The Virginia Agriculture Leaders Obtaining Results (VALOR) program, the commonwealth’s premier agriculture-leadership training program, celebrated the graduation of its third class of leadership fellows at the Hotel Roanoke on July 14.
The program, which is housed at Virginia Tech within the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is also preparing to welcome its fourth class of fellows, and has announced the names of those invited to begin this fall.
The Cohort III fellows, who engaged in a service project and professional development activities during the past two years, enjoyed an evening reception and dinner ceremony at the historic hotel and closed their fellowship experience with an alumni networking brunch. Each reminisced about experiences and knowledge gained throughout the program.
The theme of this year’s Virginia Ag Expo on Aug. 2 is “Utilizing Precision Agriculture to Manage Challenges.”
On July 10-12, a group of Farm Bureau Young Farmers from Southwest Virginia took on Washington, D.C. to meet with Congressmen and organizations such as National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Animal Ag Alliance, and BIO. We spent July 11th on Capitol Hill, meeting with Congressman Garrett and Congressman Griffith.
National grain supplies are stockpiled, which means lower profits for Virginia grain producers.
The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) Regional Animal Health Laboratory in Harrisonburg recently was certified to perform screening testing for the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) virus in animals. Because of this new capability, the lab, which is part of a network operated by VDACS, will perform a valuable early warning function for the detection of Foreign Animal Diseases, including FMD.
Below are two Action Alerts concerning FDA proposals, which if ever enacted, would have major negative implications on tobacco production here. At the very least, the manner in which tobacco is grown and marketed would change significantly.
With passage last week of the Senate farm bill, the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (S. 3042), congressional lawmakers are expected to soon head to conference to iron out the differences between the House and Senate legislation. The House passed its version of the bill, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2), on June 21.
