I am now home from Africa. My duty station is East Lansing, Michigan, on the Ecological Sciences Staff at the NRCS state office. I am on standby status, which means if I am needed to go somewhere outside the U.S., then the phone rings. But I was told I will be here in the U.S. for the near future. I am enjoying being home.

Tulare County dairyman and Western United Dairymen president Tom Barcellos expects “double-digit bankruptcy filings” by local dairymen in coming weeks as the feed price crunch caused by the Midwest drought hits the credit crunch at home this summer. Barcellos told the Visalia Times-Delta/Tulare Advance-Register that dairymen in the area are "getting out of the business – sending their cows to slaughter as fast as they can."

Groups including the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) and United Dairymen of Arizona have joined a coalition called Farm Bill Now. The coalition is comprised of 39 agricultural organizations with a shared goal of raising public awareness of the need for Congress to pass a new, comprehensive, five-year farm bill before current farm programs expire in September.

Swiss food and drinks giant Nestle SA posted an 8.9 percent rise in first-half profits and strong sales that showed it was taking the rising costs for many of its ingredients in stride. But the company predicted the remainder of 2012 will be challenging as it warned of a slowdown in its key U.S. market.

Russia has joined the World Trade Organization, a body which restricts import duties and subsidies to make international trade fair, after 18 years of negotiations. Consumers in Russia are expected to benefit from the lower cost of imported goods, while some industrial sectors, like agriculture, will lose state subsidies, exposing them to foreign competition. Last year, Russia imported a total of $2.1 billion from the world, making it a key destination for butter, cheese and other high-value dairy products.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he’s easing some environmental regulations so that dairy farmers can more easily own more cows. The news came at the first ever yogurt summit convened by Cuomo at the State Capitol Aug. 15. Cuomo chaired a public meeting that brought together dairy farmers, yogurt makers and an array of state officials. He says with the phenomenal success of Greek yogurt, the struggling upstate economy has been presented with one of the best entrepreneurial opportunities in “30 or 40 years”.

The U.S. beef herd has been shrinking and the worst drought in decades has only encouraged that trend to continue. The USDA's midyear cattle inventory report showed beef cow numbers dropped by 3 percent in the last year. It projects the 2012 calf crop to be down 2 percent from last year and down 8 percent since 2006.

The EPA announced last week that it will begin weighing requests for a suspension of the nationwide ethanol mandate, which requires that gasoline contain 10 percent ethanol. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor report released Aug. 16, 87 percent of the corn-growing areas are experiencing some degree of drought, with more than half of those areas experiencing extreme to exceptional drought. As conditions worsen, the cost of corn and other crops has skyrocketed. The crisis has prompted Democratic governors from Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina and Arkansas to join the agricultural industry in a push for a waive of the ethanol mandate.