A single container of cow’s milk stands, somewhat awkwardly, alone. Why? Because cow’s-milk consumption in this country has plummeted—7 percent in 2015, an 11 percent further drop expected by 2020—and I’m about to taste my way through the wild and woolly world of alternatives. Almond milk may be the lait du moment, having seen sales in this country rise 250 percent from 2012 to 2015. But I have assembled soy, rice, cashew, coconut, macadamia, and pea. I have convened camel, sheep, horse, and goat. Everyone perches on stools and regards the first sample: store-bought soy. [node:read-more:link]

Hamburger chain Wendy’s Co laid out plans to trim the use of antibiotics that are important to human medicine from its beef supply. [node:read-more:link]

Cost and return estimates are reported for the United States and major production regions for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, peanuts, oats, barley, milk, hogs, and cow-calf. The history of commodity cost and return estimates for the U.S. and regions is divided into three categories: Current, Recent, and Historical estimates. Cost-of Production Forecasts are also available for major U.S. field crops. [node:read-more:link]

This report provides an overview of U.S. farms, including the latest statistics on production, financial performance, and farm household characteristics by farm size categories. Among the findings are that 99 percent of U.S. farms are family farms, and they accounted for 90 percent of farm production in 2016. [node:read-more:link]

The Washington state dairy industry contributes nearly $4 billion a year to the state’s economy and provides more than 18,800 jobs. In fact, dairy is part of a booming food and agriculture sector that is creating more than 736,700 jobs and is providing a $69 billion economic stimulus to the state. But a U.S. withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other free-trade agreements puts this economic sector at risk. Nationwide, U.S. dairy companies employ nearly 1 million skilled individuals and generate more than $39 billion in direct wages. [node:read-more:link]

You might’ve heard that the internet is going to get more expensive.For most of us, that’s really big news. But the bigger issue in rural areas, and especially on farms, is getting high-speed access in the first place. Paying high prices for internet connectivity to any site, at all, is something that residents of rural areas have been dealing with for years.Sure, there’s a digital divide. Ninety-six percent of urbanites have access to high-speed broadband internet access, compared to only 39 percent of rural Americans, according to the FCC. [node:read-more:link]

"There’s just a lot of dairy product on the marketplace and I don't see farmers cutting back very quickly, unless prices really go south and I don't expect that to happen," said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "So I just think that there’s more like this longer, slow bleed this time."If Wisconsin farmers want better prices, they need to tip the scales of supply and demand back into their favor. [node:read-more:link]

At Iowa Farmers Union’s annual convention earlier this month, if tax reform was raised, it was out of concern over who would benefit, and at what cost. IFU’s family farmer members had greater concern for low crop prices, increased corporate consolidation, and efforts to improve on-farm conservation practices. And their alternative priorities track with broader American sentiment, as the rest of America seems resigned to accept that current tax reform efforts just aren’t for them. [node:read-more:link]

California and Washington state joined five nations on the Pacific coast of the Americas on Tuesday to agree to step up the use of a price on carbon dioxide emissions as a central economic policy to slow climate change.The U.S. states were acting in defiance of President Donald Trump who says he doubts that man-made greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels are the prime cause of global warming and plans to quit the 2015 Paris climate accord. [node:read-more:link]

The number of local ordinances across the country banning the sale of pets from commercial breeders, defined as large operations that raise pets for wholesale distribution, has grown from about a hundred last year to about 250. “The momentum is there,” said Goodwin, senior director of the Humane Society’s Stop Puppy Mills campaign. California this fall became the first state to outright ban sales of commercially raised animals in retail shops — a new success for activists working across the country to transform the way pets are taken in by families.Although the U.S. [node:read-more:link]