The Farm Credit Foundation for Agricultural Advancement recently awarded a total of $315,000 in scholarships to 39 students. The scholarships — valued at $5,000, $7,500 or $10,000 — are awarded based on each individual’s commitment to academics and leadership, and aid in their pursuit of a career in the agriculture industry.

“We are thrilled to award these outstanding young individuals with scholarships to help make their dreams a reality and support their further education as they prepare for exciting careers in agriculture,” says Travis Hastings, Chair of the Farm Credit Foundation for Agricultural Advancement. “Investing in the future generation of agriculturalists is vital to ensuring the industry continues to thrive, and we look forward to seeing the positive impact these exceptional individuals make on agriculture.”

The Foundation, funded by Horizon Farm Credit, was established in 2015 to make positive impacts in agriculture, and serves Horizon Farm Credit’s 100 county territory in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The scholarship program offers awards to high school seniors or those currently enrolled in a two- or four-year higher education program, with plans to pursue a career in agriculture.

The 2024 scholarship recipients include:

• Alana Alexander-Giles of Marriottsville, Maryland
• Shalelyn Armstrong of Port Royal, Pennsylvania
• Cheyenne Bastian-Brown of Ralston, Pennsylvania
• Brooke Beamesderfer of Annville, Pennsylvania
• Michael Berger of Weatherly, Pennsylvania
• Chloe Bomgardner of Jonestown, Pennsylvania
• Dalena Bryant of Frederick, Maryland
• Jaclyn Bryant of Frederick, Maryland
• Brielle Carter of Harrington, Delaware
• Edwina Chen of Newark, Delaware
• Andrea Clark of Newport, Pennsylvania
• Kaitlyn Collins of Clayton, Delaware
• Charles Colvin V of Malvern, Pennsylvania
• Sam Curley of Mount Airy, Maryland
• Sarah Diehl of McVeytown, Pennsylvania
• Peyton Dugan of Shepherdstown, West Virginia
• Avery Dull of Westminster, Maryland
• Peyton Easton of Dover, Delaware
• Alex Empet of Kingsley, Pennsylvania
• Ava Esterly of Pottstown, Pennsylvania
• Hayden Fox of North East, Pennsylvania
• Darcy Heltzel of Martinsburg, Pennsylvania
• Georgia Horosky of St. Peters, Pennsylvania
• Natalie Hummell of Macungie, Pennsylvania
• Avery Kerrick of Greenwood, Delaware
• Kennah Kerns of Clearbrook, Virginia
• Ashlynn Kidwell of Sykesville, Maryland
• Sarah Lasko of Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania
• Cody Lehman of Nescopeck, Pennsylvania
• Carly Lindley of Frederick, Maryland
• Luke Michaud of Smyrna, Delaware
• Brock O’Day of Seaford, Delaware
• Tate Ondrik of New Market, Maryland
• Breann Poole of Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania
• Hannah Uhlman of Exton, Pennsylvania
• Ella Vandervort of Townsend, Delaware
• McKenna Vest of Clayton, Delaware
• Faith Wolfe of Centre Hall, Pennsylvania
• Kelsey Zepp of New Windsor, Maryland

Applications for the 2025 scholarship program will open later in 2024, and eligible students are encouraged to apply. Scholarship funds are available for students within Horizon Farm Credit’s 100-county footprint or Washington, D.C. Applicants must be pursuing careers in agriculture and enrolled in a two or four-year educational program at a college or university or students currently enrolled in a technical school. For more information about the scholarship and the Foundation, visit fcfoundationforag.org.

Colombia’s decision to restrict beef imports from certain U.S. states due to concerns about avian influenza in dairy cows marks a significant development in the global response to the virus.

This move reflects the broader economic impact of the avian flu outbreak, which has already affected poultry trade worldwide.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the restrictions in a notice on its Food Safety and Inspection Service website on April 22. These restrictions apply to beef and beef products from states where dairy cows have tested positive for avian influenza. The affected states listed include Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas.

