A Russian government news release says the ban, first enacted in August 2014, includes products from the U.S., European Union member countries, and Canada, Australia, Norway, Ukraine, Albania, Montenegro, Iceland and Liechtenstein. The ban had been set to expire Jan. 1, but Russia extended it after the EU extended its trade sanctions on Russia through Jan. 31.Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a news release that the policy of mutual economic restrictions “does not have a future.”  [node:read-more:link]

A judge in northwest Missouri has ruled that the Andrew County Health Department’s regulation of a large hog farming operation is invalid and not enforceable.   Circuit Judge Randall Jackson ruled that Missouri statutes don’t authorize the county health department to pass an ordinance regulating the operation of concentrated animal farming operations, even for health-related purposes, the News-Press reported. Only county commissions have the authority to pass such regulatory ordinances, and then only in accordance with Missouri law, the judge said. [node:read-more:link]

Robots could grow your next salad inside an old steel mill on Pittsburgh's South Side.  And the four co-founders of the robotic, indoor, vertical farming startup RoBotany could next tackle growing the potatoes for the french fries to top it.“We're techies, but we have green thumbs,” said Austin Webb, one of the startup's co-founders.It's hard to imagine a farm inside the former Republic Steel and later Follansbee Steel Corp. building on Bingham Street. During World War II, the plant produced steel for artillery guns and other military needs. [node:read-more:link]

Less than four years later, however, after U.S. special forces raided an al-Qaida cave complex in eastern Afghanistan and found documents on sabotaging American farms through the intentional introduction of diseases that could infect livestock and crops, securing our nation’s food supply became a government priority.  In fact, the Department of Homeland Security, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was charged with implementing a series of Homeland Security Presidential Directives to safeguard agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

If one machine goes down inside the Country Maid plant, the whole operation devoted to churning out Butter Braid pastries comes to a screeching halt. [node:read-more:link]

The federal government is again trying to prop up the wild blueberry industry in Maine, where sagging prices jeopardize one of the state’s longest-standing agricultural industries.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved up to $10 million to purchase surplus Maine blueberries, the members of Maine’s congressional delegation said. Wild blueberries are one of the most important crops in Maine, but the industry is struggling with a steep decline in the prices paid to farmers. [node:read-more:link]

Russian government hackers were behind recent cyber-intrusions into the business systems of U.S. nuclear power and other energy companies in what appears to be an effort to assess their networks, according to U.S. government officials.  The U.S. officials said there is no evidence the hackers breached or disrupted the core systems controlling operations at the plants, so the public was not at risk. [node:read-more:link]

A lone female fungus-farming beetle inadvertently imported to Georgia may have been the source of a disease that has killed some 300 million redbay trees and threatens Florida's avocado groves, researchers from Mississippi and Florida say.  Clones of the beetle and her fungus have spread west into Texas and north to North Carolina over the past 15 years [node:read-more:link]

Dairy farmers in the north-east have rallied together to form a new organisation with a view to potentially building a new milk processing plant for the region. The North-East Milk Producers Organisation comprises 26 farmers who produce a combined total of 54million litres of milk every year.The group’s chairman Roy Mitchell, who farms at Drimmies Farm near Inverurie, said the organisation was formed in response to dairy giant Muller’s decision to close its Aberdeen milk processing plant last summer. [node:read-more:link]

We’re now halfway through 2017, and this serves as a good reminder that the US Department of Agriculture is a tad late in submitting its annual report to Congress on the dairy and fluid milk promotion programs. Several years late, in fact.  The Dairy Production Stabilization Act of 1983, which created the National Dairy Promotion and Research Program, requires USDA to submit an annual report to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees on the dairy promotion program. [node:read-more:link]