Eminent domain would allow town to take 21-acre farm

Eminent domain allows the government to seize private 
property for public use. (Photo by Richard R, Unsplash)

A 21-acre farm in Cranbury, New Jersey, is at risk of being seized by the government to develop affordable housing, Faith Bottum from The Wall Street Journal reported. 

If the government is successful, the farm, which belonged to the Henry family for 175 years, would be given to a private developer.

The township wants to seize the land to comply with the Mount Laurel doctrine, a 1975 ruling by the Supreme Court of New Jersey that required towns to provide affordable housing.

“Cranbury needs to create 265 new affordable units over the next decade,” Bottum wrote. The Henry farm would be able to house 130 of those units.

The ability for the government to take private property for public use is known as eminent domain. But under the Fifth Amendment, private property cannot be taken without just compensation.

Yet why would the sale of private property to private developers constitute public use when the affordable housing units will not be available for everyone in the town?

The precedent for this is a 2005 ruling by the Supreme Court which held that a Connecticut city’s decision to seize private property and sell it to private developers constituted public use. The rationale by the judges was that it served a larger public purpose as part of an economic development plan that would benefit everyone.

Debate: Is the American Farm Bureau Federation on the side of small farmers?

Journalists debate if the Farm Bureau
Federation is on the side of farmers.
(Photo by Ainur Khakimov, Unsplash)

Ambrook Research has a debate series where two journalists each write an article arguing a side of a topic. A recent debate focused on whether the American Farm Bureau Federation is on the side of small farmers.

Nolan Monaghan, a graduate of the University of Missouri’s Center for Agroforestry, and Deanna Fox, journalist and former CEO of New York Farm Bureau, offered differing views.

Monaghan's article is titled, “Is Farm Bureau a Friend to Small Farmers?” Fox's article is: “American Farm Bureau Is a Lesson in Democracy.”

Monaghan delved into the history of the organization and its purpose when it was created. He wrote that the bureau wanted to “distinguish itself” by “taking a less economically ambitious position” and that according to Stewart Truelsen, author of Forward Farm Bureau, “the federation sought ‘equality’ within agriculture.” However, Monaghan wrote that the equality was not between farmers but between agriculture and other industries.

Fox wrote that 86% of the farming operations in America are small family farms, which the six million members of the bureau help develop policy to advocate on behalf of them. After explaining the start of the Farm Bureau Federation, Fox wrote, “One thing that has not changed is the grassroots policy development that defines the Bureau’s commitment to family farms.”

Monaghan argued that over time the bureau’s goals have shifted to be more business-focused instead of helping small farmers. “Instead of managing overproduction, the strategy of this era was to shove every calorie of output into any market the government could create on behalf of farmers.”

Eventually this came to hurt small farms, “Oversupply reared its ugly head, leading to millions of farm family balance sheets to tilt to the red. Rural banks and small businesses began closing as farms went bankrupt,” Monaghan wrote.

However, Fox said the farm bureau is actively trying to support farmers. “The respect of differing viewpoints is honored, and a commitment to providing sustenance for all Americans is the unifying thread.” Fox also wrote that, “diverse opinions have led to positions that address a range of environmental, climate, and social justice issues.”

Republicans in Congress work to save $1.8 billion in U.S.-grown food aid from the USAID graveyard

Closure of some U.S. food-aid programs
could hurt farmers. (Adobe Stock photo)

Republicans are working to rescue the Food for Peace program from the USAID-closing abyss by moving its oversight to the Department of Agriculture.

"Congressional Republicans from farm states are trying to save a $1.8 billion U.S. food-aid program that purchases U.S.-grown food and is administered by USAID, which has been largely closed by the Trump administration," reports Kristina Peterson of The Wall Street Journal.

The GOP group introduced legislation to save the 70-year-old program that works to combat international hunger by "transferring it to the USDA, which currently funds it but doesn’t run it," Peterson explains. "The bill marks a rare effort from Republicans to defend a federal program targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency." 

The White House hasn’t commented on the bill and "is watching to see how much support there is for it," Peterson adds. "Farm groups, which have worried about the impact of pausing federal funding that flows to farmers, backed the legislation."

