Turkey and chicken producers say they’ve adopted stricter biosecurity measures since 2015, when highly pathogenic avian influenza was responsible for 9 million bird deaths in Minnesota.
Minnesota farmers and ranchers still reeling from last summer's drought are asking the Legislature for urgency on relief, though lawmakers on either side of the aisle have yet to agree on what a final package should look like.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has created turmoil in farm commodity markets and left farmers, grain traders and agricultural economists trying to predict the effects on the international food system.
Farms that raise turkeys and chickens for meat and eggs are on high alert and taking steps to increase biosecurity, fearing a repeat of a widespread bird flu outbreak in 2015 that killed 50 million birds across 15 states and cost the federal government nearly $1 billion.
Minnesota is the leading producer of turkeys in the country, producing more than 40 million birds a year. Millions of poultry on Minnesota farms died as the result of an influenza outbreak in 2015.
An ambitious new study aims to track the effects of regenerative agriculture on 1,000 farms across the country. Regenerative agriculture is a set of farming practices focusing on soil health and enhanced biodiversity.
Pat and Madeline Revier run Revier Family Farms in Moorhead, Minn., where they raise over a million crickets for human and animal consumption. They told host Cathy Wurzer about their story and the versatility and sustainability of crickets as a protein source, and they even shared a recipe for chocolate chip cookies — made with cricket flour.
Animal health officials say a strain of avian flu confirmed in a commercial turkey flock in southern Minnesota does not pose a risk to the public and there are no food safety concerns for consumers.
With the drought and the COVID-19 pandemic, it's been a tough year for Minnesota farmers. Rodrigo Cala of the Latino Economic Development Center, a partner in a new Minnesota Department of Agriculture mental health initiative, spoke to Cathy Wurzer about stress among Latino farmers.
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