Farm bill odds growing longer There is little reason for optimism that Congress will pass the new farm bill this year, wrote farm policy expert Jonathan Coppess on Thursday as part of an analysis showing that farm program payments favor Southern growers. “The chances of farm bill reauthorization in 2024 grow more dim with each passing day,” he said. Bird flu infects two more dairy herds Dairy herds in Kansas and New Mexico are infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus, raising the U.S. total to 15 herds in six states, said the Agriculture Department on Thursday. Texas has the most infected herds ..read more

CDC: Bird flu virus lacks changes to make it a greater threat to people Samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus that has infected dairy cattle and a dairy worker retain avian genetic characteristics and “for the most part lack changes that would make them better able to infect mammals,” said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a technical update. “The overall risk to human health associated with the ongoing HPAI A(H5) outbreaks in poultry and detections in wild birds and cattle remains low,” said the CDC. Brazil and Colombia sharply reduce forest loss With new leaders in office, Brazi ..read more

USDA confirms bird flu in 12th dairy herd, is testing more USDA scientists confirmed the bird flu virus in a dairy herd in Idaho on Tuesday — the 12th herd in five states — with Ohio appearing for the first time on the list of states with “presumptive positive” results that will be double-checked. Meanwhile, officials said a Texas egg farm suffered the largest U.S. outbreak of bird flu in four months. Carbon injection discussions involve many farmers More farmers and landowners are involved in discussions of carbon capture utilization and storage on farmland than in leasing land for solar pane ..read more

Bird flu spreads from cattle to human in Texas A Texas patient tested positive for the bird flu virus after exposure to dairy cattle believed to be carrying the disease — the first known instance of cattle-to-human transmission in the United States, said public health officials on Monday. The patient reported eye redness, consistent with conjunctivitis, as the only symptom and was recovering, said the Centers for Disease Control. House conservatives would rewrite farm supports in Trump’s name Congress would cut off crop subsidies to wealthy farmers and require growers to pay at least half of t ..read more

Bird flu found in dairy herds in five states Bird flu, which killed more than 82 million birds in U.S. domestic flocks in the past two years, has appeared in dairy herds in Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, and Texas, said federal officials. The outbreaks, affecting a relatively small number of cattle, are not expected to affect milk supply or prices at the grocery store. EPA calls for lower-polluting buses and heavy trucks Manufacturers of heavy-duty trucks and buses will be required to produce vehicles that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 60 percent by model year 2032 under ..read more

U.S. farmers lean into soy but pull back on corn and wheat in 2024 Farmers are expected to plant an estimated 86.5 million acres of soybeans this year, up 3 percent from last year, and dial back their corn acreage by 5 percent and their wheat acreage by 4 percent, according to the USDA’s annual Prospective Plantings report, released Thursday. Chile’s strict food marketing and labeling laws did not spur lasting drop in childhood obesity Chile’s groundbreaking nutrition regulations, which prohibit food companies from marketing unhealthy foods to kids and require stop-sign-shaped labels on sugary ..read more

“People’s Tribunal” in NYC to talk policy & goals Farmworkers and labor organizers from across North America will convene in New York City this weekend for a “people’s tribunal,” where they plan to produce a list of overarching priorities that will guide their organizing efforts going forward. TODAY’S QUICK HITS Climate-smart rice: Long-grain white rice and brown rice from Wisconsin’s Great River Milling are the first consumer products created under the USDA’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program. (Wisconsin Public Radio) Standards for food as medicine: The Food is Medicine C ..read more

California paraquat use concentrated in poor, Latino communities Between 2017 and 2021, 5.3 million pounds of the herbicide paraquat were sprayed on California fields, with 66 percent of it in five Central Valley counties whose residents are predominantly poor and Latino, according to a new Environmental Working Group analysis. AFR LATEST I A toxic grass problem America’s “fescue belt,” named for an exotic grass called tall fescue, dominates the pastureland from Missouri and Arkansas in the west to the coast of the Carolinas in the east. Within that swath, a quarter of the nation’s cows — more ..read more

Bird flu found in dairy cows in Texas and Kansas The USDA announced Monday that unpasteurized milk samples from sick cattle at two dairy farms in Kansas and one in Texas, as well as an oropharyngeal swab from another dairy in Texas, tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Pennsylvania dairies put the notion of climate-smart milk to the test The U.S. dairy industry aims to go greenhouse gas neutral by 2050. As part of a new project to evaluate the most promising strategies to reduce dairies’ greenhouse gas emissions, scientists will install emissions sensors at several Pen ..read more

California’s water board hit with civil rights complaint over tainted water A coalition of public interest groups filed a civil rights complaint against California’s top water board last week, accusing the agency of perpetuating environmental racism along the state’s Central Coast. According to the complaint, the region’s agricultural industry has contaminated Latino farmworkers’ drinking water with dangerous levels of nitrates, and the State Water Resources Control Board is partly to blame. TODAY’S QUICK HITS Ag-cancer link in Iowa?: Oncologists and public health researchers say it’s time to ..read more