By Sarah Fielder
Crop Insurance Deadline is Approaching This is a reminder for Delmarva producers that the spring planted crops sales closing date for crop insurance is on March 15. Coverage for corn, cucumbers, forage seeding, fresh market sweet corn, fresh market tomatoes, grain sorghum, processing beans, processing sweet corn, processing tomatoes, soybeans, spring oats, and tobacco is available in select counties in Maryland. Producers should contact their crop insurance agent before the sales closing date to change coverage levels or buy coverage for the first time. To find a crop insurance agent see, https://prodwebnlb.rma.usda.gov/apps/AgentLocator/. To learn more about crop insurance, check out the University of Maryland’s crop insurance outreach page, http://go.umd.edu/CropIns.
Monsanto’s Challenge to Arkansas Dicamba Ban Dismissed An Arkansas state court judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Monsanto against the state’s Plant Board decision to ban Monsanto’s VaporGrip dicamba. The judge agreed with the state that sovereign immunity prevented the Plant Board from being a defendant in this case. To learn more about this case, http://bit.ly/2ojbphk.
ADM and Syngenta Agree to Settlement Over Viptera Lawsuit In regulatory documents filed last week, Syngenta has disclosed that it filed a lawsuit with ADM over the Viptera corn seeds that Syngenta released prior to being approved in China. The settlement was reached in December and comes after a proposed settlement reached with corn growers in the U.S. in September of 2017. No details have been released on either settlement, but to learn more, click here http://reut.rs/2oi1996.
Is it Natural? Consumers, and Lawyers, Want to Know? Consumers, increasingly wary of products that are overly processed or full of manufactured chemicals, are paying premium prices for natural goods, from fruit juices and cereals to shampoos and baby wipes. But as a spate of lawsuits and consumer advocacy efforts show, one person’s “natural” is another person’s methylisothiazolinone. To read the full article, click here: http://nyti.ms/2EOhtbd
Register today for March Advanced GAP and FSMA trainings: Advanced Good Agricultural Practices Training, March 12, Maryland Department of Agriculture, Annapolis, Maryland. For more information and to register, click here: http://bit.ly/2ojbpy5
FSMA Combined Produce Safety and Preventive Control Rules Training From March 19-22, at Western Maryland Research and Education Center, Keedysville, Maryland. For more information and to register, click here: http://bit.ly/2HB7a8S