SB543 was introduced to better protect landowners and align with the language in the property rights constitutional amendment that passed in 2012. The legislation seeks to direct the court to reimburse a plaintiff for the costs of an inverse condemnation proceeding for “damaging” property if a judgment is entered for the plaintiff. Under current law, the court is directed to award compensation only for the “taking” of property. This would make sure that if your farm is damaged by the taking of a property next to you, you will be compensated fairly.

Since the constitutional amendment went into effect, utilities and special interests have tried to maintain that only certain protections for you as a landowner go into effect if your property is completely taken. Virginia law is clear that a jury may award you compensation if you can prove that an eminent domain project caused damage to your farm. SB543 was crucial as several large condemnation projects are set to get underway soon!

An important part of the grain supply chain is farmers’ sale of those commodities. Profits are made through timely decisions on how and where to market crops, and the VFBF grain division helps with those sales. The program, which is approaching its 45th year, connects Virginia grain producers with buyers and markets.

“I work with about 17 buyers and dump trucks at 25 destinations to try and figure out what the best net price is,” explained Robert Harper, VFBF grain manager. “My job is to help farmers get the best prices for their grains.”

“Farmers in the late 1960s wanted access to more markets. They solicited $65,000 from 311 members in 22 counties to fund the first grain manager position at Farm Bureau,” explained Harper, who is the fifth grain manager. He works closely with a senior agriculture market analyst and accounting staff. Farm Bureau also offers its members access to a broker to hedge and to buy and sell options on their production.

When the division began, very few farmers had semi-trucks to move grain to destination markets. Farm Bureau gave them access to trucks and developed better basis prices—the difference between the futures market and the local cash price—by pooling bushels for members.

Harper, a former Virginia Cooperative Extension agent, has been selling grain for producers since 2014. He acts as a hub to connect producers with buyers and carriers.

“Some producers choose to have grain or beans picked up at the farm, and some choose to deliver themselves. Producers appreciate this flexibility,” he said.

Contact Harper at 804-290-1105.

Authored by Dr. Frank Mitloehner, professor and air-quality specialist at the University of California-Davis, the paper identifies energy production and cars, not cows, as the largest U.S. contributors of greenhouse gases that are believed to drive climate change.

Mitloehner’s paper is a response to claims that livestock production is to blame for the lion’s share of U.S. contributions to total GHG emissions. The paper reveals that the U.S. livestock sector contributes 4 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 27 percent from the transportation sector and 31 percent from the energy sector.

Mitloehner does not underestimate the need to control livestock emissions, but he does point out that, in the past six decades, “the U.S. livestock sector has shown considerable progress to continually reduce its environmental footprint.”

In fact, since the 1950s the carbon footprint of the U.S. beef and dairy sector has continued to shrink as production increased or stayed the same.

A progress report comparing beef production from 1977 to 2007 found that industry’s carbon footprint was reduced by 16 percent over the past 30 years.

“The U.S. livestock farms have the lowest carbon footprint per unit of livestock product produced compared to livestock farms in other countries,” Banks said. “U.S. livestock farms employ technology and improved genetics and management that improve the production efficiency; in turn that reduces environmental impacts for air, soil and water.”

It is time, Mitloehner wrote, “to end the rhetoric and separate facts from fiction around the numerous sectors that contribute emissions and to identify solutions for the global food supply.”

The full white paper is available at afia.org/rc_files/801/livestocks_contribution_to_climate_change_facts_and_fiction.pdf.