Ag Headlines, Friday Oct 2, 2015

APHIS Report: PEDv Possibly Came from Contaminated Bulk Animal Feed Bags

A report by USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service points to contaminated bulk animal feed bags as the possible culprit to spreading Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus. AgWeb reports APHIS detailed in a report how these bulk bags could have resulted in a disease epidemic that ended up costing the U.S. between $900 million and $1.8 billion. The APHIS report said that after entry into the U.S., PEDv was discovered in six locations within two weeks. The sites were geographically separated. However, they did receive animal feed from bulk feed bags that can be reused and according to APHIS, are not often disinfected. The bags could have picked up the virus in the origin country in a variety of ways, including being carried in a contaminated truck, exposed to “irrigation or flood waters containing organic fertilizer” and other sources. Then, once the bags arrived in the U.S., so did the virus.

ConAgra Foods to Relocated Headquarters to Chicago

ConAgra Foods confirmed Thursday the company will relocate its headquarters from Omaha, Nebraska to Chicago and eliminate 1,500 positions, according to Meatingplace. However, plant based positions will not be eliminated in the move and restructuring of its office-based workforce. The restructuring is expected to save $300 million over the next three years and excludes any impact of the company’s previously announced plan to divest its private-label operations. About 1,200 employees will remain in Omaha, including those working in research and development as well as supply chain management.

Court Nixes Activists’ Attempt to Get Farm Data

In a victory for U.S. farmers and ranchers in their ongoing fight to protect private and sensitive personal and financial records, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by animal-rights and environmental activists against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The lawsuit was over the agency’s withdrawal of a proposed Clean Water Act rule that would have required livestock and poultry operations to report information about their operations. In their lawsuit, the activist groups claimed EPA’s withdrawal of the reporting rule was “arbitrary” because it lacked clear reasoning. Judge Randolph Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, D.C., who dismissed the suit, disagreed with the activist groups, saying the agency’s explanation for the withdrawal was “plain and coherent” and that it “adequately explained the basis for its decision.”

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