The growth of animal welfare concerns among today’s consumers will create more demand for analgesic care given to livestock, including more requirements from meat-packing organizations.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has dropped a proposal to create a second beef checkoff that would have been administered by federal agencies. The USDA chief abandoned the plan after Congress passed a budget this month with riders instructing the agency not to pursue the controversial plan criticized by beef cattlemen groups nationwide.

The new $1.1 trillion appropriation bill, passed by Congress and signed by the president this month, will create a year’s delay for any potential federal listing of the sage grouse as an endangered species.

Charles Dickens was the literary titan of the Victorian age, primarily through his ability to portray the struggles of Britain’s most impoverished and downtrodden people. His gift for creating such characters was rooted in the fact that, in some ways, he was one of them.

It was more than a decade ago, while attending a conference for newspaper business editors, that I realized technology’s whole premise is to change your expectations of the future.

U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says the inability of a working group to find ways to reform the Beef Checkoff program could lead the USDA to start a second checkoff program for research and marketing.

My wife and I hit a long-awaited milestone this summer as the start of school arrived, and for the first time, all five of our kids were headed to class. This was our day harvest, with two kids in high school, one in middle school, another in fourth grade and the youngest starting kindergarten.

Imagine a situation where you’re working your cattle in the field, pasture or feedlot, and suddenly you find a spectator – standing on a public road – watching you do your work. Perhaps he even has a camera in his hand.

Russia announced today that it is banning the purchase of food commodities from trade partners in the U.S., European Union and other nations. The trade ban is a result of sanctions that have been made against Russia in the wake of its conflict with Ukraine.

The ag industry has reason to rely on science to find its solutions for production, but don’t expect the public to always trust that research.