Starting in May, the USDA’s National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) will ask pig farmers who have at least 1,000 pigs and farm in any of the top 13 pork-producing states about their on-farm antimicrobial use and their related stewardship practices. Those states include Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.

Specifically, the NAHMS Antimicrobial Use on U.S. Swine Operations 2017 study will:

• Estimate the percentage of production sites using and the percentage of weaned market pigs receiving specific antimicrobials in feed and/or water by reasons for use.
• Describe antimicrobial-use practices in feed and water on production sites.
• Provide baseline data (historical) on antimicrobial-use practices in place before implementation of FDA policy changes (prior to 2017), which can be used for evaluating trends over time.
• Describe antimicrobial stewardship practices on production sites with weaned market pigs or swine nursery and grower-finisher facilities.

The Census of Agriculture is a complete count of U.S. farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Even small plots of land - whether rural or urban - growing fruit, vegetables or some food animals count if $1,000 or more of such products were raised and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the Census year.

The Census of Agriculture, taken only once every five years, looks at land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, income and expenditures. For America’s farmers and ranchers, the Census of Agriculture is their voice, their future, and their opportunity.

While seed laws and regulations have not changed, breeding has. Advancements with scab tolerance, standability, yield, and disease resistance have been great. As a result, owners of various varieties - biotech companies - have sought to safeguard their research and investment by obtaining patents and PVPA protection on new variety releases to protect their intellectual property. For instance, on wheat and triticale varieties, approximately 70% are currently patented and 28% are PVPA protected (the remaining 2% are older lines that are limited and falling out of favor). Protecting their investment in this way will allow them to continue to bring you better varieties in the future.

Pay close attention to the tag on the seed you are planting so as not to inadvertently violate patent and PVPA laws. Violations can include: 

• Purchasing a patented variety and producing the crop for more than one use
• Saving seed back for your own planting
• Offering seed for sale or trade
• Purchasing a PVPA variety and selling this grain as seed, trading, or offering this seed for sale to anyone else (you are allowed to save seed back for planting on your farm only)

The owner of the variety can seek huge damages for such actions.