All creatures: Thousands of boar hybrids; loss for Cajun cooking; the better animal spy; is too much bacon possible?

A herd of boars roaming through a forest.
(Photo by Rolf Scmidbauer, Unsplash)

With thick fur to guard against stifling cold, keen minds and tusks as sharp "as steak knives," wild boar hybrids are "raising hell on the Canadian prairies," reports The Economist. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. When Canadian pig farmers were told in the 1980s that their animals' gene pool was thin, they turned to wild boars from Britain for fortification. . . . In 2001, the boar-meat market plunged. Some farmers, unable to sell their stock, simply released their hybrid pigs into the wild. . . .Today, those pigs' descendants roam the Canadian prairie provinces, a horde some 62,000 strong."

From East Texas to Louisiana's Acadiana region beats the heart of Cajun cooking, where recipes are usually chockablock full of boiled crawfish. But this year, Procambarus clarkii, also known as the red swamp crawfish, crayfish, mudbugs or crawdads, is not affordable for most. Its price is up nearly 500%. "Drought and last winter's hard freeze forced crawfish spawn die-offs ahead of their ongoing harvest time," reports Xander Peters of National Geographic. "The shock felt throughout the U.S. crawfish market is absorbed by its blue-collar producers and restaurant owners, as well as folks working in processing plants, deshelling crawfish, and delivery-truck drivers."

Photo by Marco Ugarte, AP

Crawfish aren't the only species having a hard time surviving extreme weather. The annual survey of monarch butterflies "found the second-lowest number of monarchs on record," reports Jenny Peek of Wisconsin Public Radio. "Monarch populations are extremely sensitive to high heat and drought — both of which are becoming more common with climate change. Habitat loss is also a major contributing factor to the species' decline."

 

Understanding chicken life and egg cartons
can be perplexing. (Unsplash photo)

Do happier chickens mean better eggs? Maybe. Read here to find out what kind of "wide open spaces" chickens like and what "label" is the best chicken environment. Still, even with that information, you may need help deciphering the egg carton. Read here to decode egg carton descriptions.

We have too much bacon. Whaattt? Bacon fans might be shocked, but talk to a U.S. pork producer, who will confirm that the nation has more pork than it can eat. "From giant processors to the farmers, they've made production so efficient that demand can’t keep up with supply," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "In search of solutions, farmers and processors are looking at everything from new overseas markets to fattier, tastier pigs."

Pigeons are better spies.
(Photo by Rorhof via NG)

Not all spies are Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt. Some have fur, and others have feathers. But which is better? "Amid the high stakes and desperation of the Cold War, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency faced a perpetual espionage challenge: access," writes Christian Elliott of National Geographic. "How do you get a spy inside the secure inner sanctum of a foreign head of state. . . .You send in a feline spy. The CIA called the operation 'Acoustic Kitty.'" Spying kitties didn't share the CIA's agenda. "To find a more promising animal secret agent candidate, the CIA needed look no further than Acoustic Kitty's natural enemy: birds. Specifically, the humble pigeon." 

Human actors might learn a trick or two from this smart, charismatic group.
(Anheuser-Busch photo, AP via The Wall Street Journal)

The Super Bowl might be over, but this herd still deserves applause for elegance, a spot-on performance, and getting beer delivered to a small town in need. It's the famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses. "Less known is their reputation as perhaps the most consummate professionals on the advertising circuit," reports Katie Deighton of The Wall Street Journal. "Industry veterans who shoot commercials consider working with the horses a career pinnacle, like a movie director who finally gets to direct Meryl Streep." 

Next pandemic could come from pigs at county or state fair

A researcher takes a 'snout out' sample at a fair.
(Photo by Maddie McGarvey, The New York Times)

A state or county fair can be all sorts of fun, but when there are pig shows, there's often swine flu, and the next pandemic could start there. "But there is real risk in our own backyards — and barnyards. Since 2011, there have been more confirmed human cases of swine flu in the United States than anywhere else in the world," reports Emily Anthes of The New York Times. "Outbreaks of zoonotic diseases, which can spread between animals and humans, have become more frequent in recent decades, and animal pathogens will continue spilling over into human populations in the years ahead. . . . Most have been linked to agricultural shows and fairs."

Americans often see pandemics as something that comes into the country and not something that happens here. But considering the number of swine cases in the U.S., the next pandemic could as easily come from within. "Although flu is often mild in pigs, the animals are renowned for giving rise to novel flu variants. In 2009, one of these new variants, which originated in pigs in Mexico, set off a pandemic that killed at least 150,000 people, according to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Anthes writes. "Dr. Andrew Bowman, a molecular epidemiologist at Ohio State University and his colleagues have been documenting the dangers and seeking ways to make swine shows safer. Meaningfully reducing the risks will require looking past the pigs to creatures on the other side of the spillover equation. What needs to change, Dr. Bowman said, 'is an awful lot of human behavior.'”

