Nebraska

Federal disaster assistance is available for recovery efforts in Nebraska following President Trump’s declaration of a major disaster in the state, said the White House on Thursday. The USDA said farmers and ranchers should contact their local USDA office to see if they qualify for assistance.

When the plan for a new Costco chicken-processing plant in Fremont, Nebraska, was announced in 2016, it drew angry local protests. Now large-scale chicken farms that will supply the plant are popping up across the state, causing a new round of protests amid concerns about environmental and health effects.

With the 2018 farm bill on the horizon, Senate leaders have re-jiggered membership of the Senate Agriculture Committee, adding Republican Deb Fischer of Nebraska and newly appointed Democrat Tina Smith of Minnesota to the panel.

On a voice vote, the Senate confirmed Gregory Ibach, the state agriculture director in Nebraska, as agriculture undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs. Ibach is the third member of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue's executive team approved to take office; five slots remain empty.

In FERN’s latest story, produced in collaboration with Harper’s Magazine, Ted Genoways documents the struggles of a fifth-generation Nebraska farm. The article, “Bringing Home the Beans,” details the everyday difficulties that a farm family faces as it tries to harvest its crop, deal with a generational transition, and not lose money in the fluctuating commodity markets.

Nebraska native Clayton Yeutter, who held a handful of high-level jobs during the Reagan-Bush era, died on Saturday of cancer at age 86. Energetic and engaging, Yeutter was U.S. trade representative for President Reagan and became agriculture secretary following the election of George H.W. Bush in 1988, moving at Bush's request to chair the Republican National Committee in 1991 and becoming counselor to the president a year after that.

One-third of the land growing winter wheat is in drought territory, triple the portion that was affected two months ago, says USDA's Ag in Drought report. Dry conditions are a threat to establishment — and potential yields — of the crop, which is planted in the fall, lies dormant during the winter and is harvested in the spring.

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed an amendment to the California Seed Law, exempting “non-commercial seed sharing activities from industrial labeling, testing, and permitting requirements,” says Shareable.

An annual tour of the corn belt found evidence that a recent U.S. government forecast for record production might be a bit too rosy, because hot weather has appeared to harm the crop, according to Bloomberg news. "Dozens of people -- among them farmers, agronomists and journalists -- inspecting fields on this week’s Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour are reporting corn yields that trail projections made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture less than two weeks ago," Bloomberg said.

Property taxes and access to biotechnology are bigger issues for Nebraska farmers and ranchers than a right-to-farm amendment to the state Constitution, said leaders of six ag groups. The unified position by cattle, hog, dairy, corn and soybean growers and the Nebraska Farm Bureau could mean the end of efforts in the state legislature for an amendment which would prohibit regulation of agriculture without a compelling state interest.

The slump in crop and livestock prices was "the most negative factor for the second year in a row," with Nebraska farmland values down by an average 4 percent this year, said the University of Nebraska. The decline, to $3,115 an acre, lowered the value of land and buildings by $5.8 billion, to $132 billion, said the annual report.

The Washington think tank, New America, has launched Food & Power, a resource for original investigative reporting and research on food and agriculture. The site will focus “on the ways economic concentration affects farmers, farm and food workers, eaters, and animals, as well as public health and the environment,” says the group.

Subsidy payments under the new Agricultural Risk Coverage program will vary by as much as $90 an acre among counties in the same state for 2014 crops, said economists Carl Zulauf of Ohio State and Gary Schnitkey of U-Illinois.

A bill in the Nebraska legislature would exempt hogs from the 15-year-old state ban on ownership of livestock by meatpackers other than immediately before slaughter, says Fortune.

For a generation or more, Nebraska has banned corporate farming as a way to protect small operators, says Harvest Public Media, and now the Cornhusker State is "at the center of a debate that gets to the core of what it means to be a farmer."

The Agriculture Department stopped all new research projects at its Meat Animal Research Center until new protocols are implemented in response to reports of the harsh treatment of animals at the facility in Nebraska, according to Feedstuffs.