The United States Department of Agriculture convened this discussion, and others like it across the state and across rural America, because the opioid epidemic is not just a big-city issue. And the only way that the scourge can be addressed, Baldwin said, is through cooperation among leaders at the local, state and federal level.“We have not done our job, until we create a better and more effective partnership with regard to funding the services that we need,” Baldwin said. The U.S. Congress has done its part — but not completely, according to Baldwin. [node:read-more:link]

Approximately 1,100 acres of crops were impacted by the damaging winds and rainfall in the county, Wells reports. “We had more than 10 inches of rain in the Hastings area with very strong winds,” she says.  On average, St. Johns County farmers have reported 30% to 60% losses of their planted acreage, while several have experienced a 100% or total loss for the crops they had in the ground before the storm, Wells states. [node:read-more:link]

The administration further relaxed economic restrictions on Cuba Friday, allowing more collaboration on medical research, the approval of Cuban drugs for import and the lifting of monetary limits on cigars and rum imports. The moves make the U.S. openings to Cuba "irreversible," President Barack Obama said in a statement.  The latest changes build on the president's announcement in December 2014 to chart a new course for the U.S.-Cuba relationship, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a statement. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has sent livestock and poultry marketing rules, which USDA is calling the "Farmer Fair Practices Rules," back to the White House for review. The rules drew both praise and scorn.  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack sent letters to leaders of various meat and livestock industry groups on Thursday detailing why the rules were advanced. [node:read-more:link]

The first shipment of beef from Brazil to the U.S. in nearly two decades arrived Thursday in the Port of Philadelphia, according to a notice posted by the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority.  Sao Paulo-based JBS S.A.’s shipment of fresh beef is the first since the U.S.officially opened to Brazilian beef in August after 17 years of negotiations between the two countries. That decision followed USDA’s recent finding that the Brazil’s food safety system is equivalent to that of the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

In September, the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, a group charged with making recommendations to the Bureau of Land Management about its Wild Horse and Burro Program, agreed that tens of thousands of equines in federal holding facilities might need to be euthanized.  This recommendation — you might call it the nuclear option — undoubtedly hit horse lovers like a bomb. Social media mushroomed with immediate rancor. [node:read-more:link]

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s corn, soybean, and wheat crop budgets for 2016 include highly productive cropland in northern and central Illinois—land that may yield 20% or more above the national average (Schnitkey, 2016). Considering the current costs of production, budgets show revenues will be high enough to provide a return to land; however, profits will not fully cover the costs of average cash rent. [node:read-more:link]

Since 2009, the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP), run by NIFA, provides grants to organizations for education, mentoring, and technical assistance initiatives for beginning farmers or ranchers. [node:read-more:link]

As the 2012 Census of Agriculture data has shown us, to the extent that returns have been high relative to other sectors of the economy, they have not reversed the decline in the number of beginning farms. However, there is some evidence of success by young beginning farmers, including through their expansion in farm size, relative to older beginning farmers (Ahearn, 2013; Katchova and Ahearn, 2015). [node:read-more:link]

With crop insurance's popularity rising in rural America and on Capitol Hill, and with the policy's budget outlays falling, we're guessing one of its harshest critics, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is running out of believable critiques. So now it's resorted to pure fiction.  The EWG sounded an alarm bell in an article earlier this week, warning, "Billionaire Saudi Prince Khalid bin Abdullah could be raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. [node:read-more:link]