Ag News: Alt-meat Industry Booming
**Competition for meat from alternative sources is growing.
Agweb.com reports, the technology is getting better for lab-grown and plant-based protein companies working on different traits including, efficiency, flavor and potentially boosting protein content.
Product development cycles that used to take 7 to 15 years now take 3 to 8 years using editing and A.I. breeding approaches.
Beyond Meat's shares have nearly quadrupled and Impossible Foods raised more than $300 million from private investors since last month.
**Two workshops brought members of the fresh produce and livestock industries together to start a dialogue that could be beneficial in preventing foodborne illness outbreaks.
The Good Ag Neighbors program, a partnership with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the University of California and the FDA, targets learning how produce safety and livestock management practices can work jointly to promote food safety.
The workshops were held this week in Holtville and Stockton, California.
**Cropland harvested in 2018 declined to 312 million acres, the lowest since 2013’s 311 million acres, and 2 million acres less than in 2017.
According to the USDA, a 2-million-acre increase in crop failure due to drought conditions in several areas contributed to the 2018 decline.
Agrimarketing.com reports, land used for cultivated summer fallow, which primarily occurs as part of wheat rotations in the semi-arid West, also increased by 1 million acres to 16 million acres, continuing the reversal, which began in 2017.