By California Dept. of Food and Agriculture Dozer the detector dog has reported for duty! He brings our total to 13 dogs throughout the state that spend their working hours sniffing around package-delivery facilities, detecting parcels that contain fruits, vegetables, plants and other agricultural materials. These dogs protect California’s citizens […]

The weekly photo goes to Atlanta airport for installing a huge corn airplane. Here it is described by the Atlanta airport: “At Gate E-16 is probably the largest flying ear of corn you will ever see. From Nutt’s “Flying Vegetable” series, the design was inspired by jetliners. With its wings […]

Child Labor Regs Need Further Revision By American Farm Bureau Federation Young people and the contributions they make as members of farm and ranch families are vital to American agriculture, according to Missouri hog farmer Chris Chinn. Testifying on behalf of the American Farm Bureau Federation, she told the House Small […]

Natural Resource News Note: An immigration-status-checking program has been debated in the Washington statehouse. The program, known as E-Verify, provides a way for employers to quickly discover whether job applicants are in the country legally, and it’s already used in eleven cities and counties in Washington state. But lawmakers plan […]

State Representative Sal Esquivel Press Release SALEM—Rep. Bill Garrard (R-Klamath Falls) and Rep. Sal Esquivel (R-Medford) today testified to the House Judiciary Committee on their bill to help give communities a greater role in their own economic development. HB 4095 allows Jackson, Josephine and Douglas Counties to form an intergovernmental […]

Timber Industry Report By Rick Sohn Umpqua Coquille LLC Most measures are relatively constant this month, except unsold inventory made improvement, driven by decreased listings. Interest rates continue down. Prices of lumber, logs, housing, and mortgage statistics below, show the four-year dilemma of painfully slow progress out of this deep […]

Oregon’s First Official Even-Year Session Starts By Oregon Farm Bureau On February 1st, the Oregon Legislature convened its first 35-day session under the new voter approved constitutional change. Majority of bills were pre-session filed and introduced on the first day. To stay in play through the process bills must pass […]

By National Association of Wheat Growers Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and one of the richest men in the world, highlighted the relative lack of money devoted to agricultural innovation and research in his annual letter outlining the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2012 priorities. The Foundation was founded by […]

Path to the 2012 Farm Bill: Major Factors Influencing the Debate National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition In its “Path to the 2012 Farm Bill” series, NSAC gets into the details of the 2012 Farm Bill debate. This first post in the series discusses the major factors influencing the 2012 Farm Bill […]

Tom Partin,  President American Forest Resource Council The National Forest Planning process has a significant impact on the members of AFRC and their employees who live and work in the remote communities of the West where timber jobs and forest health are important to everyday life.  The new Forest Planning […]