Anthes notes, "Pigs play a key role in the evolution of influenza. They can be infected by swine, bird and human flu viruses simultaneously, serving as mixing vessels in which different strains can reshuffle their genetic material, yielding new versions of the virus. When the 2009 swine flu pandemic hit, influenza surveillance in pigs was limited. [Bowman] began swabbing pigs at swine shows, ultimately uncovering a national network of events that resulted in human infections in a predictable annual cycle. Starting every spring, regional and national 'jackpot' shows, which attract serious swine competitors, bring together pigs from far-flung farms, causing new flu variants to spread across the country."

"Over the years that followed, the researchers worked to identify what made these shows risky. They found that although most fairs had hand-sanitation stations, few had signs explaining how to use them — and almost no one did," Anthes writes. Researchers also found that fair "line-ups" where pigs are one behind speeds transmission. "The researchers, who have shared their findings with show organizers and health officials, say they have seen some changes, with many shows moving away from mandatory mass weigh-in. . . . Still, some health recommendations, such as the advice to avoid eating or drinking around the animals, have been a tough sell. For many families, some of whom bring crockpots into the barn with them, sharing a meal at a show is a way of building community. . . . It is hard to determine how effective the team’s efforts have been overall; the surveillance is still fairly new, and some flu seasons are naturally worse than others." Bowman told Anthes: “But I think we have moved the needle. . . .There is change happening.”

Stagnant demand, lower exports, higher production costs create 'worst financial times for pork producers in 25 years'

Storm Lake Times Pilot photo

Overproduction and high costs are tanking the pork industry, but "the glut of pork on the market has yet to translate into lower prices for consumers," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "Hog farmers in the U.S. are being squeezed and even driven out of business as they lose money at their worst rate in decades. Meatpacking companies, including Smithfield Foods, Tyson Foods and BSJ, said pork profits are shrinking, leading some in the industry to scale back operations ranging from hog farms to processing plants."

Tom Cullen of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Iowa reports, "Hog prices at all levels have decreased. Prices for pigs six to eight weeks old have slumped by 80% since last fall, suggesting a contraction is on the horizon. Production costs have increased 50% in two years. . . . California's Proposition 12 could force producers to invest millions into new confinements, creating space for sows that previously couldn't stand up, turn around and extend their limbs. The state law is expected to take effect July 1." Lee Schulz, an Iowa State University Extension livestock economist, told Cullen that these are "the worst financial times for pork producers in 25 years."

Dwight Mogler, an Iowa family farmer with "more than 200,000 hogs, told Cullen his operation 'won't exist' if market conditions persist." Cullen writes, "Mogler is losing $30 to $40 per head on each hog he sends to market. He believes he will sell half as many hogs in 2024 as this year. Mogler told Cullen: "This could very well be the biggest event of consecutive month-to-month losses the industry has seen. And there's no light at the end of the tunnel. . . . We will not exist as a farm if this doesn't get remedied."

The problem has built up over several years, and the remedy will take some time. In 2018, China's pigs were "devastated by an African swine fever outbreak. . . . Exports from the U.S. hit a record 7.3 billion pounds in 2020, according to federal data. In 2022, U.S. pork export volumes fell 10% from the year before as China began rebuilding its hog population," Thomas reports. "With less U.S. pork shipped overseas, more remains at home, where demand has stagnated. . . . Shane Smith, chief executive of Smithfield, the biggest U.S. pork producer, said the end of pandemic-era food-stamp benefits earlier this year also has cut into U.S. shoppers' pork purchases."

"As companies up and down the supply chain grapple with lowering demand, production costs will remain the same. Wages at meatpacking plants have increased substantially since the Covid-19 pandemic," Cullen reports. "Feed costs, which are derived from commodity prices, have increased. Fuel costs are also up." Schultz told Cullen: "The costs for producers . . . they're here to stay. You account for labor, interest rates, fuel, feed, and production (costs) will remain relatively high."

Proposition 12 will change the pork industry. Cullen writes, "Prices inside California, the largest consumer of U.S. pork, are expected to rise while decreasing in every other state. . . The long-term implications of the law cannot be estimated. Schulz said producers that can afford to make the shift to comply with Proposition 12 will be paid a premium for what is perceived as best animal-welfare practices. The question is whether those premiums can pay for new investments amortized over 15 to 25 years."

By 5-4, Supreme Court OKs Calif. ban on tight confinement of sows; ruling has broad implications for animal agriculture

Sows in gestation crates that are illegal in California
(Photo by vinsenssandy/Shutterstock)

The U.S. Supreme Court has "preserved a California law banning the sale of pork in America's most populous state from pigs kept in tightly confined spaces, rejecting an industry challenge claiming that the voter-backed animal welfare measure impermissibly regulates out-of-state farmers," reports Nate Raymond of Reuters. Pork producers contended that California's Proposition 12 tells out-of-state pork producers that if they want to tap into California's pork market, California voters can indirectly tell them how to raise their pigs. And that might not be all. The decision "was met with disappointment by many in U.S. agriculture, claiming it sets a dangerous precedent for animal agriculture moving forward," Morning AgClips reports.

