Livestock raised for food in the US are dosed with five times as much antibiotic medicine as farm animals in the UK, new data has shown, raising questions about rules on meat imports under post-Brexit trade deals. The difference in rates of dosage rises to at least nine times as much in the case of cattle raised for beef, and may be as high as 16 times the rate of dosage per cow in the UK. There is currently a ban on imports of American beef throughout Europe, owing mainly to the free use of growth hormones in the US. [node:read-more:link]

The budget agreement written by Senate leaders includes more than $1 billion for dairy supports as well as larger subsidies for cotton growers, who have pursued aid that could cost as much as the dairy enhancements. Besides providing immediate assistance to producers, the provisions would mean, under arcane score-keeping rules, that farm-state lawmakers can spend more money on cotton and dairy in the 2018 farm bill than is available now. [node:read-more:link]

A bill supported by dozens of Idaho farm groups and aimed at deterring trespassing on private property has been sent to the House floor with a “do-pass” recommendation. Dozens of people testified on House Bill 536 before the House Agricultural Affairs Committee, including many farmers and ranchers who recounted numerous examples of damage done to their crops and equipment by trespassers. “We have had corrals burnt for firewood, fences cut, crops destroyed, water tanks shot up, livestock chased and shot and calves run over,” said Rep. [node:read-more:link]

The research, led by University of California neurologist Claudia Kawas, tracked 1,700 nonagenarians enrolled in the 90+ Study that began in 2003 to explore impacts of daily habits on longevity. [node:read-more:link]

Mt. Airy, North Carolina, was the inspiration for Andy Griffith’s iconic, fictional town of TV fame. But what’s the story when the tourists go home and small-city economic issues remain? Filmmaker Bill Hayes, a Mt. Airy native, digs into the reality of one American small town, in hopes that it might say something about your town, too. Unlike Mayberry, Mt. Airy (population 10,000) can’t resolve its difficulties in a single half-hour episode. [node:read-more:link]

As discussed in my post entitled “The Chart, Second Edition: What Makes a News Source Good?” the most accurate and helpful way to analyze a news source is to analyze its individual stories, and the most accurate way to analyze an individual story is to analyze its individual sentences. Categorizing and ranking the news is hard to do because there are so very many factors. But the most accurate way to analyze and categorize news is to look as closely at it as possible, and measure everything about it that is measurable. [node:read-more:link]

So why is it such a horrible idea to replace part of the SNAP federal food assistance program, formerly called food stamps, with a box of American-grown food? [node:read-more:link]

Western Wisconsin dairy farmers praised tweaks to a price insurance program Monday but told U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin they face much larger problems, primarily too much milk. Baldwin, D-Wis., met with farmers to talk about legislative tweaks to the program, which was introduced in the 2014 Farm Bill.Known as the Margin Protection Program for Dairy, the MPP allows farmers to purchase insurance that pays out when the cost to produce milk gets too close to their selling price. [node:read-more:link]

An Arkansas judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Monsanto seeking to block the state's plan to ban the warm-weather use of the herbicide dicamba. Monsanto and the Arkansas Plant Board have been engaged in a monthslong fight over the use of the herbicide in the state. The plant board — which is made up of farmers, agricultural business representatives, pesticide officials and weed scientists — voted last year to prohibit the use of the herbicide from April 16 through Oct. [node:read-more:link]

Fortunately, there are things we can do to improve opportunity in rural Virginia. We can invest in workforce development training. We can expand Medicaid and improve access to broadband internet; improve the quality of our schools and ensure Virginia kids can access our best universities; make Virginia a place people want to build businesses; upgrade our infrastructure, like our roads and bridges; and address the opioid epidemic head on.Building out our rural broadband infrastructure is critical. Broadband is the new electricity, an essential connection for rural communities. [node:read-more:link]