Colorado livestock could be eating hemp as early as next year, thanks to a bill directing the Colorado Department of Agriculture to study the use of industrial hemp in animal feed. Mike Sullivan, the owner of Johnstown-based Hemp Farm Colorado, said the inclusion of hemp in animal feed could solve one of the biggest problems hemp farmers face. “One of the real big problems with the hemp industry is there’s hardly any processors out there that are buying materials straight from the farmer. This would be a great leap forward,” he said. [node:read-more:link]

The company’s six global commitments, known collectively as the Good Growth Plan, are to make crops more efficient, rescue more farmland from degradation, help biodiversity to flourish, empower smallholders, keep agricultural workers safe and provide fair employment in the sector.  They have been designed to line up with the United Nations sustainable development goals. It works with 3,700 farms across the world – 1,000 of which are ‘reference farms’ where Syngenta protocols are in place, and 2,700 of which are ‘benchmark farms’ to use as a comparator. [node:read-more:link]

Solar industry jobs doubled in the Cleveland, Ohio area last year, driving about half of the state’s total job growth in the sector, according to new data released today by The Solar Foundation.  However, the industry’s future growth in Cuyahoga County and elsewhere in the state could be jeopardized by ongoing uncertainty over Ohio’s renewable portfolio standards.  The detailed data are a follow-up to a nationwide report released by the group last month. [node:read-more:link]

"Going forward, we're predicting warmer and wetter springs, and drier, hotter summers," Davis says. "The season fragments and we start to see an early-early season, so that March starts looking like a good target for planting in the future. In the past, March has been the bleeding edge; nobody in their right mind would have planted then. But we've already seen the trend for early planting. [node:read-more:link]

Vermont pushed back against President Donald Trump’s immigration orders with a new law on Tuesday that limits police involvement with the federal government and gives the governor the power to sign off on agreements for officers to do federal immigration duties. Republican Gov. Phil Scott called it a response to federal overreach by the Trump administration.Under the law, state and local police officers are prohibited from collecting personal information on residents beyond what’s needed to carry out their law enforcement duties. [node:read-more:link]

Food banks across the country have been noticing a trend since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January. [node:read-more:link]

Many fossil fuel executives are celebrating President Trump’s move to dismantle the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. But their cheers are muted, because market forces and state initiatives continue to elevate coal’s rivals, especially natural gas and renewable energy. In coal’s favor, there is the new promise that federal lands will be open for leasing, ending an Obama-era moratorium. [node:read-more:link]

92-year-old company Elmhurst Dairy has not only closed down its dairy operation, but has opted for a full rebranding in order to focus on plant-based milks. According to Rise of the Vegan, the decision is based on a lack of customer demand, with CEO Henry Schwartz stating that "there isn't much room for our kind of business." As a result, Elmhurst Dairy has now become just Elmhurst and debuted its new line called "Milked" during the Natural Foods Expo West in Anaheim last weekend. [node:read-more:link]

A flock of chickens at a commercial breeding operation in Chattooga County has tested positive for H7 avian influenza, marking the state’s first case in 2017, the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) stated. According to a press release from the GDA, it appears to be a low pathogenic strain, because the birds in the flock did not show any signs of illness. [node:read-more:link]

With so few people connected to agriculture these days, how are we going to convince students that a career in agriculture is a viable course of study? The rapidly increasing demand for food has insured that ag-oriented students often have multiple job offers. The last few years, many good poultry and animal science jobs have gone unfilled.  Without a new crop of talented, newly trained ag students, the world’s ability to produce food will be strained. [node:read-more:link]