The USDA already manages some foreign-aid programs, such as the McGovern-Dole program, which "send U.S.-grown food to schoolchildren in low-income countries," Peterson reports. The USDA hasn't confirmed if its programs will remain open.

A lack of rural veterinarians puts farms and animals at risk; Congress is considering a plan to address the problem

Student loan burdens can keep new veterinarians
from choosing a rural practice. (AVMA photo)

This narrative appeared in Farm Progress: "445-2511. Long ago, I committed that number to memory," recalls Holly Spangler. "Those were the days well before phones in pockets, when I was a kid with fast legs who could be sent from the lower barn back up the hill to the house with a mission: Call the veterinarian. Near 35 years later, the feel of that number washes over me like an old friend. It's never good when you need a vet. But when they get there? Relief. They'll know what to do."

The "relief" that only a knowledgeable rural veterinarian can give is being threatened for rural areas nationwide. "Rural kids simply aren't applying to vet school," Spangler writes. "Most farm kids dream of being a vet, at least until the reality of biochemistry and eight years of school sets in. . . . At the same time, fewer young people from rural areas want to be large-animal vets. The University of Illinois may be graduating twice as many vet students compared to 30 years ago, but the majority go into small-animal practice instead of large-animal or rural mixed practice."

Besides tough hours and dangerous work, research has found that finances, particularly the burden of student loans, prevent young veterinarians from practicing in rural areas, reports the American Veterinarian Medical Association. "There are veterinarians who want to work in rural areas of America but are unable to do so — for financial reasons. The great news is that legislation pending in Congress would make it more feasible for them," through the Rural Veterinary Workforce Act bill.

If passed, the bill includes "legislation that would extend the reach of the popular Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program to help more food animal and public health veterinarians relocate to rural areas facing veterinary shortages," AVMA reports. 

Currently, the program "helps veterinarians set up practice in locations designated as veterinary shortage areas by the Department of Agriculture. It does this by promising to pay off up to $75,000 of each veterinarian's student loans if they practice in the shortage area for three years," AVMA reports. But despite its benefits, there are still not enough rural vets. "The bipartisan Rural Veterinary Workforce Act would go a long way to rectify the situation. By treating VMLRP awards the same as equivalent awards made to physicians and other human health care providers, it would free up significant funds for new recipients."

To read Spangler's complete essay, "Long live the rural veterinarian," click here. To find out more about the Rural Veterinary Workforce Act, including other options, click here. 

Some rural Americans push back on wind energy; land is meant for 'cattle and corn, not turbines and transformers'

A wind farm by corn fields near Latimer, Iowa (Reuters photo by Jonathan Ernst)

In 1941, the first modern wind turbine was built in Castleton, Vermont, current population 4,500. Fast-forward 44 years, and the popularity of wind energy has grown exponentially with rural areas as their primary focus, but the push is meeting with rural resistance, reports Joe St. George of Scripps News. "The White House and many environmentalists want to build more wind projects around the country. From offshore sites to new wind turbines on farmland, it's a push that has some big dollars behind it. . . .Over $370 billion in taxpayer money is set to be spent on clean energy projects, like wind, in the coming years."

Wind turbines are considered eyesores by some. Their blades average 200 feet long, and turbine towers average over 300 feet tall—about the height of the Statue of Liberty. "If you want one, you live beside it." Jon Winkelpeck of Tama County, Iowa, told St. George. "These huge industrial wind turbines you will see for miles . . . It's our job to protect our farmland."

Winkelpeck has many allies. "If you go on Facebook, you'll find over 1,200 members of the group Tama County Against Turbines," St. George writes. "Heather Knebel, a Tama County resident, stays informed through social-media posts and scheduled meetups that are posted in the group. It's also where she has learned about possible safety risks from ice developing on the blades of turbines during winter. To be clear, the wind industry says ice can form but de-icing solutions do exist."

"Similar fights are underway in Colorado, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and other states," ST. George reports. "With President Joe Biden and other officials hoping newly created tax credits will spur wind development in the coming years, small-town opposition is quickly becoming a big problem. . . . . In Tama County, for instance, the landowner has to sign off before anything can be built."