In response to the outbreak, the U.S. government has announced measures requiring testing for bird flu in dairy cattle moving between states starting Monday. This proactive approach aims to contain the spread of the virus, which has already affected multiple states and dairy herds.

According to government officials, no U.S. beef cattle have tested positive for bird flu thus far. Despite this, Colombia’s decision has significant implications for exporters and their customers doing business there.

The U.S. Meat Export Federation has expressed concerns about the scientific basis of the import restrictions and is engaging with USDA officials to address the issue. Meanwhile, USDA officials are responding to requests from trading partners for additional information on the epidemiology of the outbreak to mitigate any trade impacts.

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller addressed growing concerns following the Food and Drug Administration’s discovery of HPAI particles in commercial grocery milk samples. 

“There is no reason for consumers to panic,” noted Commissioner Miller. “Milk and dairy products remain safe for consumption. Milk from affected cows is discarded before it can enter the supply chain. In the rare event that contaminated milk does enter the supply chain, pasteurization effectively kills viruses even if traces of the virus remain detectable.”

For more than a century, pasteurization has secured the safety of dairy products worldwide. The pasteurization process is a crucial step in dairy production. The milk is heated to around 161°F (71.7°C) for 15 to 30 seconds to effectively kill harmful bacteria and viruses. Even in cases where raw milk may contain a virus, pasteurization consistently kills pathogens to levels that pose no risk to consumer health.

“Nearly all commercial milk in the U.S. originates from the Grade “A” milk program,” Commissioner Miller stated. “That is another way to maintain industry-wide safety and quality standards.”

Today, the Department of Labor announced a final rule targeting vulnerability and abuses experienced by workers under the H-2A program that the federal agency says undermine fair labor standards for all farmworkers in the U.S.

The H-2A program allows employers to hire temporary foreign workers when the department determines that there is a lack of able, willing, and qualified U.S. workers to perform agricultural labor or services and that employing temporary labor will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

“H-2A workers too frequently face abusive working conditions that undercut all farmworkers in the U.S.,” said Acting Secretary Julie Su. “This rule ensures farmworkers employed through the H-2A program are treated fairly, have a voice in their workplace, and are able to perform their work safely. It also promotes employer accountability, benefitting all farmworkers by upholding labor standards. The Biden-Harris administration is committed to being the most pro-worker administration in history, and this rule is a significant milestone in that effort.”

The final rule includes the following:

• Adding new protections for worker self-advocacy: The final rule improves workers’ ability to engage in advocacy regarding their working conditions by expanding the range of activities protected by anti-retaliation provisions. For workers not protected by the National Labor Relations Act, this rule protects workers’ choice to engage in self-organization or concerted activities and to decline attending employer-sponsored “captive audience” meetings where employers discourage workers from joining unions or engage in other protected activities.

  The rule also allows workers to consult key service providers, such as legal service providers, and to meet with them in employer-furnished housing. Workers also may now invite and accept guests, including labor organizations, service providers and others, to their employer-furnished housing.

• Clarifying “for cause” termination: Workers employed under the H-2A program have the right to payment for three-fourths of the hours offered in the work contract, as well as housing and meals until the worker leaves, outbound transportation and — if the worker is a U.S. worker — to be contacted for employment in the next year, unless they are terminated for cause.

  The final rule clarifies that an employer only terminates a worker for cause when the worker either fails to comply with employer policies or fails to perform job duties satisfactorily after, in most cases, the transparent application of a system of progressive discipline. The rule establishes that for a worker to be terminated for cause, five conditions must be met, including a requirement that workers are either informed about or reasonably should have known the policy, rule, or performance expectation unless the worker has engaged in egregious misconduct.

• Making foreign labor recruitment more transparent: The final rule imposes new disclosure requirements to improve foreign worker recruitment chain transparency, provides additional information about the nature of the job opportunity, and bolsters the department’s ability to protect workers from exploitation and abuse.

  The new provisions require employers to provide a copy of all agreements with any agent or recruiter they engage or plan to engage, disclose the name and location of any person or entity working for the recruiter who will solicit prospective H-2A workers and disclose in the H-2A application the name, location, and contact information of the workplace’s owners, operators and managers.