"The justices voted 5-4 to uphold a lower court's dismissal of a lawsuit by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation seeking to invalidate the law," Raymond reports. The lobbies argued that the Constitution's commerce clause, which gives the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce, keeps the states from doing so in this case. NPPC President Scott Hays of Missouri told Raymond, "Allowing state overreach will increase prices for consumers and drive small farms out of business, leading to more consolidation."

Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, wrote in the decision, "While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops California merchants may sell is not on that list." Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservatives Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, and liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, "said they would have allowed the challengers to the California law to pursue their claim in the lower courts," Raymond reports.

"California farms collectively are only a small part of the $26 billion-a-year U.S. pork industry. The size of cages used at American pig farms is humane and necessary for animal safety, according to the industry, which asserts that California's law gives the state unwarranted influence over the pork sector. President Joe Biden's administration sided with the pork producers in the case, saying that states cannot ban products that pose no threat to public health or safety due to philosophical objections."

Court axes regulatory exception for mid-sized factory farms; hundreds of them will need environmental assessments

A beef-cattle feedlot (Photo via Northern Ag Network)

A federal court has thrown out an environmental examption for some concentrated animal feeding operations. "Medium-sized CAFOs receiving Department of Agriculture loans will be required to have an environmental assessment after a federal court vacated part of a 2016 Farm Service Agency rule," reports Todd Neeley of Progressive Farmer. "The court's ruling is likely to affect hundreds of CAFOs across the country. . . . FSA adopted a rule in 2016 that exempted from environmental review livestock facilities that confine up to 2,500 pigs, 1,000 beef cattle, 700 dairy cows, 125,000 chickens or 55,000 turkeys."

FSA's 2016 exemption sped up USDA loan approvals, which one individual called an "onerous impediment to obtaining financing for operations that will often include young or beginning farmers," Needley reports. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the District Court for the District of Columbia said the FSA had violated the National Environmental Policy Act. "USDA admitted the FSA failed to provide notice and comment before creating the exemption," Neeley notes. "During the five years that the case has been pending, the agency failed to offer mechanisms for community feedback or evidence that medium-sized CAFOs lack environmental impact."

Poor environmental outcomes and insufficient evidence supporting the exemption have made factory farms controversial. "CAFOs have been a point of contention between the livestock industry and environmental activists since they began to proliferate in the 1990s, overtaking small, pasture-feeding operations as the dominant form of animal agriculture in the U.S.," reports Madison McVan of the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. "One large CAFO can easily produce more than one million tons of manure per year — more than the yearly waste of a large city." 

An exact count of how many CAFOs will be affected is not available, but the animal-welfare groups that filed the lawsuit found through the Freedom of Information Act that "The FSA made 130 direct loans of more than $100,000 or guaranteed loans of more than $300,000 each to animal facilities in Indiana alone from August 2016 to August 2018," Neeley reports. "The FSA did a review of its loan decisions for 2010 and 2011, finding there were more than 650 loans issued to broiler chicken medium-sized CAFOs alone."

"The ruling makes no mention of the economic impact, including shortages and price increases that might result from the newly added environmental hurdles," reports Dan Flynn of the Food Safety Network. However, the judge's opinion noted, "Although FSA admitted error in September 2019, to date, it appears that FSA has taken no action to correct its error . . . More importantly, however, there is nothing in the record to confirm FSA's insistence that it will be able to substantiate the challenged (exemption) on remand."

Feral swine from Canada threaten Minn., No. 2 pork state; in Georgia, landowners start trapping them in corrals

Feral swine can be attracted to a feeder, which can then be moved
to a corral where they can be shot. (Photo from The Oglethorpe Echo)

Feral swine have come to Minnesota, and in Georgia, landowners are starting to trap them in corrals so many more can be shot and killed at one time.

"Minnesota has long enjoyed its status as a state free of wild pigs, avoiding the billions of dollars of damages suffered each year by other states from invasive feral swine," reports Madison McVan of Investigate Midwest. "Now, Canadian 'super pigs' are threatening the state, and pork producers and regulators are concerned about the destruction and disease the animals could bring if they were to establish a population in Minnesota."

Wild swine are smart and hearty. "They have no natural predators besides humans. . . . The Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service estimates that feral hogs cause up to $2.5 billion in damages nationwide per year," McVan writes. "The animals consume crops, destroy fencing, transmit diseases and parasites, and contaminate bodies of water by wallowing and defecating. . . . Once feral pigs take over a territory, it's nearly impossible to eradicate them, said Eric Nelson, wildlife damage program supervisor at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources."

The swine from Canada are descendants of hybrids created by breeding domestic pigs with wild boars for more hardiness. "In some cases, farmers released them from fences due to economic hardship during Canada's droughts of 2001 and 2002," McVan reports. "There is a very legitimate risk and concern about them coming straight into Minnesota," second-largest pig producer in the U.S. The Minnesota Pork Producers Association worries about diseases spread by feral swine, "especially African swine fever," which has no vaccine or treatment. "Farmers can lose entire herds to the disease, and countries often pause imports" from nations where the disease is spreading.