Some rural residents favor wind energy. Kathy Law, a farmer and an attorney who represents the industry in Iowa, "believes misinformation is an issue, something that is easy to spread online," St. George reports. "Wind, she said, is safe, and with some parts of rural America worried about the future of their economies, wind represents cash. Farmers can be paid a couple thousand dollars a year for putting just one turbine up."

Winkelpleck told St. George that his land is meant for cattle and corn, not turbines and transformers: "We aren't interested."

U.S. expected to import more farm products that it exports; would longer-tenured foreign farmworkers help close gap?

U.S. Department of Agriculture graph

For the first time, U.S. imports of agricultural products are expected to exceed the country's farm exports next year, and then continue running ever-larger trade deficits through 2031, the Department of Agriculture projected earlier this year. That projection has caused concern among farmers in Ohio who say they rely on foreigners to keep their operations running, reports Marty Schladen for the Ohio Capital Journal. Those farmers are calling for changes in agricultural-worker visas that would make it easier for foreigners to enter and stay in the country for longer amounts of time. 

"The reality today in United States modern agriculture is that food consumed by Americans is and will continue to be harvested by foreign hands," vegetable grower Bob Jones told Schladen. "Americans just simply are not interested in working in the field, in the greenhouse, or the packing house."

Jones and other farmers hope the U.S. Senate will pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021. The bill, already passed by the House, would create a "certified agricultural worker" status for qualified foreign workers and allow them to stay in the U.S. for five and a half years. "We are either going to import workers or we're going to import food," Jones said. "The choice is really that simple." 

The American consumer has largely acquired a taste for agricultural goods that often need to be imported, Chuck Abbott reported for Successful Farming in February. Those goods include fresh fruits and vegetables that might not be in season in the U.S. Tropical products like coffee and the horticultural products needed to produce wine, beer and distilled spirits are increasingly imported. Farm exports were forecast to hit a record this fiscal year, but the USDA projected a decrease in value in the middle of the coming decade, and a much greater increase in imports.

Farm income predicted to be up, mainly due to trade-war bailout, estimated at 24% of total income, USDA says

Net farm income in 2019 is expected to be 10.2 percent higher than in 2018, mostly because of government payments to compensate farmers for the trade war with China, according to the latest Farm Income Forecast report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In inflation-adjusted dollars, it's a $7 billion increase, or 8.2%, from last year. Here are some highlights from the report by the USDA's Economic Research Service:

• In inflation-adjusted 2019 dollars, net farm income (a broad measure of profits) is forecast to hit $92.5 billion this year.
• If the forecast is correct, 2019 net farm income would be 2.8% above the 2000-2018 average of $90.1 billion, but 32.3% below its $136.6 billion peak in 2013.
• Net cash farm income (a more precise measurement of profits) is predicted to increase 15% from last year ($15.5 billion), to a total of $119 billion.
• Inflation-adjusted net cash farm income is predicted to increase 12.9%, or $13.6 billion, from 2018. That would put 2019 farm income 10% higher than the 2000-18 average, $108.2 billion.
• Direct payments to farms from the government are expected to total $22.4 billion, which is $8.8 billion higher than in 2018—a 64% increase. If correct, government payments would account for about 24% of all farm income, the largest share in more than a decade.
• Farm debt is predicted to grow by $13.5 billion in 2019, or 3.4%.
• Farmers' financial stability is predicted to decrease slightly in the past year as the debt-to-asset ratio, a key measure of financial stability, is expected to increase slightly from 13.28% in 2018 to 13.42%.
• Total receipts for animals and animal products are expected to be largely unchanged as increases in milk and hog sales are almost offset by poultry and egg sale declines.
• Adjusted for inflation, total cash receipts are expected to decline $4.6 billion, or 1.2%, because of a $3 billion drop in animal/animal product receipts and a $1.7 billion decline in crop receipts.