• Ensuring timely wage changes for H-2A workers, which helps prevent an adverse effect on the wages of similarly employed workers in the U.S.: Returning to longstanding practice, the final rule designates the effective date of updated adverse effect wage rates as of the date of publication in the Federal Register.

  This change safeguards fair compensation for workers under the H-2A program and addresses potential adverse effects on the wages and working conditions of similarly employed workers in the U.S. The rule would also require employers who fail to provide adequate notice to workers of a delay in their start date to pay workers the applicable rate for each day that work is delayed for up to 14 days.

• Improving transportation safety: Many H-2A workers travel in vans or buses, sometimes driven after long days by tired workers. The final rule includes a seat belt requirement to reduce the hazards associated with the transportation of farmworkers.

  “Suppose a vehicle is required by Department of Transportation regulations to be manufactured with seat belts. In that case, the final rule prohibits the operation of these vehicles to transport workers under the H-2A program unless each occupant is wearing a seat belt,” writes the DOL.

• Preventing labor exploitation and human trafficking: The final rule clarifies that employers are prohibited from holding or confiscating a worker’s passport, visa, or other identification documents, which is a tactic used to exploit workers.
• Ensuring employer accountability: The final rule updates procedures for discontinuing employment services for employers that have failed to meet the Department of Labor’s requirements. Relatedly, the rule requires states to discontinue services to debarred employers. It also streamlines the procedures for applying debarment to a successor who carries forward a debarred company. In addition, the rule codifies how the department determines whether separate entities are acting as one employer for purposes of assessing seasonal or temporary need and how these entities are treated for enforcement purposes.

The final rule is effective on June 28, 2024. However, H-2A applications filed before Aug. 28, 2024, will be processed according to applicable federal regulations as is in effect as of June 27, 2024. Applications submitted on or after Aug. 29, 2024, will be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Farmworker Protection Rule.

A rapidly spreading virus threatens the health of the cacao tree — and, potentially, your chocolate supply. 

About 50 percent of the world’s chocolate originates from cacao trees in the West African countries of the Ivory Coast and Ghana. The damaging virus is attacking cacao trees in Ghana, resulting in harvest losses of between 15 percent and 50 percent.

The cacao swollen shoot virus disease, spread by small insects called mealybugs that eat the leaves, buds, and flowers of trees, is among the most damaging threats to chocolate’s root ingredient.

“This virus is a real threat to the global supply of chocolate,” said Benito Chen-Charpentier, professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Arlington and an author of “Cacao sustainability: The case of cacao swollen-shoot virus co-infection” in the journal PLOS One. “Pesticides don’t work well against mealybugs, leaving farmers to try to prevent the spread of the disease by cutting out infected trees and breeding resistant trees. But despite these efforts, Ghana has lost more than 254 million cacao trees in recent years.”

Farmers can combat the mealybugs by giving vaccines to the trees to inoculate them from the virus. But the vaccines are expensive, especially for low-wage farmers, and vaccinated trees produce a smaller harvest of cacao, compounding the devastation of the virus.

Chen-Charpentier and colleagues from the University of Kansas, Prairie View A&M, the University of South Florida, and the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana have developed a new strategy: using mathematical data to determine how far apart farmers can plant vaccinated trees to prevent mealybugs from jumping from one tree to another and spreading the virus.

“Mealybugs have several ways of movement, including moving from canopy to canopy, being carried by ants or blown by the wind,” Chen-Charpentier said. “What we needed to do was create a model for cacao growers so they could know how far away they could safely plant vaccinated trees from unvaccinated trees in order to prevent the spread of the virus while keeping costs manageable for these small farmers.”

By experimenting with mathematical patterning techniques, the team created two different types of models that allow farmers to create a protective layer of vaccinated cacao trees around unvaccinated trees.

“While still experimental, these models are exciting because they would help farmers protect their crops while helping them achieve a better harvest,” Chen-Charpentier said. “This is good for the farmers’ bottom line, as well as our global addiction to chocolate.”