North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge® (NAIDC) recently elected new leadership, including one new board member and several new board officer appointments. Newly elected to the 15-person volunteer NAIDC Board of Directors is Dr. Alex White, faculty of Virginia Tech’s Dairy Science department, and lecturer in the Ag Economics department. The NAIDC Executive Committee for 2018-19 includes chair Maurice Eastridge, Ph.D., …
USDA Announces Trade Disruption Relief for Farmers
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will take several actions to assist farmers negatively impacted by recent trade actions. President Trump directed Secretary Perdue to craft a short-term relief strategy to protect agricultural producers while the Administration works on free, fair, and reciprocal trade deals to open more markets in the long run to help American farmers compete globally. Specifically, …
Animal Ag Bites 7/23
Phibro Animal Health Corporation has introduced the new Animate app, a free mobile app for Animate® anionic mineral supplement customers that allows dairy producers to track critical prefresh metrics over time and identify trends by prompting them to enter data including: urine pH, bunk space, stocking density, dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) levels, temperature humidity index (THI), dry matter intake and …
Seasonal Lamb Production White Paper Released
A new white paper addresses the seasonality of lamb production so members of the industry can understand it in more depth and make informed decisions about management alterations to better supply a more consistently available product. “Seasonality of the US Lamb Industry: A Review of Current Information” is now available for download at LambResourceCenter.com in the Production Resources section. The …
FDA Considering Fake Meat and Milk
The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is spending time this month discussing meat and milk. Last week, FDA held a public meeting to discuss foods produced using animal cell culture technology – mainly lab-grown fake meat products – and which agency should be in charge of regulating. The meat industry believes fake meat should be regulated by USDA. “Any …
Animal Ag Bites 7/16
Holstein Association USA recognizes David Harvatine of King Ferry, New York, as the 2018 Distinguished Young Holstein Breeder. Havartine is co-owner and dairy manager of Aurora Ridge Dairy, located north of Ithaca, New York, in the heart of the Finger Lakes region. Aurora Ridge Dairy is owned by four partners: Bill Cook, Dan Westfall, Jason Burrows and Harvatine. The Washington …
Ag Equipment Sales Higher at Mid-Year
All categories of agricultural machinery sales are in the plus column so far this year compared to last, according to the latest data from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). “We view 2018 as a rebuilding year for agriculture; we’ve experienced a steadily improving economy, tax reform provides incentives and machines need to be replaced,” said Curt Blades, AEM senior …
Animal Ag Alliance Responds to Animal Rights Groups
The Animal Agriculture Alliance has shared reaction to the most recent gathering of the Animal Rights National Conference, held June 28 through July 1 in Los Angeles. The event was organized by the Farm Animal Rights Movement and sponsored by Mercy for Animals, The Save Movement, Compassion Over Killing and The Humane League, along with other animal rights extremist groups. …
Animal Ag Bites 7/9
Sixteen culinary experts from across the country got a taste of the beef industry during the Pasture to Plate Beef Tour, sponsored by state beef councils in California, Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma and Texas. Invited to the beef checkoff-funded event were the culinary chairs responsible for the 28 International Culinary Schools at the Art Institutes across the country. The non-profit Art …
Scott Pruitt Resigns From EPA
Well, here’s news that probably won’t upset too many people I know. I’m actually amazed that this didn’t happen much sooner. Of course this had to happen during a pretty much vacation week for the ZimmComm Team and many, many other folks. Here’s some industry reaction on the announcement. I think you can sum it up that everyone is pretty …