Farms increasingly owned by non-farmers and rented out

U.S. Department of Agriculture map

Farmland is a kind of currency: valuable because of what it can do, and because it's finite. And though rental of farmland isn't increasing -- the number of acres rented has been around 40 percent for the past 40 years, according to the the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- what's changing is the landlord. "The landowner is increasingly not the farmer next door or a landlord intimately involved in the farming operation," Erin McKinstry reports for The Midwest Center of Investigative Reporting. "Instead, many farmers rent from multiple owners who may have little to no connection to farming or the local community and who may own land strictly for investment purposes."

In the Midwest, about 46 percent of the farmland is rented; around 81 percent of those landowners do not farm. Some see that as a good thing, saying it puts more capital into rural communities and makes arable land affordable for farmers who could not outright buy it. "Others see it as one more barrier for farmers trying to access land or expand their operations," McKinstry reports. "They worry that the trend has driven up farmland prices, led to irresponsible conservation practices and drained money from rural economies."

It's difficult to assess trends, since statewide and USDA data can be spotty, but the phenomenon of absentee farm owners appears to be increasing, especially in the most fertile parts of the Midwest. It may continue to increase as more land-owning farmers retire and pass their farms down to their children. Some may not want to farm and rent it out, and some may sell it to investors.

Farm Bill on House floor this week; Republican leaders scramble to find the votes to pass it

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled vote this week on a Republican-created Farm Bill that includes several controversial amendments, such as deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once known as food stamps. Agriculture Committee Chair Mike Conaway told Melanie Zanona ofThe Hill that the bill is still short of the 218 votes it needs but "He expressed confidence that he can flip enough members by working the phones over the weekend, clearing up any questions and concerns and pointing out that some amendments will get a floor vote."

"Democrats walked away from the normally bipartisan Farm Bill process when Republicans decided to include the SNAP revamp, which they say is unnecessarily cruel and would prevent 1 million people from receiving food stamps," Zanona reports. "Even the GOP conference is divided over the changes, with some moderate Republicans worried the requirements are too tough and others worried the changes don’t go far enough."

Changes to sugar subsidies are also a divisive issue, and one that regularly cuts across party lines. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., has proposed an amendment to ensure taxpayers don't have to pay for federal bailouts of the sugar industry. But far-right Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., says the amendment would be a "poison pill" that would put the farm bill in jeopardy if it gets to a vote, Zanona reports.

Another controversial provision: stricter work requirements on some food stamp recipients. "All able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 59 have to be working or enrolled in a training program for at least 20 hours per week in order to qualify for food stamps," Zanona reports. "People who are elderly, disabled or pregnant would be exempt from the requirements."

Dairy farmers, who have been facing hard times lately, will get some attention in the farm bill too with changes to the Dairy Margin Protection Program. The program has been criticized for not adequately reimbursing farmers hurt by falling milk prices. The farm bill proposal "the amount of milk that can qualify for coverage from four to six million pounds and made the payout monthly," Whitney Bashaw reports for The Daily Star in Oneonta, New York. It will also "strike 'margin protection' to replace it with 'dairy risk management.' The Dairy Margin Protection Program will be renamed Dairy Risk Management. Additionally, dairy producers will now be eligible to participate in the Livestock Gross Margin Insurance Plan for Dairy Cattle, which legislators said can provide flexibility for farmers."

Some ag groups say trade more urgent than new Farm Bill

"While debate continues on the 2018 Farm Bill in Washington, a majority of farm groups say trade is a bigger issue for them than passage of the new farm legislation," Michelle Rook reports for AgWeek.

Specifically, farmers are concerned about the fallout of the increasing trade war with China as well as ongoing negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Top U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer went to China last week to negotiate a deal to delay threatened tariffs and prevent more in the future, but little progress was made.

Gregg Doud, chief agricultural negotiator with the U.S. trade representative's office, said that though 82 percent of U.S. ag exports to China have been hit with tariffs, he believes the U.S. will come out on top in negotiations, Rook reports.

Jon Doggett, executive vice president of the National Corn Growers Association, said the uncertainty of the market is causing customers to question whether the U.S. is a reliable supplier. And though Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has promised a trade compensation program, Zack Clark, director of government relations for the National Farmers Union, told Rook that "It certainly will not replace getting a good price from the marketplace, which is ultimately what we want to see.

