December 11: Stories That Caught Our Attention This Week - Modern Farmer

December 11: Stories That Caught Our Attention This Week

Cows straggling on a Mississippi highway, farmers struggling on their Carolina farms. See what caught our attention this week.

cows in flooded fields
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This week, two big biz companies (which happen to be, in part, big ag) revealed a plan to merge into a $130 billion super company, and then break into three pieces down the road. Dow and Dupont, soon to be called DowDupont, will be the largest seed and pesticide conglomerate in the world, according to the Washington Post.

Remember the crazy floods that soaked South Carolina earlier this fall? Farmers suffered an estimated $376 million in losses, but Governor Nikki Haley refuses to ask Congress for bailout money. She reportedly believes that all farmers should protect themselves with federally subsidized crop insurance. State Agricultural Commissioner Hugh Weathers said Monday that even those with the best insurance wouldn’t be financially in the clear.

In North Carolina, workers at a Perdue-associated chicken farm were caught on tape kicking chickens around “like footballs,” according to WRAL. Although one man was arrested yesterday, future undercover film like this will be illegal when the state’s ag-gag law goes into affect on January 1.

This morning in Jackson, Mississippi, a tractor-trailer with 100 cows overturned on the highway. Some cows died in the accident, but many escaped and began to wander, walking in traffic and reportedly into a nearby neighborhood. Volunteers wrangled the surviving cows, and the interstate is now open and cattle-free.

Lastly, take a five-minute work break to watch a beautiful short film on the importance of young farmers in North America. Does it seem to you that everyone is getting into farming? Well, they’re not (but more should be).

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