Drought drives dairy — AgMinute for March 29, 2013

Drought in New Zealand and flat milk production in the U.S. drove prices higher last week for U.S. dairy products.

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Turkish patent delight — Idaho AgMinute for March 28, 2013

The Idaho potato industry has prevailed in its efforts to stop a Turkish agricultural company from using the word "Idaho" to promote various agricultural commodities.

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Dairy antitrust — AgMinute for March 27, 2013

Dairy Farmers of America will pay $46 million to settle a portion of an antitrust lawsuit over its trading activities on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

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Cutting potatoes — Idaho AgMinute for March 26, 2013

Idaho processors have cut potato acres under contract for the coming season by roughly 3 percent, officials with Southeast Idaho Potato Cooperative recently learned.

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Inspectors protected — AgMinute for March 25, 2013

The beef industry, from cattlemen to packers, is breathing a sigh of relief that federal meat inspections were protected in the continuing resolution passed by Congress to fund the government through the end of September.

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Biotech rider — AgMinute for March 22, 2013

Biotech critics are alarmed by a rider attached to a recent spending bill passed by Congress that relates to USDA regulation of genetically engineered crops.

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Reports cut — AgMinute for March 21, 2013

Last week the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service announced it would suspend several of its agricultural estimates reports to meet requirements of sequestration, but unlike the Food Safety and Inspection Service, it won't be furloughing employees.

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Auditors in view — AgMinute for March 20, 2013

High-risk programs within the USDA fell short of targets for reducing improper payments last year, an internal audit found.

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Fruitland v. onions — Idaho AgMinute for March 19, 2013

The possibility that the city of Fruitland could file a lawsuit against Dickinson Frozen Foods over smells from its onion processing plant here has local growers worried about its potential impacts on the industry.

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Reluctant exchange — Idaho AgMinute for March 18, 2013

Many Idaho farm groups have thrown their support behind the governor's proposal to create a state-based health insurance exchange but only reluctantly because they see no other choice.

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Scratching the seven-year itch of agriculture news blogging

Today is officially the seven-year anniversary of the launch of Blogriculture. This site was, and remains, an area where the Capital Press staff has been able to interact with readers in a way not always possible on our main website.

It has also been a forum for experimentation and trying new things in the digital realm that we haven't always been able to do our CapitalPress.com. Today, it mostly serves as the entry point for our podcasts and audio posts of Ag Minute audio.

But what will it be tomorrow (meaning the months and years ahead)? That is unknown.

Agriculture's use of digital media has grown tremendously since Blogriculture was born. Back in 2006 it took a lot of searching to find agriculture blogs of any kind. Today, they are seemingly everywhere. And if you add in blogs and websites about special interests related to the products farmers and ranchers grow, you can get lost in the digital web of food and farming sites. Farmers and foodies are also very active in social media, like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. We have been proud to be a small part of that digital information explosion.

There are some big technology changes occurring soon at the Capital Press and its parent company, EO Media Group. A new computer system produced by the people at Saxotech will make it much faster and easier for the Capital Press and her sister publications to publish to the web and it bring changes to the manner in which we print too.

On the digital front, one of the biggest changes online readers of the Capital Press will see is a relaunched website that is built using responsive design. That means the same website will look and behave differently depending on what type of devise and what size browser window you have. Instead of building separate sites for desktop/laptop computers, tablets and smartphones, we will have one site capable of serving up our stories and photos in a format that works better with the device you are using.

The print and web publishing functions will be made possible by a new computer system designed to integrate with both web publishing and build pages destined for ink-on-paper printing. Our company is in the process of installing that system now and will be rolling it out over the next several months in a process that is likely to take most of this year, and may stretch into next year. It's a massive project for us.

What that means for Blogriculture, specifically, is that our chief contributor here, Will Koenig, and I will be moving to new roles with the company to ensure our print papers continue evolve to take advantage of these new tools. Will and I hope to keep a hand in the digital realm in some regard, but given the size and scope of this project, it is difficult to know today just what that role may be and when we will be able to contribute specifically to things like podcast and blogs.