As aging ranchers retire, their lands become targets for investors, and they seek help for transfer

Les Dunmire (NPR photo by Cooper McKim)

Rural ranch and farm lands have a greater chance of being snapped up by developers or other investors as aging ranchers prepare to retire without a succession plan. It's an increasing problem: "In 2012, the average age of farmers and ranchers hit 58 years old, higher than the past two centuries — it's also up about eight years from three decades ago," Cooper McKim reports for NPR. "According to a National Young Farmers Coalition report, 63 percent of farmland will need a new farmer in the next 25 years as older farmers retire."

Passing on a ranch or farm isn't as easy as just writing a will, so interested organizations are trying to help aging ranchers and farmers make solid plans for transferring their land. The Western Landowners Alliance and the University of Wyoming Extension Service offer estate planning workshops for ranchers to help guide them through the process.

For example, rancher Les Dunmire, 66, has been planning his retirement for 26 years. In order to pass on his 106,000-acre Dunmire Ranch in southeast Wyoming, he divided his ranch into six legal entities and hired accountants and lawyers to make sure his adult children won't be forced to sell the land. "That's my goal, is to be able to pass these ranches on in the best possible way I can to not only my kids, but my grandkids," Dunmire told McKim.

China slaps tariffs on 128 goods; could hurt rural U.S.

In response to President Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum, China announced Sunday that it will retaliate with tariffs on 128 U.S. goods starting today, ranging from agricultural products like fruit, wine and pork as well as manufacturing products like modified ethanol and stainless steel pipes, as they had threatened to do last month. In introducing this story this morning, NPR said "a lot of these products are produced in rural or working-class areas" that Trump won in 2016.

Most items on the list have a 15 percent tariff on most items on the list, but pork and scrap aluminum will carry a 25 percent tariff. "Beijing said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization to reduce tariffs on U.S. goods," Scott Neuman reports for NPR, on the grounds that "the U.S. had 'seriously violated' the free-trade principles in the WTO rules."

U.S. agricultural interests worry that the Chinese tariffs will hurt American farmers, since China is a major destination for U.S. pork. The steel and aluminum tariffs may also hurt rural areas that depend on manufacturing. China did not play all its cards; for example, it did not impose tariffs on U.S. soybeans (one-third of which go to China) or sorghum.

Minnesota governor has plan to protect water from pollution by nitrate fertilizers; apparently first in Mississippi watershed

Star Tribune map; click on the image for a larger version.

"In an effort to stem the rise of nitrate pollution in rural Minnesota, Gov. Mark Dayton on Tuesday laid out a plan to balance farmers’ use of fertilizer with the protection of groundwater and drinking water supplies," Josephine Marcotty reports for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis.

The plan follows a year of debate among farmers, environmentalists and other interested parties on how to best address the problem of nitrate contamination in drinking water. High nitrates levels have been found in dozens of municipal water systems and one-tenth of private wells, especially in southeastern and central parts of the state.

 Nitrate run-off in the Mississippi River, which originates in Minnesota, feeds a yearly algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico that sucks oxygen out of a lengthy swath of water along the coast, killing some aquatic life. In Minnesota, nitrates in drinking water can cause the potentially fatal "blue baby syndrome" and other health conditions.

"Yet curbing farm chemicals is not easy in a state where agriculture contributes $19 billion annually to the economy — much of it tied to the 800,000 tons of fertilizer farmers use on some 16 million acres," Marcotty reports. Dayton's proposal is apparently the first by the governor of a state in the Mississippi River watershed. This will be the first time the state has attempted to regulate farmers' use of fertilizer. The state already restricts the use of phosphorus on lawns.

In the newest version of the plan, released by Dayton and Agriculture Commissioner Dave Fredrickson, farmers' use of nitrogen fertilizers would be limited by both voluntary and mandatory means, especially in the fall and winter when nitrates are most likely to leach into groundwater because there are no crops to soak them up. Exceptions to the rule would be made for crops that require fall nitrogen, and for areas where there are few crops or the soil isn't prone to nitrate leaching.

