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U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced that dairy farmers who were forced to dump milk, due to power outages and washed out roads and bridges preventing transportation, will receive payments at the market value for the milk that they had to dump.

By Josh Rhotenjrhoten@wyomingnews.comCHEYENNE - Drought conditions across the U.S. have created a unique situation for Wyoming ranchers.Demand for hay continues to grow, sparking an increase in prices.Monte Lerwick, a rancher and farmer in Albin, said he was seeing a rise in prices, even for low-quality hay, because of the high demand."Our hay prices have been really high this year, and we have started to bundle it up into larger bails to send to other places because of the demand,” he said. “It doesn’t even really matter if it’s high quality or not, people just need it because of that drought.”

In its September World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, USDA also projected lower U.S. feed grain supplies for 2011-12.

Corn conception, and development, is poorly understood. So biology professor Virginia Walbot devotes her career to tackling one of botany’s big puzzles: the sex life of corn.

Family dairy farming-inspired calendars to be distributed at World Dairy Expo and across the country by Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc.

The plant will be the only canola oil facility west of the Rocky Mountains.

Northwest Dairy Association (NDA), a dairyfarmer-owned cooperative, and Darigold, Inc., its wholly owned milk processing subsidiary, recently pledged support for the draft dairy reform legislation released by House Agriculture Committee ranking democratic member Collin Peterson (D-MN) earlier this summer. Peterson, who plans to introduce the legislation this fall, will be joined by Congressman Mike Simpson (R-ID) as a co-sponsor. The proposal is based on Foundation for the Future (FFTF), a comprehensive dairy reform proposal authored by dairy leaders across the country."Our decision to support the Peterson/Simpson proposal is not one taken lightly,” according to Jim Werkhoven, Chairman of the Northwest Dairy Association and Darigold boards of directors and a dairyfarmer in Monroe, Washington. “We began our evaluation of the proposal more than a year ago, by presenting it to the membership at our annual meeting. Since then, we have discussed the plan in many forums, including area producer meetings. There is an industry consensus building around Foundation for the Future that promises improved economic stability for dairyfarmers and ensures food security for the nation.”

BY SHERRI ACKERMANThe Tampa TribuneTAMPA It’s the latest public education controversy to sweep the nation, and it has nothing to do with high-stakes testing or graduation rates.This debate is about chocolate milk, and it’s coming soon to a cafeteria near you.This summer, the Los Angeles Public School District banned chocolate milk from its lunchrooms. It joined a growing list of states, including Florida, that link the sugary beverage to childhood obesity.One school nutrition manager in Coloradodubbed chocolate milk “soda in drag.”

Any large-scale expansion of U.S. ag exports will only be possible if the nation can get more commodities and farm products to market, something some experts say the country already struggles to accomplish.

EMMETSBURG, IOWA - Each fall in corn country, big combines prowl through the fields, stripping the valuable kernels from ears and spitting out bits of cornstalk, leaves and empty cobs.The residue, which used to lie on the ground and rot, has become a money crop for the next generation of biofuel.Poet LLC, the nation’s leading ethanol producer, says it is determined to open a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in 2013 next to its existing corn-ethanol plant in this northern Iowa community. The $250 million project could be the first such plant in the nation. Last month, the U.S. Energy Department conditionally committed to a $105 million loan guarantee for it."The technology is there -- it is definitely to the point where we can build the best-in-class plant, and the trick is getting these plants up,” said Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Council, which represents many of the approximately dozen U.S. companies working to commercialize cellulosic ethanol.