Chocolate companies open door to regulation (Washington Post): Some of the world’s largest chocolate companies, acknowledging that voluntary efforts were ineffective, opened the door to EU regulation against the widespread use of child labor on cocoa farms in Africa.
EPA advisers fault EPA on science (New York Times): An EPA advisory panel of scientists, many of them appointed by the Trump administration, said that three wide-reaching EPA proposals, including its “waters of the United States” rule on the upstream reach of the clean-water law, are at odds with established science.
Coalition seeks ag-labor reform (DTN/Progressive Farmer): Pointing to a 6-percent increase in wages for guestworkers, the Agriculture Workforce Coalition called on the Senate to reform the H-2A guestworker visa to allow year-round employment of foreign agricultural workers.
Revised guideline on livestock claims (Federal Register): The Food Safety and Inspection Service updated its guideline on meat and poultry labels, with steps such as prohibiting feedlot beef from being sold as grass-fed and adding information about the use of “free range” to describe poultry and eggs.
U.S. hog herd expands (USDA): The hog inventory totaled 77.3 million head on Dec. 1, up 3 percent from a year earlier and part of an overall rise in hog numbers that began in 2013 when there were less than 63 million head on U.S. farms.