🇺🇲🇨🇺 US agro-businesses have called on the Biden administration to ease restrictions and allow them to invest in private agriculture in Cuba. They’re keen to both sell their own products on the island as well as invest in private sector farms to help them develop.

     • US President Joe Biden has promised the US would do more to support the fledgling private sector in Cuba, but the movement has been too slow as the country remains an outlier, even after the ban on private investors was lifted,...

🇺🇲 Tom Cruise’s not in this one, we’re afraid… This news is about labor negotiations between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which have been stalled for 10 months (!) – union members have been working without a contract for eight months… 

📃 With that in mind, over 200 national and state agricultural and business organizations wrote to President Biden urging the administration to work with the two parties to reach a new agreement and ensure t...

🐷 Porcine ear necrosis (PEN) – small lesions around the tip of the ears of pigs, which either slowly heal or progress to larger, necrotic lesions  – continues to be an issue in US swine production systems, with sporadic outbreaks, especially in nursery pigs. Although it has been reported that performance is typically unaffected, PEN enhances the risk of secondary infections and as such, may potentially lead to increases in mortality and morbidity.

💡 Since it’s a multifactorial problem, here’s w...

🥩 In March, consumers’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) decreased for four evaluated retail products – ribeye steak, ground beef, bacon, and chicken breast— compared to February, but increased for all evaluated food service meals, according to the latest Meat Demand Monitor (MDM).

     • However, while retail demand remained low over these couple of months for bacon, it improved for pork chops, both month-over-month and over the past two years.

     • Another key finding is that younger generations ar...

🐷🤯 Or adds hair?? Believe it or not (this is no fish story), the hair of pigs can tell a story just like any storyteller! Let us explain: we all know that pigs that are more resistant to stress tend to be more resistant to disease and demonstrate better performance. However, while this fact is already used in breeding programs, there’s a new window into resilience to stress in pigs: hair analysis. 

🔎 You read that right: rather than measuring stress through blood analysis, a non-invasive and ec...

Prolapse causes lots of damage to sows, to swine productions, and to producers. So having a deeper understanding of its causes can help us find solutions for the issue by combining genetics, nutritional, and management strategies. In the second part of this two-episode series, Jared Harshman talks about collagen, explores hormone results found in the analysis of the incidence of prolapse, explains the differences between prolapsed and non-prolapsed sows, and discusses the influence of previous l...

You may have your own definition of biosecurity and your own perception of the practices and processes that make it happen, but does everyone on a farm think alike? By understanding people’s different perceptions, we can map the challenges and opportunities to improve biosecurity on our farms. In this episode, We talk with Dr. Cristopher Gambino about his survey on biosecurity perceptions and practices among swine producers and experts in Pennsylvania. We also discuss the importance of understan...