Republican legislators panned the new version, calling it a "reactionary re-branding of a vastly unpopular rule" in a statement. The public will be encouraged to give opinions about the plan at public meetings to be scheduled this summer.

Wetter summer weather expected; would help grain, cattle

"Drought conditions have been widespread across the United States due to the La Niña weather pattern seen in the area for the past few years, but relief could be seen soon," Jennifer Carrico reports for the High Plains Journal. She cites CattleFax meteorologist Art Douglas, who says that in about three months the La Niña weather system will transition to a weaker El Niño pattern, which likely bring relief from the drought in the Western states.

According to Douglas, "If weaker El Niño conditions develop this summer, conditions at that time could be milder through the Midwest, but drier soils in the Plains and Southwest could create feedback mechanisms that increase heat in these areas. The Northwest and northern Rockies may have the only reliable grazing into late spring and summer," Carrico reports.

If the La Niña conditions continue to keep Argentina and Brazil dry for most of the summer, demand for U.S. exports of grain and beef could increase. Corn prices could move higher in the summer, according to CattleFax market analyst Mike Murphy, who predicts an average yield of 172 bushels per acre. And if cattle exports are up, more grain will likely be needed for feed.

And if cattle exports are in demand, CattleFax analyst Kevin Good told Carrico that beef will likely stay profitable, especially if foreign demand for beef exports continues to grow.

Increase in inexperienced farmers leads to rise in accidental deaths and injuries

Farming has always been a risky business, even for experienced farmers, from equipment accidents to grain-bin suffocations, but the increasing popularity of hobby and sideline farms may be contributing to more incidents. The 2012 Census of Agriculture showed that there were more than 813,000 farms of fewer than 50 acres in the U.S., an increase of almost 10 percent from 2002. And Purdue University farm-safety expert Bill Field, who has tracked farm fatalities for almost 40 years, says that almost a quarter of Indiana's farm fatalities over the past four years were on hobby farms, Rick Callahan reports for the Associated Press.

USDA map; click on the image to enlarge it

Part of the problem is that hobby farmers tend to be amateurs who were lured to farming from other careers, and don't have the experience to avoid common farm accidents. Tractor rollovers are the leading cause of death on small farms, partly because of inexperience, and partly because hobby farms are the among the only places in the U.S. where cheaper, older tractors without rollover bars and other safety features are still in use. Some hobby or sideline farmers are still working day jobs and try to wedge in farm chores at odd hours; fatigue and working alone can also contribute to accidents.

Farms with 10 or fewer workers aren't regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration workplace safety rules, notes Jesse Hirsch ofModern Farmer. Frank Gasperini, executive vice president of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, warned in a July article in the Journal of Agromedicine that "very small, subsistence, part-time, non-traditional and hobby farms will continue to pose significant challenges" to the safety of U.S. agriculture.

WHO asks farmers to give animals less antibiotics; pork lobby says proposed ban would be amoral

A piglet on an Illinois farm gets a shot of antibiotics.
(Chicago Tribune photo by Stacey Wescott)

"The World Health Organization, worried about an increasing epidemic of drug-resistant infections, has thrown its considerable weight behind the campaign to cut the use of antibiotics in pigs, chickens and cattle that are raised for their meat," Dan Charles reports for NPR. "The WHO is calling on governments to follow the example of Denmark and the Netherlands, which have banned the use of these drugs to make animals grow faster, or simply to protect healthy animals from getting sick."

Antimicrobials are sometimes overused or misused in treating human sickness, but the amount of antibiotics used on farms is usually far greater. In its new guidelines, the WHO asks farmers not to use antibiotics to promote faster growth or prevent disease in healthy animals. Veterinarians are asked to avoid using antibiotics that are most critical in human health. And it asks governments to not allow any new antibiotics discovered in the future to be used on animals.

The National Pork Producers Council "condemned the WHO's proposals to ban the use of drugs for disease prevention, and to stop using drugs that are most critical for human health. According to the NPPC, such a ban 'is antithetical to pork farmers' and veterinarians' moral obligation to care for their pigs'," Charles reports.

