Ohio Farmers Union

Serving Family Farmers and Consumers Since 1934



United to Grow Family Agriculture Since 1934

  • About
    • The Farmers Union Triangle
    • Vision
    • OFU Leadership
  • Issues
    • 2020 Virtual Lobby Days
    • OFU Policy & NFU Policy
    • 2019 Lobby Day Registration
    • Get Involved!
    • NFU Climate Leaders
  • Education
    • 2019 OFU Essay Contest
    • Ohio Farmers Union Scholarships
    • Farm Safety
    • Renewable Energy Curriculum
  • Insurance
    • Hastings Mutual Insurance Co.
    • Health & Other Offerings
    • Ohio BWC Group Coverage
  • Join Us
    • Online Sign-Up
    • Member Benefits
    • Insurance
  • Blog
  • Events

Ag News Roundup – July 26

July 26, 2011 By Ron Sylvester Leave a Comment

Here are a few items that came to our attention from Ohio sources and the National Farmers Union:

Justices Will Hear Arguments on Whether State Should Pay for Flooded Farms

from The Hannah Report

The Ohio Supreme Court moved this month to schedule oral arguments in a dispute between the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) and farmers near Grand Lake St. Marys who say they should be compensated because the department’s flood-management practices frequently put their lands under water and constitute an unlawful taking.

Justices granted the request from plaintiffs in State ex. rel. Wayne T. Doner et al v. Ohio Department of Natural Resources for oral arguments at the same time it approved their motion to file evidence of flooding from this past spring as further justification for their case. Oral argument is scheduled for Sept. 20.

The plaintiffs, who have farmed along Beaver Creek and the Wabash river for decades, say the thousands of acres in Mercer County they collectively own have frequently flooded since ODNR installed a new 500-foot spillway at the lake in 1997, and they argue that the state is thus compelled to buy their lands and compensate them for losses. …

Algae alert issued at Lake Alma

Columbus Dispatch

A bloom of toxic, blue-green algae at Lake Alma has prompted officials to post health warnings at two public beaches at the state park in southeastern Ohio.

The new alerts come after signs were removed Friday from Brooks Beach at Buckeye Lake, where they were first put up in early June.

Two weeks of water tests found low concentrations of a liver toxin and the algae there appear to be dying off, said Heidi Griesmer, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

That leaves 60-acre Lake Alma in Vinton County and Grand Lake St. Marys in western Ohio as the only bodies of water with warnings. Harmful algae have posed problems at 13,000-acre Grand Lake each summer since 2009. …

Read More

 

Cattle Herd Shrinks to Smallest Since 1973 as Drought Scorches U.S. South

Bloomberg

The U.S. cattle inventory on July 1 shrank to the smallest since at least 1973 as producers reduced herds amid a prolonged drought in the Southwest and rising feed costs.

Beef and dairy farmers held 100 million head of cattle as the month began, down 1.1 percent from a year earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a semiannual report. Nine analysts in a Bloomberg News survey forecast a 1.4 percent drop, on average. “The U.S. cattle herd continues to liquidate due mainly to drought conditions in the southern half of the country,” Troy Vetterkind, the owner of Vetterkind Cattle Brokerage in Chicago, said in an e-mail before the report.

Read More

Despite fears more genetically modified crops on the way

Pioneer Press

In a way, the old science-fiction movies were right. Genetically engineered crops have taken over the world – but not because mutant plants went on a rampage.

Fifteen years after the biotech revolution first hit rural America, farmers overwhelmingly choose to grow genetically modified (GM) varieties of corn and soybeans. In Minnesota this year, a record 95 percent of the soybeans are GM varieties. For corn, it’s 93 percent. A similar trend is unfolding around the world.

“Everybody thinks it’s just a U.S. thing, and that’s far from the case now,” said David Morgan, president of Syngenta Seeds, which has its U.S. headquarters in Minnetonka. “With the exception of Europe, it’s pretty well adopted around the world.”

More than 80 percent of the world’s soybeans are GM varieties, industry data show. So is nearly two-thirds of the world’s cotton. That brisk adoption rate is welcomed by developers of biotech seeds, including Syngenta, which ranks No. 3 behind Monsanto and Pioneer. …

Read More

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Filed Under: Blog

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Latest News from the Ohio & National Farmers Union

2022 OFU Special Orders

Annual Policy Priorities For the eighty-eighth year, the Ohio Farmers Union has established the organization's public policy priorities at the … Read More

Ohio County Fair Schedule 2022

It's looking great for the first full, uninterrupted Ohio fair season since the beginning of the pandemic. Of special note, the Ohio State Fair will … Read More

Rural Broadband Gets Win in Ohio Budget

State Senators Matt Huffman, R-Lima, and Matt Dolan, R-Chagrin Falls, tried to kill $90 million for rural broadband expansion, yet the Ohio … Read More

State Legislators Listen – Rural Broadband Back in Ohio Two-Year Budget

In a pleasant surprise for rural Ohio, the biennial budget was agreed to Monday with Gov. Mike DeWine's full $250 million funding request for rural … Read More

Check Out the Entire Blog

NATIONAL FARMERS UNION

Click to Take Action



Contact

Ohio Farmers Union
P.O. Box 363
1011 N. Defiance Street
Ottawa, Ohio 45875
Phone: (419) 523-5300
Toll Free: (800) 321-3671

Copyright Ohio Farmers Union© 2023 | Site by: RCS Communications