So, perhaps someone else (or several someones) at the Capital Press will pick of the torch at Blogriculture, just like Will picked up the torch after I moved into other activities a few years ago. Or perhaps sometime in the next few months, new posts to Blogriculture will dry up. It's hard to say. In the beginning, Blogriculture was launched because it was faster and easier to make updates here than on our main website. We also could customize our blog easier than we could our website and add features to it that either couldn't be added to our main site or required submitting a job ticket to a third-party vendor who may or may not help us successfully achieve the desired goal. Today, our main site is much faster and easier to update, we have more control over it and can do more things with it. And in a few months, the CapitalPress.com domain will boast a whole new look and feel that just wasn't possible even in our last website relaunch in August 2009.

These are exciting times for our company, but the excitement has a price of uncertainty for  Blogriculture. We are proud of the role Blogriculture has made in helping Capital Press evolved as a digital agriculture medium. It has played a huge role in helping us become better and faster at sharing information, not just in the Pacific Northwest, but nationwide and worldwide. It has helped us understand digital communication better and helped us communicate in ways that are just not possible in print.

It's fairly rare that a blog stays active for seven years. We are proud of the run so far. What will the future hold? Will the run continue? We will find out this and more in the months ahead.

Thank you, for taking the time to share this blogiversary with us and thank you to everyone who has contributed to Blogriculture as a poster, reader and commenter over the last seven years.

Protecting farmland — Idaho AgMinute for March 14, 2013

A group dedicated to preserving Idaho's farmland is inviting people interested in protecting Idaho's agricultural economy to attend its annual meeting March 20. The group was formed in 2008 to deal with the rampant growth occurring in Ada and Canyon counties.

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Beef on labeling — AgMinute for March 13, 2013

A Canadian cattlemen's group is sharply criticizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture's new mandatory country-of-origin labeling proposal, arguing it will make trade relations between the two countries worse.

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Inaction frees plan — Idaho AgMinute for March 12, 2013

A revision to the Idaho Comprehensive State Water Plan, setting water management goals for the state and strategies toward meeting them, has become law due to the Legislature's inaction on the issue.

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Fighting over scraps — Idaho AgMinute for March 11, 2013

Idaho's agricultural community is supporting a scrap metal bill that it hopes will help reduce farm thefts.

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Bean divisions — Idaho AgMinute for March 8, 2013

The Idaho Bean Commission resigned its 2013 membership from the U.S. Dry Bean Council because commissioners say growers weren't getting their money's worth from the group.

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Sample tax tested — Idaho AgMinute for March 7, 2013

A bill that would exempt free food samples from the state's 6 percent use tax passed the Idaho House 68-0 and has moved to the Senate. The bill would ensure that any producer, farm group or grocery store that offers customers free samples of food doesn't have to pay the tax.

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Brand fee battle — Idaho AgMinute for March 6, 2013

A bill that would raise the ceiling on a brand inspection fee for cow-calf producers narrowly passed a House committee. The bill would allow the cattle industry to raise a brand inspection fee that is used to help fund predator control efforts in Idaho.

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Inspectors afoot — AgMinute for March 5, 2013

Portland lawyer Tim Bernasek has learned that the U.S. Department of Labor is inspecting Columbia Gorge farmers for potential labor violations.

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Horse sense bill — Idaho AgMinute for March 4, 2013

A bill that would make it easier for people who have horses dumped on them to sell the animals is sailing through the Idaho Legislature. The bill passed the House 69-0 Feb. 26 and has been sent to the Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee.

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Price fixing alleged — AgMinute for March 1, 2013

Several consumers have filed a lawsuit accusing the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative of illegally fixing prices for dairy products. The complaint seeks certification as a class action, which would allow other consumers to join the litigation.

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