News to use about Farm Safety and Health Week

This is National Farm Safety and Health Week, which serves as an annual reminder that farming is one of the most dangerous occupations. This year's theme is "Putting Farm Safety into Practice," and each day has a related focus:

Monday: Tractor Safety
Tuesday: Farmer Health
Wednesday: Child/Youth Health and Safety
Thursday: Confined Spaces in Agriculture
Friday: Rural Roadway Safety

The National Education Center for Agricultural Safety has a page with informative documents for each day's topic. In addition, the AgriSafe Network will post a webinar from 12 to 1 p.m. Central Time each day this week focusing on the day's topic. Click here to learn more about and register for the webinars. And the U.S. Agricultural Centers has posted 100 safety and health videos about agriculture, forestry and fishing to its YouTube channel. The centers are funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Experts to hold Twitter chat Thursday to discuss agricultural health and safety issues

The Rural Health Information Hub will host a Twitter chat at 2 p.m. EDT Aug. 24, to discuss "barriers to the health and safety of farmers, ranchers, and farmworkers and explore some of the innovative ways these barriers are being addressed in rural communities."

Farmers and farm workers often face danger at work because of machinery, repetitive stress injuries, and exposure to pesticides, herbicides and other chemicals. They also often have limited access to health care or health insurance. The RHIhub will chat with experts.

The chat will be about 60 minutes long and will use the hashtag #RuralHealthChat. You can follow on Twitter or use a client such as TweetChat for ease of use. Click here for a list of the participating experts and directions for how to participate.

New safety guidelines released for kids working in agriculture

The National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety has announced a new set of Agricultural Youth Work Guidelines to help ensure that children and teens stay safe when helping out on the farm.

The guidelines were released on the first day of the International Society for Agricultural Safety and Health annual conference.

Every three days in the U.S., a youth under the age of 16 dies in an accident while working in agriculture. The number of fatal injuries to youth working in agriculture is higher than in all other industries combined. Though the number of agriculture-related deaths has steadily declined since 2001, the coalition of parents and agricultural organizations wants to make sure the mortality rate continues to decline.

"Too many of these injuries and deaths are associated with children performing agricultural work that does not match their developmental level/abilities," says Marsha Salzwedel, project leader and youth agricultural safety specialist at the National Children's Center.

The first such voluntary guidelines were formulated in 1999; the new guidelines are built on those along with the latest scientific research on child growth and development, agricultural practices and safety and child injury prevention.

Find more data on childhood agricultural injuries and labor regulation here.

Trade is focus of reorganizing USDA, analysts say

The proposed reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture was set in motion by two documents, a section of the 2014 Farm Bill calling for an undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs and an executive order by President Trump that triggered "a 'broader on-going review of the department' and also included other departments of the executive branch," opine Harwood Schaffer and Daryll Ray of the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee, in their latest edition of "Policy Pennings."

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue sent Congress a report this month that "makes the argument that 'Agricultural trade is critical for the vitality of the U.S. farm sector and economy as a whole…. However, the rise of new barriers to trade and preferential trade agreements that exclude the U.S. could jeopardize growth and negatively affect the U.S. farm economy," Schaffer and Ray write.

The report "set forth actions that the USDA was taking to 'meet the challenge of advancing agricultural trade, improve 'service delivery to agricultural producers' and address 'the needs of Rural America,'" Schaffer and Ray write. "The action driving the design was the decision to move the Foreign Agricultural Service out from under the undersecretary for farm and foreign agricultural services . . . The FAS would be the only agency to report to the new undersecretary."

USDA says it "must be positioned to effectively address trade barriers that impede or disadvantage U.S. agricultural exports and actively open new markets for U.S. farm products," Schaffer and Ray note. Perdue's report says "The change from the status quo would lead to many other possible factors that would be expected to increase exports. For example, the more focused trade mission area could support more trade missions, provide greater support for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative."

Schaffer and Ray write, "Whether or not the reorganization makes sense from an administrative perspective, we would caution farmers to adopt a wait-and-see attitude when it comes their expectations of the impact of the new structure. Over the last 35 years, we have seen numerous changes that were designed to make U.S. agricultural products more competitive in the international marketplace."