Route For Child Nutrition – April 11, 2019

Roberts sees route for reauthorizing child nutrition this year

After warning against saddling small schools with big-city regulations, Senate Agriculture chairman Pat Roberts said on Wednesday that Congress could act swiftly on the overdue renewal of child nutrition programs. The programs, headlined by school lunch and WIC, cost $30 billion a year.

The farm industry is pushing for tighter right-to-farm laws across the country. What does that mean for farm neighbors?

Every state has a “right-to-farm” law on the books to protect farmers from being sued by their neighbors for the routine smells and sounds created by farming operations. But this year, the agriculture industry has been pushing in several states to amend those laws so that they will effectively prevent neighbors from suing farms at all — even massive industrial livestock operations.

World Pork Expo is canceled due to ‘extreme caution’ over hog disease

The World Pork Expo, which draws an international crowd annually to the largest hog-producing state in America, will not be held this June as a precaution against the spread of African swine fever, said its sponsor, the National Pork Producers Council, on Wednesday.

TODAY’S QUICK HITS

Tying job training to food stamps (New Food Economy): A Wisconsin plan that requires able-bodied food stamp recipients to take part in a job-training program if they don’t work at least 20 hours a week “cost double what it was supposed to and lifted only a tiny fraction of participants out of poverty,” says an analysis of the plan.

‘Big gulp’ survives, but so does soda tax (Los Angeles Times): The California Assembly’s health committee approved, 8-5, a bill to set a 2-cent-per-fluid-ounce tax on sodas to raise funding for public health programs. The panel acted only hours after shelving a bill to ban “Big Gulp”-style servings of sugary drinks.

Cuts could end dairy farming in Alaska (Modern Farmer): Among the many budget cuts proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy is the elimination of funding for dairy regulation in the state, which could prevent Alaska’s only operating dairy farm from selling its milk to grocery stores for human consumption.

Crowdfunding a hydroponic farm (HortiDaily): Kentucky Fresh Harvest, a hydroponic greenhouse operator, raised $520,000 through a crowdfunding appeal for money to build a facility that could grow 3 to 4 million cherry tomatoes a year.

Investor says Bayer misread Monsanto risk (Reuters): The 10th-largest stockholder in Bayer, whose market value has dropped by $34 billion since last August, said the German pharmaceutical and life sciences company underestimated the risks of lawsuits against Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide when it took over the U.S. seed and ag-chemical company last year.

Bookmark the permalink.