In Georgia, Morgan Quinn and Jack Rhodes of The Oglethorpe Echo are covering the feral-swine problem, and report that vegetable farmer Kendall Strickland has concluded that the best way to reduce the population is attractign them into corrals where they can be trapped and disposed of. “If you just shoot one or two at a time, you’re not really getting ahead of the problem in any type of way,” Strickland told the Echo. Here's a guide to how it's done in Scotland.

USDA funds 71 climate-related projects at less than $5 million, many of them to 'figure out what works,' Vilsack says

The Department of Agriculture has funded 71 more five-year "projects to develop climate-smart commodities and a money-making market for them," reports Chuck Abbott of Successful Farming. The $325 million is the second round of funding in its Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program, which now totals 141 projects and $3.1 billion, a USDA press release said.

The latest round of grants were for less than $5 million each, to focus on "small and under-served producers and work by minority-serving institutions to measure, monitor, report, and verify the results of climate-smart practices," Abbott reports. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, "We believe that this program will allow us to figure out what works and, frankly, what doesn't work. . . . There are some amazing projects here." For a list of the first- and second-round projects, click here.

"Republicans in Congress say the White House exceeded its authority in creating such a large program on its own, and some critics in the scientific community say more detail is needed to judge the value of the projects," Abbott notes. Republicans don't like that the money comes from "a $30 billion reserve at USDA that also pays for crop subsidies," the Commodity Credit Corp. "Vilsack tripled the size of the program in September after USDA was deluged with proposals, all of which promised private-sector funding."

The 71 projects include agroforestry in New York, hemp in Tennessee, organic eggs in Ohio and Kentucky, specialty crops in California, cattle in Virginia and West Virginia, removing nuisance seaweed from Puget Sound for use as fertilizer, and cover crops for orchards in and near food deserts. There is also "a test of buffalo to mitigate global warming and to market buffalo meat as a climate-smart food," involving 79 tribes and 20,000 head of bison, Abbott reports. "They are the original climate regulator," said Troy Heinert of the InterTribal Buffalo Council. The grant's "funding ceiling," USDA says, is $4,950,000.

Vilsack announced the grants at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, which will get a grant with a funding ceiling of $4,999,999 "to support small-scale and other under-served producers . . . transform their traditional production into a multi-pronged agroforestry-based climate-smart, sustainable production system," USDA says. Identical amounts were allocated to the University of Illinois, which will work with Tuskegee and other partners "to scale up robotic cover crop planting and verification of soil carbon" in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Iowa; University of Maryland Eastern Shore to "promote climate-smart cover crops as a feedstock" for anaerobic digesters that process chicken litter; Foodshed Inc. and other partners for "incentives to small and socially disadvantaged specialty crop farmers in San Diego County" in California; the University of Guam "to market climate-smart commodities and achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions in Pacific Island agriculture and forestry systems while improving affordable food and nutrition security of disadvantaged, at-risk, island communities;" and Whitaker Grain "to provide a market platform for rice growers producing premium rice that is certified sustainably grown" in Arkansas.

Getting an allocation of $2 less than those, The Nature Conservancy is in line for $4,999,997 to "grow a set of climate-adapted tree species resilient to the projected climate futures of Minnesota’s Midwest Broadleaf Forest." Other grants near the limit: $4,999,900 to the Coalition for Food Security "to implement climate-smart practices related to indoor hydroponic vertical farming;" the same amount to Regeneration International; the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance to support poultry producers who follow diversified regenerative climate-smart grain production methods" in the Midwest; the same to Working Landscapes and other North Carolina partners to promote climate-smart practices "among small and underserved producers, including tribal producers, principally by equipping food hubs to finance and advise on-farm climate-smart practice implementation and marketing to wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels;" $4,999,800 to Chico State University to launch a "food hub for climate-smart agriculture" in the northern Sacramento River valley; and the same to Western Landowners Alliance "to empower New Mexico Latino and under-served beef and pork producers and their trusted partners to collectively develop, implement, monitor, quantify and broker climate-smart livestock projects."

Feral hogs still a big problem even though the U.S. has spent more than $31.5 million trying to eradicate them

An feral hog trots with her piglets near the Buffalo
National River in Arkansas. (National Park Service)

Phrases like "pig warfare," "swine bomb" and "pig hunter" have become common vernacular in the battle of the U.S. Farmer vs. Feral Hogs. "But despite more than $100 million in federal money, an estimated 6 million to 9 million feral swine still ravage the landscape nationwide. They tear up planted fields, wallowing out huge bare depressions," reports The Associated Press. "They out-eat deer and turkeys — and also eat turkey eggs and even fawns. They carry parasites and disease and pollute streams and rivers with their feces."

