Organic agriculture is often proposed as a more sustainable alternative to current conventional agriculture. We assess the current understanding of the costs and benefits of organic agriculture across multiple production, environmental, producer, and consumer dimensions. Organic agriculture shows many potential benefits (including higher biodiversity and improved soil and water quality per unit area, enhanced profitability, and higher nutritional value) as well as many potential costs including lower yields and higher consumer prices. [node:read-more:link]

The Arkansas House passed HV 1665 67-10 to allow lawsuits against people who take unauthorized videos on commercial property. [node:read-more:link]

The House next week may take up a bill to ensure conservation doesn’t erode agricultural water rights. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday that more than $6 million in funding is now available for those affected by the wildfires in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The funding, delivered through USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program, will assist farmers and ranchers as they attempt to restore grazing lands, rehabilitate devastated landscapes, rebuild fencing and protect damaged watersheds, according to a news release.“The availability of USDA conservation funds targeted toward restoring land impacted by the fires is appreciated," said Sen. [node:read-more:link]

China and the European Union curtailed meat imports from Brazil on Monday after police, in an anti-corruption probe criticized by the government as alarmist, accused inspectors in the world's biggest exporter of beef and poultry of taking bribes to allow sales of rotten and salmonella-tainted meats. [node:read-more:link]

This is shaping up to be a good week for Oregon tribal members and farm workers desperate for safe and decent housing. On Tuesday, bipartisan legislation designed to improve and increase housing for farm workers was approved by the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee.The measure, Senate Bill 1, would create a personal income or corporation tax credit for farmers' operating costs of housing for agricultural workers. [node:read-more:link]

The rusty patched bumble bee became the first wild bee in the continental United States to gain federal protection on Tuesday when it was added to the government's list of endangered and threatened species. The bee, once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, was listed after U.S. President Donald Trump's administration lifted a hold it had placed on a plan for federal protections proposed last fall by the administration of former President Barack Obama. [node:read-more:link]

“America's farmers and ranchers help feed the world, fuel our Nation's economy, and lead global markets in output and productivity.  The efficiency of American agriculture has provided this country with abundance our ancestors could not have imagined.”  So begins President Donald Trump’s announcement today that proclaims March 21, 2017 as National Agriculture Day.The proclamation applauds our nation’s farmers as “endlessly innovative,” as well as being determined, self-reliant and a critical component to the nation’s future. [node:read-more:link]

Last week's deep freeze in the Southeast appears to have nearly wiped out Georgia's blueberries and South Carolina's peaches and seriously damaged a number of other crops like strawberries and apples. [node:read-more:link]

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Enrique “Kike” Balcazar, 24, from Mexico, and and Zully Palacios, 23, from Peru, late Friday afternoon, according to an activist with the group Migrant Justice. They are the third and fourth members of the group to be detained by ICE agents this week. Caesar Alex Carillo-Sanchez, who goes by Alex Carillo, was arrested outside the Chittenden County courthouse in Burlington Wednesday morning. [node:read-more:link]