North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple pledged his support to the Fuel Up to Play 60 program, an in-school nutrition and physical activity program launched by National Dairy Council and NFL, in collaboration with the USDA, to combat childhood obesity. The Governor joined education officials, Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, and North Dakota dairy farmers and industry representatives on April 19 to sign the symbolic pledge.

Alan Mathew, head of Purdue University's Department of Animal Sciences, was on a team of experts that examined the relationship between the health of agricultural animals and consumers' increasing demand for safe food. Mathew co-wrote "Healthy Animals Make Confident Consumers" with five other members of a task force organized by the nonprofit Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST). "This was our attempt to review the literature regarding animal health and food safety and determine what research needs to be conducted to determine the connection between the care and health of food animals and food safety," Mathew said.

University of Missouri (MU) Extension agronomy specialists have been closely monitoring true armyworm activity in various crops in Missouri this year. This comes after reports of significant damage to forages and crops in northern Arkansas. Click here to read about armyworm activity in Arkansas.

To date there have been evidence in sections of southwest Missouri of armyworm activity on fescue, bermudagrass, wheat and corn. Some high numbers of moth counts have been observed in southern Missouri monitoring traps in the last month.     

Tim Schnakenberg, an agronomy specialist with MU Extension based in Galena, Missouri, has received reports of true armyworms from Barry, Cedar, Dade, Stone and Christian counties in the last few days.

The University of Illinois announced that Monsanto Company pledged a $250,000 grant to be put towards an initiative between the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) and the College of Media. The initiative will help establish an Agricultural Communications Program endowed chair that will strengthen communications for agricultural and rural development. The James F. Evans Endowed Chair in Agricultural Communications will provide leadership for the joint program between the College of ACES and the College of Media by serving current and future agricultural communicators through courses, service initiatives, research and relationship building.

The news of a fourth confirmed U.S. case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) has, for the most part, been digested by the market place. Exports appear to be shored up with Indonesia, a minor beef buyer, the only country choosing to suspend imports of U.S. beef. The latest export data through April 26 show a slight increase in total weekly sales compared to the previous week, 16,800 metric tons versus 15,500, but still below the rolling four week average of weekly export sales, 18,230.