The U.S. program to control feral hogs is on its eighth year and in some states, the prolific pigs are winning the battle. AP writes, "Adam McLendon, whose family farms about 8,000 acres of peanuts, corn and cotton in several counties in southwestern Georgia, estimates feral pigs have cost them more than $100,000 a year for the past 15 years. . . . The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Feral Swine Damage Management Program has received $31.5 million since it began in 2014."

Research is being done to poison wild hogs with substances that will not harm other animals such as birds and squirrels. For now, the primary mitigation is done with aerial shooting, remote traps and some hunting. Not all states allow feral hog hunting, "Derek Chisum, who grows peanuts, cotton and wheat in Hydro, Oklahoma, figures he has killed 120 to 150 a year since Oklahoma did so three years ago."

California, Oklahoma, Texas and Florida have been hit hard by feral hogs. Mike Bodenchuk, state director for United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service told AP, "In Texas, the APHI is targeting areas with the worst damage, teaching landowners how to continue the work after Farm Bill projects end in 2023, and leaving resources such as loaner traps -- each $7,000 or more -- to help . . . Even using this approach, we won't have the resources to eradicate pigs in Texas in my lifetime."

Quick hits: Apply for NPF awards; old buildings revived as arts spaces; rural LGBTQ adults face more challenges

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

In one rural Minnesota town, old buildings get new life as arts spaces. Read more here.

Southerly, a nonprofit newsroom that covers environmental issues in the South, is taking applications for paid 12-week remote community reporting fellowships. Read more here.

Dealing with dementia: Rural caregivers of dementia patients can apply for a free, six-week online workshop and university study that aims to teach participants new strategies for reducing stress, managing difficult behavior, better self-care, and planning for the future. Participants will be paid up to $80 for completing study surveys. Read more here.

Awards: The National Press Foundation is accepting entries for its 2022 awards honoring the best in journalism. Work published or broadcast between Sept. 30, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022 is eligible. Of particular interest to rural and community journalists are the Innovative Storytelling Award and the Feddie Reporting Award for outstanding coverage of federal laws or regulations and their effect on local communities. Both awards have a prize of $5,000. Read more here.

More evidence of Army's lax attitude toward sexual assault: A first-of-its-kind analysis shows that Army soldiers are more likely to be locked up ahead of trial for drug offenses than for sexual assault under a system that gives commanders control over such decisions. But sexual assault defendants often threaten, hurt, or even kill their victims when allowed to go free before trial. Read more here.

Whoda thunk it? One of the oldest rodeos in America is in New Jersey. Read more here.

Rural LGBTQ adults are more likely than their urban counterparts to be depressed and/or anxious, and less likely to seek and find mental-health care. Read more here.

All the hogs in California: Delays in California pig welfare rules frustrate small hog farmers in other states, who will be affected by the fallout. Read more here.

Class comment: Dolly Parton once pushed back against being called a hillbilly, saying "We had a great deal of class." Read more here.

A new online platform tracks consumer opinions on meat. Read more here.

Retaliatory tariffs during trade war led to $27 billion in lost agricultural exports by end of 2019, USDA report concludes

Percent share of estimated annual losses caused by
retaliatory tariffs, by commodity. (USDA chart)

The Trump administration's trade wars with China and other nations led to a significant reduction in U.S. agricultural exports, a loss of more than $27 billion from 2018 through the end of 2019, according to a new report from the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service.

The federal government tried to make up for the loses with $28 billion in payments, but the payouts weren't always equitable; corn farmers were paid too much, the Government Accountability Office concluded. Yet, soybeans were the hardest-hit commodity, accounting for nearly 71% of losses, or $9.4 billion annually, the ERS report says. The next largest annualized losses came from sorghum ($854 million), and pork ($646 million).

China accounted for about 95 percent of the losses, or $25.7 billion, followed by the European Union ($0.6 billion), and Mexico ($0.5 billion). Tariffs from Canada, Turkey and India accounted for smaller losses. The U.S. and China signed a trade agreement in January 2020, but China did not fulfill its commitment to buy $80 billion in U.S. agriculture, seafood and other food exports by the end of 2021. Through November 2021, China had only purchased $56.3 billion.

Covid-19 infections at meatpacking plants slow production

Rising coronavirus infections among meatpacking workers "have forced meat plants to slow production and the government to replace slaughterhouse inspectors, meat companies and union officials said," Tom Polansek reports for Reuters. "Meatpacking, an early epicenter of the pandemic in 2020, is the latest sector to be disrupted by a surge in cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant, which has also left airlines, hospitals, and schools scrambling for staff."

As of Jan. 3, infections had increased over the previous two weeks in 26 of the 30 counties with the nation's largest beef production plants. The Agriculture Department "estimated beef processors killed 112,000 cattle on Friday, down about 6 percent from a year earlier and matching Jan. 3 levels that were the lowest since October. Pig slaughtering, meanwhile, was down about 5% from last year on Friday," Polansek reports. "Less slaughter capacity reduces U.S. beef supplies at a time of booming demand and means farmers must keep cattle longer in feed yards or on ranches. A sustained period of lower production could further increase high meat prices at a time of inflation fears."

