Integrated Management Information Inc. (IMI Global), a leading provider of verification and Internet solutions in the agricultural/ livestock industry, last week launched VerifiedGreen, a verification program that caters to producers and consumers who are committed to reducing their carbon footprint.

The report, which details the findings of a national online poll of 1,059 consumers conducted in November 2008, was released last week at the 2009 Annual Meat Conference. AMI and FMI published this consumer research which was sponsored by Sealed Air?s Cryovac Food Packaging Division.

As higher costs and environmental concerns about fossil fuels push more people to buy locally produced food, demand for livestock raised on pastures and rangelands?rather than in feed lots?is spurring a return to greater reliance on native rangelands and cultivated pastures.

During 2008, when markets were up limit one day and down limit the next, hedge funds and index traders caught the wrath of farmers, elevator grain merchandisers, and others who alleged improper activity and illegal market manipulation. So far, the regulators have not hauled any one or any company off to jail for such improprieties. But why?

While strong 2008 incomes and years of conservative borrowing have kept U.S. farmers in a relatively good credit situation heading into planting season, the long-term outlook is less positive, analysts said.

Feeding of corn co-products like distillers grains and corn gluten has changed the mineral balance in winter cattle diets, said Dennis Bauer, University of Nebraska Extension educator. Those products are really high in phosphorus, Bauer said.

USDA last Wednesday lowered both U.S. corn and soybean ending stocks for 2008-09 as higher ethanol use buoyed corn usage while soybeans got a bump in record exports to China. ?U.S.

A dedication to learning, improvement and good animal husbandry helped earn the North American Limousin Foundation (NALF) Commercial Producer of the Year award for Tim and Delarie Kessler of Kessler Livestock, Leola, SD.

The Mustang Heritage Foundation (MHF) is doing what no other horse-related organization in the nation has attempted?give a horse to a trainer for 90 days and guarantee $700 in payment with the promise to help market the trainer and the horse to the public.

Union County Extension agent David Graham has first-hand experience how an agricultural emergency plan prepares a community. His county had just finished the agriculture amendment to its emergency operations plan when the January 2007 blizzard buried some areas of northeastern New Mexico in more than 30 inches of snow and 10- to 15-foot drifts.