Alabama's Down To Earth Day and China Trade Cheating Restitution Act
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.**Alabama farm and forestry groups debuted a yearlong public education campaign, Down to Earth: Agriculture Sustains Alabama, during a celebration last week in Pike Road.
At a press conference, www.alfafarmers.org reports, Governor Kay Ivey proclaimed March 31 Down To Earth Day.
Ivey lauded the collaborative campaign, which will showcase sustainable, high-tech and efficient techniques farmers and forest landowners have followed for decades.
www.alfafarmers.org
**Farm state lawmakers have introduced the “China Trade Cheating Restitution Act,” a bill they say would level the playing field for U.S. farmers.
The bill would ensure the ag sectors most affected by
China’s evasion of anti-dumping duties receives an estimated $38.5 million in accrued delinquency interest on duties wrongfully withheld from 2000-2014.
The U.S. placed anti-dumping duties on Chinese producers in 2001 to protect domestic producers and condemn China's unfair actions.
**New USDA Economic Research Service data shows the U.S. dairy sector has experienced a gradual shift in milk production toward larger dairy operations.
The research indicates the shift in production from small dairy herd-size farms to large dairy herd-size farms mirrors total factor productivity, or TFP, growth across the dairy sector.
Between 2000 and 2016, the largest dairy operations experienced a TFP growth rate of 2.993% per year, while the smallest operations increased at an annual rate of 0.6395%.