It's not just the line workers getting sick: inspectors are increasingly getting infected too, and they could spread it to other plants. "USDA said it follows U.S. health guidelines and requires meatpacking workers in regions with high Covid-19 transmission to wear masks when inspectors are present," Polansek reports.

Quick hits: How agri-tourism can empower rural women; what's working and what's not in rural programs to lure remote workers; Amazon opening more rural delivery hubs

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Clean-up after disasters is a costly, messy, wasteful process that often takes years. Researchers who study disaster management write in an op-ed that governments need better strategies for it, especially since climate change will likely increase the frequency and potency of disasters. Read more here.

Biden's rural investments run up against the culture wars in Wisconsin. Read more here.

Rural Virginians are being offered training in mental-health first aid. Read more here.

A recent webinar discussed how agri-tourism can empower rural women. Watch the recording here.

Amazon has opened more than 30 new rural delivery hubs in the U.S. this year in an effort to save money by cutting out the U.S. Postal Service. Read more here.

The Agriculture Department has a program for hog farmers hurt by the pandemic. Read more here.

USDA has also announced four new state-level directors: two for the Farm Service Agency (New York and West Virginia) and two for Rural Development (Maine and Missouri). Read more here.

The pandemic turned a rural Colorado county into a battleground for national political issues in a fight waged by millionaires. Read more here.

A supportive social network is a key to overcoming substance abuse, but a study found many rural abusers' social networks are often heavily populated with fellow substance abusers. Read more here.

Mobile-phone emergency alerts can play a vital role in warning people of tornadoes and other disasters, but many blue-collar workers are not allowed to have their phones with them while working. After six Amazon warehouse employees in an Illinois warehouse died in the Dec. 10 tornadoes, the company is reviewing its no-phones policy. Phones have been a critical resource in other disasters. Read more here.

Fifty-three communities in 24 states and Puerto Rico are trying to lure new residents from expensive coastal cities, but most haven't seen much success. A Stateline article digs into what has worked and what hasn't. Read more here.

Pandemic highlights weaknesses in meat supply chains

Percentage of meatpacking and processing sectors controlled by top four companies in the U.S.
(Politico chart using Family Farm Action Alliance data)

"Covid-19 was a shock up and down America’s supply chain for meat, from farmers and ranchers who couldn’t find buyers for their livestock and lost revenue and animals, to grocery shoppers who encountered steep meat prices, item limits and empty shelves. But it wasn’t the first or only such shock. Just a handful of giant companies process the vast majority of America’s beef, pork and poultry," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico. "Take the beef sector: Four companies process about 85 percent of all the cattle fed and slaughtered for boxed beef, namely muscle cuts like ribs and steaks. That means that when one or more large meatpacking site is forced to shut down, it has ripple effects across the entire country, interrupting supplies and often raising prices. Just in the last three years, the meat supply chain has also been disrupted by a fire at a major Tyson Foods plant in Kansas and a ransomware attack that shut down JBS plants that process a fifth of the U.S. beef supply."

Read more here.

Net farm income predicted to be highest in eight years, with 18% increase in crop and livestock receipts over 2020

Agriculture Department charts adapted by The Rural Blog. F=forecast. Click the image to enlarge it.

Farmers' net income is predicted to hit $113 billion in 2021, the highest figure since 2013, says the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service's newly updated Farm Income Forecast. 

One-third of net farm income will come from government aid, which is smaller than last year's share but still above average. And high commodity prices mean farmers are predicted to bring in 18% more in crop and livestock receipts than in 2020.

You can read the full report here, but below are some of the highlights:

• Net farm income, a broad measure of profits, is estimated to increase by $15.5 billion (19.6%) from 2019 to 2020, and is forecast to increase by another $18.5 billion (19.5%) from 2020 to 2021.
• Net farm income is forecast to be at $113.0 billion in 2021, its highest level since 2013 and 20% above its 2000-2020 average of $93.9 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars.
• Net cash farm income, a more precise measure of farm profits that includes government payments, is expected to hit $134.7 billion in 2021, an increase of $19.8 billion (17.2%) over 2020 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
• At $134.7 billion, net cash farm income would reach its highest level since 2014, and would be 19% above its 2000-2020 inflation-adjusted average of $111.4 billion.
• Average net cash farm income per farm business is predicted to increase by $10,000 (11.9%) to $93,700. 
• Average net cash farm income is expected to increase in 2021 for farm businesses in the Heartland, Northern Great Plains, Prairie Gateway, Eastern Uplands, and Mississippi Portal, but expected to decline in the Northern Crescent, Southern Seaboard, Basin and Range, and Fruitful Rim.
• Farms specializing in hogs and corn are predicted to see the largest average net farm income growth in 2021, while farms specializing in dairy, cotton, and specialty crops are expected to see a decline.
• Crop and livestock receipts are expected to hit $421.5 billion, a $64.3 billion (18%) increase over 2020. 
• Total crop receipts are forecast to increase by $37.9 billion, or 19.7%, from 2020.
• Total animal and animal product receipts are forecast to increase by $26.5 billion, or 16.0%, from 2020.
• Higher commodity prices are driving mosts of that trend. Of that increase, $36 billion would come from corn and soybeans, $9.4 billion from hogs, $8.3 billion from cattle, and $7.3 billion from broilers. Corn, soybeans, hogs, cattle, and broilers are all predicted to see double-digit increases in receipts.
• Lower direct government payments and higher production expenses are predicted to partially offset higher cash receipts. 
• Direct government farm payments are expected to fall by $17.7 billion (38.6%) from $45.7 billion in 2020 to $28.0 billion in 2021. Such direct payments increased by $23.2 billion, or 103.5%, from 2019 to 2020.
• Spending in nearly all categories of expense is predicted to rise. Total production expenses, including operator dwelling expenses, are predicted to increase by 26.1 billion (7.3%) to $383.5 billion.
• Farm assets are predicted to increase by $79.0 billion (2.5%) to $3.35 trillion, mostly because of an anticipated rise in real-estate value.
• Overall farm debt is forecast to stay mostly the same from 2020, decreasing $1.0 billion (0.2%) to $443.9 billion. 
• Farm sector equity and assets are predicted to decline by about 1.0% from 2020.

