Another $1.1 billion in coronavirus aid: Farmers and ranchers have collected $21.6 billion in coronavirus relief, an increase of $1.1 billion from last week, with nearly one-third of the money going to cattle producers, said USDA data. Some $5 billion has been paid to producers in Iowa, California and Nebraska. (FERN’s Ag Insider)
Lawsuit says Tyson lied to interpreters: Senior Tyson Foods managers at a pork slaughterhouse in Waterloo, Iowa, allegedly lied to interpreters by saying there were no cases of Covid-19 at the plant even as an outbreak was underway, according to a lawsuit. (Des Moines Register)
Restore the viability of ERS: Under the Biden administration, the USDA “needs to act swiftly and decisively to assess and resolve the challenges it faces as a result” of the “decimation” of the Economic Research Service, which lost 75 percent of its professional staff as part of relocation to Kansas City, said the American Economic Association. (AEA)
‘Everything depends on the corn’: Long-running drought, worsened by climate change, is withering the dryland corn grown by members of the Hopi Tribe. (Arizona Republic)
Jogger finds new variety of apple: A jogger taking a break from his work at a plant conservation charity discovered a new variety of apple in southern England that could be a cross between a European wild crab apple and a cultivated apple tree.