Beef Products Inc. (BPI) last week announced the filing of a defamation lawsuit against ABC News for its coverage of lean, finely textured beef (LFTB), dubbed “pink slime” by critics, alleging that the network misled consumers to believe the product is unhealthy and unsafe.

Now, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has awarded the $3 million grant to researchers at MU to determine if specific genes play a role in the breeding problems and other issues in the cattle industry.

USDA has forecast agriculture exports to reach a record $143.5 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, with strong demand from Canada, Europe and Japan, according to The Outlook for US Agricultural Trade released Aug. 31 by the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) and Foreign Agricultural Service.

TransCanada Corporation, the company behind the pipeline, assured supporters that they would not give up, and last week, they came through with an alternative plan.

A press conference organized by three groups, held outside of the Denver Courthouse, to announce a lawsuit against the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) recent Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) ruling, was a dire disappointment to the groups’ organizers.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been busy making headlines and wreaking havoc on state fairs the last couple of months. The group has successfully made its way into the Colorado, Kansas and Iowa state fairs, with what has been described as a graphic documentary titled “Glass Walls.

While the ethanol debate rages on, producers were given some hope last week when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) opened a 30-day public comment period on a waiver request from two governors that voiced concern over the worst drought in 50 years and the continuing climb of the price of corn.

Brown’s plan, a $14 billion dollar project, would be willingly paid for by farmers and other water users supporting the project, with state taxpayers funding most of the estimated $3 billion for habitat restoration. The two underground tunnels would carry water 37 miles to the federal and state pumps at Tracy.

The American Hereford Association (AHA) is the first beef breed to develop and market its own genomic predictions. The AHA approach is the first of its kind to work with the scientific community and the National Beef Cattle Evaluation Consortium (NBCEC) to build its own training and validation population.

Last week, the American Prairie Reserve (APR) announced the purchase of a 150,000-acre Montana ranch, which doubled the conservation group’s current land holdings, and put the group one step closer to their quest to build a privately-funded, national park-like wildlife preserve.