

Two companies joined forces to put a new twist on the old idea of a MASH unit. MASH is more than the name of a long-running television sitcom. It’s a military acronym that means Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. MASH units were comprised of prefab tents, surgeons, nurses, and a truckload of medical supplies. They were designed to get experienced medical personnel closer to the frontlines so the wounded could be treated sooner and with greater success. Today, add telemedicine and community broadband support, and what you have is MAST. [node:read-more:link]

For the foreseeable future, the indestructible chemicals that 3M made and dumped for years at four sites between Woodbury and Grey Cloud Island will continue to move through groundwater into streams and lakes.The $850 million court settlement between Minnesota and 3M that ended a decadelong fight over contaminated groundwater in the east metro will go a long way toward making drinking water safe for some 150,000 residents of Washington County. [node:read-more:link]

The Maryland General Assemblywill evaluate two very different proposals for the future of energy and climate policy in our state. One, The 100% Clean Renewable Energy and Equity Act, will fundamentally change the trajectory for wind and solar development, strengthen our economy and build a solid pathway to using only clean renewable electricity by 2035. The other, The Clean Energy and Jobs Act (CEJA), will accelerate the current Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) mechanisms to reach a target of 50 percent renewable electricity by 2030. [node:read-more:link]

Diseases that afflict livestock and wildlife are increasingly emerging in Alaska, said Bob Gerlach, DVM, state veterinarian.  Other diseases are increasing in northern-tier states and Canada due to climate change, increase in human population, and worldwide movement of agricultural products. Alaska’s cool climate and isolation has for millennia helped protect wildlife and the people who subsist on it from many of the diseases that thrive in warmer, lower latitudes, according to Dr. Gerlach. But that’s changing, as Alaska is no longer isolated from what’s happening globally, he said. [node:read-more:link]

Just is at the forefront of an industry-wide arms race to reinvent the future of protein as we know it—a push toward products we’ll readily accept as meat, but that don’t require animals to be sacrificed on the altar of our hunger. These “alternative” proteins are about to hit the American market in two varieties, both of which manage to sidestep the messier realities of the farm and slaughterhouse. First, there are “plant-based” proteins, vegetable-derived simulacra that convincingly mimic the taste and texture of animal flesh. [node:read-more:link]

Western Illinois might be close to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, but it's the driest part of the state this year. "We really haven't really had any measurable rain since the middle of October," says Ken Schafer, who farms winter wheat, corn and soybeans in Jerseyville. "I dug some post-holes this winter, and it's just dust."  His farm is in an area that the U.S. Drought Monitor considers "severe." Some of the nation's worst areas of drought are in southwest Kansas, much of Oklahoma and a slice of Missouri. [node:read-more:link]

What happens if the U.S. enters a trade war over proposed steel and aluminum tariffs?  Our farmers are in no hurry to find out. There is a very high likelihood that Canada, China and the European Union might impose tariffs on U.S. exports in retaliation. In such a scenario, U.S. exports to foreign countries such as beef, corn, pork, cars and motorcycles are going to be adversely impacted. The tariffs imposed by the Trump administration would cause the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Several legislative committees have been examining the problem of health care provider shortages in rural North Carolina. And the answers they're getting point to complicated - and potentially expensive - answers. [node:read-more:link]