Quick hits: feral hogs pollute environment as much as 1.1 million cars; family farm swaps cows for goats to stay afloat

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email heather.chapman@uky.edu.

Rural areas are left especially vulnerable when local hospitals shuttered during the pandemic. A University of Alabama partnership is helping fill the gap in such areas by opening special school clinics that treat everyday ailments as well as offering coronavirus testing and treatment. Read more here.

A family farm swaps cows for goats in a bid to stay afloat. Read more here.

Worldwide, feral hogs produce as much pollution each year as 1.1 million cars, according to a new study. Read more here.

Plant-based meat alternative sales grew 27% in 2020 to $7 billion. Fake fish is one of the fastest-rising segments of the industry. Read more here.

Pacific Gas and Electric equipment may have caused the Dixie Fire in California, now the largest fire of this season. The utility has been repeatedly implicated in major fires, and was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2018 Camp Fire. Read more here.

The lack of federal firefighters in California is hampering efforts to control wildfires. It's especially concerning for local leaders in communities that border federal land. Read more here.

A Navajo man has launched a program to deliver water to drought-stricken areas of the Navajo Nation. Read more here.

U.S. hog prices down as China quashes African swine fever

Though beef prices have soared in recent months, pork prices are down because of China's cooling interest in hog exports.

"Prices for hogs in the U.S. are tumbling in the wake of China’s announcement that the country’s herds have recovered from the African swine fever," Kirk Maltais reports for The Wall Street Journal. "Through last week, the most-active hog futures contract trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has fallen nearly 17 percent, bringing the price down to 99 cents a pound—the first time it has fallen under a dollar since March. Futures posted a slight rebound Monday, rising 3% to $1.03 a pound. U.S. prices for pork cutouts—parts of the pig such as loin or ribs—have posted a steep dive in recent weeks. Loin prices have fallen 15% in the past 10 days, while ribs have declined more than 31%. Pork butt—commonly used for pork barbecue—has declined 14%, while pork bellies, used to make bacon, have dropped 18% in that time."

A 2018 outbreak of African swine fever forced China to cull about 40% of its hog population. "The nation’s agricultural ministry now says that its hog herd is back to more than 98% of its pre-disease levels—which was roughly 420 million head," Maltais reports. "The recovery comes well ahead of schedule, as China wasn’t projected to complete this rebuild until 2023." U.S. pork exports to China are expected to sharply decrease in the second half of 2021. Some analysts expect the trend to drag down demand of U.S. grains, as hog producers use less feed.

Fears of hog lagoon flooding in N.C. raise question of who should fund industry efforts to adapt to climate change

This year's hurricane season is predicted to be stronger than usual. That has some North Carolina residents and organizations worried that storms will again overwhelm hog lagoons and flood communities with waste. That, in turn, invites consideration of a larger issue: who should fund efforts to keep industry from harming communities because of climate change-fueled disasters.

North Carolina has the most poultry farms and the second most hog farms of any state, and the concentration of such operations on the coastal plain makes them uniquely vulnerable to storm damage, Cameron Oglesby reports for Environmental Health News. Animal waste is stored in open lagoons, and contains harmful bacteria like E. coli or salmonella. When lagoons are flooded, the bacteria can get into local waterways and contaminate groundwater. In 2018, more than 100 lagoons were damaged or flooded by Hurricane Florence, and some state officials and environmental advocates told Oglesby they worried the hog industry has not adequately prepared for future storms since then.

Roy Lee Lindsey, CEO of the North Carolina Pork Producers Council, told Oglesby their lagoons are not outdated, and that the industry has participated in a voluntary state program that buys out hog farms in floodplains, leading to the permanent closure of 43 farms and about 103 waste lagoons since 2000. More hog farmers would participate if the state better funded it, he said.

