In response to the Supreme Court’s decision on California Proposition 12 (Prop 12), The Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act was introduced to prevent states like California from regulating farmers and ranchers nationwide.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed a bill into law that will require labels for meat alternatives and lab-grown meat sold in the state. The law directs plant-based and other alternative products to have clarifying verbiage appear next to the label with similar size text as the product being sold.

The United States Supreme Court recently published a ruling on Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, involving the “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Biden Administration’s revised Clean Water Act. The ruling limits the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in regulating certain bodies of water that qualify as WOTUS. This is a huge win for farmers and landowners.

A new preprint article from researchers at The University of California, Davis (UC Davis) has found that lab-grown meat’s environmental impact is likely to be higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods. Lab-grown meat is growing in popularity. It is cultured from animal cells and is often thought to be more environmentally friendly than beef due to the need for less land, water, and greenhouse gases compared to raising cattle.

The Safeguarding American Value-Added Exports Act (SAVE Act) was recently introduced in the House and Senate, to protect American food products from foreign trade practices.

A new bill introduced by Senators John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Todd Young (R-IN), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), and Roger Wicker (R-MS) would fund community college workforce training, education, and research programs in agriculture.

The North American Meat Institute (Meat Institute) recently announced the launch of the Protein PACT Academic Advisory Council. The advisory council was formed to advise on research priorities and the latest evidence related to meat production and consumption.

House Ag Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) and Ranking Member David Scott (D-GA) recently sent an open letter to 18 state governors calling for increased funding for 1890 Land-Grand Institutions. The 1890 land-grant institutions are historically black universities that were established under the Second Morrill Act of 1890. The United States of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA's) 1890 land-grant institutions programs are intended to strengthen research, extension, and teaching in the food and agricultural sciences by building the institutional capacities of the 1890 Institutions.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has set August 23, 2023, as the date for the hearing to revise the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO) system. If all goes to plan, an updated FMMO system could be actively benefiting farmers in late 2024.

Hemp products have become popular in the human food and health industry over the past few years. Due to this, a growing interest in using hemp ingredients in animal products has developed as well.

The most common nutritional disorder in dogs is overweight, and knowledge about dogs’ energy requirement is therefore important to adjust daily feed allowance. Changes in body weight may affect energy expenditure (EE) and, thereby, energy requirement. This study aimed to measure such potential changes under resting conditions in overweight dogs.

Pet obesity is becoming increasingly common and may have a negative impact on pet health. The exploration of measures to alleviate pet obesity is urgently needed.

Bovine respiratory disease (BRD) is the most common disease in feedlot cattle and costs the US cattle industry more than $2 billion annually. Such economical losses include mortality, wasted feed resources, pharmaceutical inputs, and decreased performance of morbid cattle.

The present study tested selected animal welfare indicators from different welfare assessment protocols, such as the Welfare Quality protocol (WQP) for pigs, with regard to test–retest reliability (TRR), consistency over time, in an on-farm study on rearing pigs. The WQP is based on the four welfare principles: 1) “good feeding”, 2) “good housing”, 3) “good health”, and 4) “appropriate behavior”, which are assessed by different welfare indicators.

As any reduction in dietary nutrients can negatively impact broiler productivity mitigating these effects is imperative. Dietary reductions in minerals, amino acids, and energy can all result in decreased growth and performance.

Sows that are housed in groups establish a social hierarchy to gain preferential access to needed resources, such as feed. The establishment and maintenance of this social hierarchy may lead to reduced welfare and performance for certain sows.

Although management methods, such as split-suckling and foster care, in pig production can improve piglet survival rates, these methods inevitably lead to neonatal maternal separation which is an early stress on the body, and can have serious negative effects on the body. In this experiment, we investigated the effect level of neonatal maternal separation on behavior, physiology, and growth performance of piglets.

A challenge of selection for disease resilience is that it is difficult to directly select pigs that have greater resilience to multiple diseases in the healthy nucleus herd environment which is essential for breeding programs. A possible alternative is to select an indicator trait or marker that can be measured in a healthy setting, is heritable, and is associated with the genetics of disease resilience.

The quality of alpaca fiber is mainly assessed by a low fiber diameter. However, the fiber diameter can greatly vary along the different body locations of the animal, the industry demands not only the fineness of the fiber but also the fleece uniformity.

Evaluating traits that allow breeders to increase production efficiency in beef production systems is important. The mouth size (MS) score is a trait easily measured and implemented by breeders. Our results showed that MS in Nelore cattle is a heritable trait, and it is favorably associated with growth traits, indicating that animals with larger mouth are heavier at weaning and gain more weight after weaning on pasture.