By now you’ve probably heard of or read the New York Times article revealing the FDA’s plan to allegedly test milk on farms that have previously had antibiotic residues in slaughter cows. In this issue, we delve into how the USDA tests slaughter animals for antibiotic residues and what it takes to get on their list of violators. Click here to jump to the article in our Poll department.

As the 111th Congress came to an end, the Senate held a vote on the DREAM Act, an immigration reform proposal focused on children of illegal immigrants. Commentators and some Republicans described the way the bill was brought to the Senate floor as a “kabuki dance.” One of the many facets that make up the rich Japanese culture is kabuki. This performance genre of singing and dancing (its characters mean “sing,” “dance” and “skill”) is highly stylized with extravagant costumes, scenery and high plot predictability. Kabuki portrays a believable story in a symbolic and structured way, unlike the way it would happen in reality.

“It’s not my fault! I didn’t do it! I can’t do it! It’s too hard! The devil made me do it! I saw it on TV. I couldn’t help myself. It’s an addiction.” The excuses never end. It is easy to look outside ourselves and blame others for our predicaments.

Reporting to you from Islamabad, Pakistan. In this, my second report from Pakistan, I report of a day in the field. I have four visits done today, all within Punjab province and near the capital city of Islamabad.

The following statements were recently made as testimony before the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) public workshops to examine margins at various levels of the agricultural supply chain. “We need the milk pricing system fixed. If we want young farmers to come into the industry they need to be paid a living. Everyone in the chain can adjust their margin accordingly and earn a living except for the farmer. "And if Antitrust Division and USDA doesn’t step it up and ensure that farmers earn a living first, and everyone else adjust their margins accordingly thereafter, the entire system will fail, rural America will fail, our farmers and our nation as a whole will fail, just because our whole infrastructure relies on our farmers who produce 70 percent of the world’s raw material.”

At the end of December, the FDA released a first-of-its-kind report on the use of antibiotics in food-producing animals. In issuing the report, the FDA said: “For the first time the report provides the agency and the American public with concrete data that are important for supporting efforts to track antimicrobial use trends and to examine how such trends relate to antimicrobial resistance.”

Arriving in Pakistan in early December, I have begun my work here as an expeditionary agricultural scientist. My mandate here is largely agricultural reconstruction and stabilization (R&S), and this work is largely in the realm of the third foreign policy pillar of the three D’s: defense, diplomacy and development.

My dad has been a fan of the FranklinCovey planning system for years. Once when I was trying to organize my life and day-to-day to-do list (I’m still trying and it’s another one of my goals this year), I asked him if I should purchase a planner and a year’s worth of its paper inserts.

Imagine the air temperature is 115ºF; the pastures have browned from lack of water, the cows are comfortably under roof in freestalls with a grass silage-based TMR, and the sound of magpies pierces the air. This sounds like an ordinary U.S. dairy, doesn’t it?