After Florence, the legislature allocated $5 million to expand the program, Oglesby reports. Will Hendrick, environmental justice advocate for the North Carolina Conservation Network and staff attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance's Pure Farms program, questioned whether taxpayers should fund buyouts and pollution mitigation instead of imposing and enforcing stricter regulations.

Wheat, corn and soybean prices are the highest since 2013; grocery prices could go up

A crop rally in the U.S. is making essential food commodities dramatically more expensive, and the costs could soon spill over onto grocery store shelves," reportKim Chipman and Megan Durisin  of Bloomberg. "Wheat, corn and soybeans, the backbone of much of the world’s diet, are all surging to highs not seen since 2013 after gains last week had some analysts warning that a speculative bubble was forming."

Bad weather is the biggest reason: rain in Argentina is hurting the soy harvest, and dryness is hurting wheat and corn crops in Canada, France and the U.S. And many scientists predict drought in the American Farm Belt this summer. "Meanwhile, China is gobbling up the world’s grain supplies and is set to import the most corn ever as it expands its massive hog herd," Chipman and Durisin report. "Rumors are swirling that the Asian nation is working on 1 million metric tons of new corn purchases."

Since staple crops are a big factor in consumer food prices, the rally has prompted fears of food price inflation. "Pricey crops are also helping to drive even broader gains across the commodities complex, with metals such as palladium and copper rallying on a comeback in industrial operations around the world," Chipman and Durisin report. "Still, soybean, wheat and corn futures in Chicago are all trading in overbought territory with their 14-day relative strength indexes above 70, indicating that prices may have risen too far, too fast. Values declined in China, signaling a possible calming of shortage fears as summer crop plantings progress and hefty purchases of foreign supplies continue to arrive at ports."

Hunting hasn't done much to eradicate feral hogs, but an ecologist's new trap called 'The Pig Brig' might help

Capturing and euthanizing pigs in a trap system designed by Anthony DeNicola (Photo by Sully Sullivan)

An estimated 6 million to 9 million feral hogs roam across at least 42 states in the U.S., causing more than $2.5 billion in agricultural damage each year. Their numbers have exploded in recent years because of their adaptability and their value to hunters. Ecologists, wildlife managers and farmers have used a range of tactics to combat the spread, but none have made much difference. Stephen R. Miller reports in a collaboration between the Food & Environment Reporting Network and National Geographic.

"Dave Pauli, wildlife conflict resolution program manager for the Humane Society of the United States, says lethal control will always be part of the solution, but he notes that 'there are very few modern-day examples of 'killing your way to controlling a wildlife species,'" Miller reports. "Success will require a task-force approach of nonlethal means used in concert with trapping and shooting carried out by trained experts, he says. Over time, state agencies and private landowners 'need a cultural shift from ineffective pig hunting revenue to pig control income streams' that view the killing as long-term management, not sport."

Ecologist Anthony DeNicola has spent the past 20 years working on a trap he says could help. "The Pig Brig, as he calls it, is a circular corral like most pig traps, but it’s made out of netting instead of heavy metal panels. Rather than relying on an expensive remote-operated trap door that requires a cellular signal, his trap takes advantage of a pig’s natural tendency to root," Miller reports. "The animals push under the net, which is draped in an unbroken circle from a ring of rebar posts, then find themselves in a lobster trap. The hem of the net drapes a few feet toward the corral’s center and becomes an impenetrable barrier once boars stand upon it. Importantly—for both the scale of the problem and DeNicola’s intent to put these traps in the hands of multitudes—the Pig Brig is lightweight, simple to set up, and relatively cheap (a basic model costs $1,500)."

National Geographic map, adapted by The Rural Blog; for a larger version, click on it.

China's 2020 Phase One agriculture purchases well below target, but back up to 2017 levels

In 2020, China purchased just 58 percent of the U.S. exports promised in the Trump administration's Phase One trade deal. That includes only $23.6 billion of agricultural products, compared with an expected $36.6 billion, according to an extensive round-up by Keith Good at the University of Illinois' Farm Policy News. Some of the highlights:

• It's unclear whether the Biden administration will seek to enforce the trade deal or negotiate a new one. 
• China's soybean imports from the U.S. in 2020 rose by 52.8% from 2019. That includes 25.89 million tonnes of oilseed from the U.S., up from 16.94 million tonnes in 2019.
• China was the world's top soybean buyer in 2020 and the U.S. was its second-largest supplier.
• Soybean import levels improved as China's pig herds grew after being decimated by African swine fever in 2018 and 2019.
• Two new strains of African swine fever could hurt China's pig herds again though. The new strains don't kill pigs, but they cause a chronic condition that reduces the number of healthy piglets born.
• China's grain imports rose to record highs in 2020.
• China imported a record 11.3 million tonnes of corn in 2020, with 2.25 million tonnes of that in December alone.
• China imported a record 8.38 million tonnes of wheat in 2020, just short of a quota of 9.64 million tonnes.