The 75 mayors who make up the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda—also known as Climate Mayors—not only issued a strong condemnation of Trump’s actions, they outlined specific ways they will continue their collective work to stop climate change, regardless of the federal government. The signatories include mayors of all major metropolitan areas like New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and D.C., as well as smaller cities like Santa Monica, California, Park City, Utah, and Eugene, Oregon. [node:read-more:link]

The greater Lehigh Valley scored a handful of the first 16 industrial hemp research projects approved by the state Department of Agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided to continue allowing the use of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, stating that the science surrounding human health effects is too uncertain to justify its own proposed ban on food tolerances. The agency announced the decision late today, two days ahead of a court-ordered deadline. [node:read-more:link]

I’ve grown accustomed to paying close attention to the exact phrasing in press releases whenever a restaurant company announces a change regarding things such as antibiotic use, cages in egg production and slower-growing broiler chickens. [node:read-more:link]

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) officials reported net income of $131.8 million, compared to $94.1 million of net income for 2015. The increase was attributable to higher sales volumes, overall operating efficiencies and lower commodity input costs. The record earnings were also buoyed by the acquisition of the remaining 50 percent equity interest in DairiConcepts, a manufacturer of cheese, dairy ingredients and dairy flavor systems with eight facilities across the United States. DFA’s net sales totaled $13.5 billion for 2016, compared to $13.8 billion in 2015. [node:read-more:link]

Today, President Trump is poised to release a long-anticipated executive order to roll back the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s signature climate initiative.  The order is expected to be accompanied by directives to lift a moratorium on federal land coal leases and to cease the use of the social cost of carbon — all part of a broad campaign to dismantle environmental regulations on the power sector that Trump blames for the decline of the coal economy in the United States.  But while rescinding the rules could help slow coal power’s decline in the short term, analysts say it is [node:read-more:link]

Missouri lawmakers gave final approval to a bill increasing fines for illegal use of herbicides resulting in damage to other farmers’ crops. The Missouri House passed the bill Thursday in a vote of 139-18.The bill, HB 662, already had passed the Senate. It now goes to Gov. Eric Greitens, and if he signs it, will go into effect immediately.Chemical company Monsanto developed herbicides containing dicamba and dicamba-resistant seeds, the Southeast Missourian reported in January. [node:read-more:link]

Thieves are illegally cutting down thousands of birch trees in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin to make a quick buck off city dwellers who love the paper-white logs, limbs and twigs in their home decor. The thefts have caught county sheriffs and state natural resource officials by surprise over the past few months, sending them scrambling to determine how big the problem is and how to keep it from getting worse. [node:read-more:link]

A federal district court in Minnesota has approved the dismissal and settlement of a lawsuit that agricultural groups filed to limit the amount of data that the Environmental Protection Agency can release on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), according to court documents. The National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) sued in 2013 after the EPA released extensive personal information on more than 100,000 CAFO operators in 29 states and was prepared to release the same on farmers in six other states. [node:read-more:link]

All producers should be aware of the new “Flag the Technology” program.  This is a field-marking program designed to prevent the misapplication of herbicides and to ensure applicators are aware of nearby sensitive crops.  Essentially, producers should mark all fields with a colored flag.  The different colors correspond with the specific trait technology planted in that field.  Red flags, for example, signify conventional varieties with no herbicide technology traits and sensitive crops like grapes, vegetables, or organic fields. [node:read-more:link]