GFB Awards UGA Grants and USDA's Dairy Donation Program
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.
**Georgia Farm Bureau has awarded nearly $137,000 in grants to nine researchers at the UGA College of Ag & Environmental Sciences for studies addressing production, economic or marketing issues Georgia farmers are experiencing.
Recipients of the 2021 GFB Agricultural Research Initiatives grants were recognized earlier this month.
Since 2018, GFB has awarded over $392,000 in research grants that have addressed beef, blueberry, cotton, forage, Christmas, fruit & pecan tree, peanut, poultry, soybean, and vegetable production issues.
www.gfb.org/media-and-publications/news.cms/2021/1099/georgia-farm-bureau-funds-ag-research
**Nearly twice as many meat-processing plants employ short-term foreign workers than in 2015, “a small but growing trend,” according to an Investigate Midwest report.
Seaboard Foods, one of the companies using H-2B guest workers, tells www.agriculture.com it pays the workers the same wage and provides the same benefits it gives domestic employees.
Labor Department records show guest workers are employed at 11 meat plants nationwide. Companies can turn to foreign workers when they can’t find enough Americans.
www.agriculture.com/news/business/meatpackers-hiring-more-guestworkers
**The USDA has announced the establishment of a $400 million Dairy Donation Program.
It was put together by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service along with the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, and aims to facilitate timely dairy product donations while reducing food waste.
It’s Part 2 of an over $2 billion comprehensive package to help the dairy industry recover from the pandemic and improve or establish programs to make it more resilient.
