Wyoming Legacy Meats has persevered in its efforts to obtain USDA certification to process meat, and now Wyoming ranchers no longer have to leave the state to have their cattle processed. The Cody, Wyoming-based company began updating its facilities after Frank Schmidt acquired the former Cody Meat operation last fall.The work included remodeling, new floor installations and cooler and freezer upgrades to qualify for USDA certification. [node:read-more:link]

“My ancestors are Irish and they were called all sorts of names,” Pete, a 58-year-old farmer, told me. He said the country has swung back around to how it was a century ago. “Now people say Hispanics are taking their jobs,” Pete said. “Come on. You can’t get a kid who can flip a burger to come here and do this job for $15 an hour. [node:read-more:link]

Mexico agreed to demands from the United States to cut exports of refined sugar, striking a deal on Tuesday in a contentious trade negotiation that was closely watched as a prologue to talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement.The dispute stemmed from complaints by American sugar refiners that Mexico was taking advantage of unfair trade practices to dump refined sugar in the American market and at the same time limit the amount of raw sugar it exported to American refineries.The preliminary deal heads off the threat of punitive tariffs and maintains Mexico’s access to t [node:read-more:link]

People convicted of extreme animal cruelty would be prohibited from owning a companion animal under legislation passed by the New York state Senate. The Senate also voted to increase potential jail time and fines for aggravated animal cruelty and require offenders to undergo psychological testing.The measures were passed on the Legislature's annual animal advocacy day, which brought several dogs, captive owls, hawks, reptiles and one pony to the state Capitol for a day of lobbying and outreach. [node:read-more:link]

Challenging a Nebraska law that requires all cattle to be branded, operators of cattle feedlots cast the practice as obsolete and costly in a federal complaint.The Nebraska Beef Producers Committee, a nonprofit that filed the lawsuit at hand Tuesday in Lincoln, notes that the regulations hearken to a bygone era.Back when the Nebraska Legislature formed a committee to investigate stolen cattle in 1941, livestock operations “were often located in large, open, rural settings with limited human oversight,” the 13-page complaint states.Today, however, the Brand Act’s relevance is waning, and the [node:read-more:link]

The Nevada State Legislature has passed a bill that's expected to revive the state's ailing rooftop solar market. The Assembly voted to approve a Senate version of the bill late Sunday night, with just a day remaining in the legislative session. The bill (AB 405) would reinstate net energy metering for residential solar projects, but at a discounted compensation rate. AB 405 would immediately allow rooftop solar customers to be reimbursed for excess generation from a solar system at 95 percent of the retail electricity rate. Over time, though, customer compensation would decline. [node:read-more:link]

The global pet care market cracked the US$100 billion sales ceiling in 2016, thanks to a healthy 4.7 percent increase over the year before. Euromonitor International projects that growth to continue, with sales for all pet products and services globally reaching US$117 billion by 2021, a compound annual growth rate of 2.4 percent at constant prices. Pet food will maintain its significant contributions; it accounted for US$75.25 billion of the 2016 sales (at 4.8 percent growth), or nearly 73 percent of all pet care. [node:read-more:link]

Inside a South Carolina factory, in industrial vats that stand five stories high, batches of algae are carefully tended, kept warm and fed corn syrup. There the algae, known as Schizochytrium, multiply quickly. The payoff, which comes after processing, is a substance that resembles corn oil. It tastes faintly fishy.Marketed as a nutritional enhancement, the oil is added to millions of cartons of organic milk from Horizon, one of the nation’s largest organic brands. [node:read-more:link]

Scarcity of capital for small businesses has accelerated the crisis described in “Rural America Is the New ‘Inner City’” by stunting the growth of young businesses. Businesses in rural towns are starving for equal access to capital that has benefited urban areas for decades. Scarcity of capital for small businesses has accelerated the crisis described in “Rural America Is the New ‘Inner City’”  by stunting the growth of young businesses. [node:read-more:link]

A cattle harvest and processing plant first announced by partners Caviness Beef Packers and J.R. Simplot Co. in early 2015 has opened for business in Kuna, Idaho, about six months after it originally was scheduled to begin operations.  The CS Beef Packers joint venture near Boise is a 370,000-sq.-ft. facility that is expected to eventually process as many as 1,700 head per day, eliminating the need for local ranches and farms to move their herds hundreds of miles to other packing plants. [node:read-more:link]