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]

Rural America lost jobs in 2016, according to a Daily Yonder analysis of federal jobs data, as the growth in employment continued to concentrate in the nation’s largest cities. Eight out of 10 jobs created in 2016 were in the 51 metropolitan areas of a million people or more. These giant urban areas gained 1.2 million jobs between January 2016 and January of this year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In rural counties, there are nearly 90,000 fewer jobs this January than in the same month a year ago. Blue counties are in metropolitan areas and gained jobs. [node:read-more:link]

The wind energy bill passed by the North Dakota House is an effective compromise, according to Rep. Mike Brandenburg, R-Edgeley. “It’s kind of a meeting in the middle,” he said, referring to. “If everybody agrees, and the township and county agree, it (a wind farm) can be built right.”Senate Bill 2313, as originally written and passed by the Senate, created a reclamation and restoration program for abandoned wind farm sites within the North Dakota Department of Agriculture and set minimum setbacks between planned wind turbines and properties that are not part of the wind farm project. [node:read-more:link]

A new document filed in the ongoing dognapping lawsuit against the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) demonstrates the long-term, systemic pattern of trespassing, pet theft, and killing that occurs as part of PETA’s pet slaughterhouse operation at its Norfolk headquarters. [node:read-more:link]

Hemp would be brought further into the mainstream of Oregon agriculture under two bills that create a commodity commission and seed certification process for the crop. Under House Bill 2372, Oregon’s hemp industry would join 23 other crop, livestock and seafood sectors to have a state commission aimed at promoting and researching a commodity through fees raised from producers. [node:read-more:link]

Given a second take, a Moses Lake Republican passed through the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday a bill to raise the beef checkoff by 50 cents this year, but without another increase in two year. The committee had passed the checkoff bill March 23. The bill then called for a 50-cent increase now and another 50-cent hike in 2019. A procedural error, however, forced the committee to vote again.Between last week and this week, Rep. [node:read-more:link]

Dow Chemical and DuPont won the blessing of the European Union for their $130 billion merger on Monday by agreeing to sell substantial assets including key research and development activities.The European Commission had been concerned that the merger of two of the biggest and oldest U.S. chemical producers would leave few incentives to produce new herbicides and pesticides in the future. The deal is one of a trio of mega mergers that will reshape the industry and consolidate six companies into three. [node:read-more:link]