Ag News: Early Cattle Grazing and Crop Insurance Fraud

**The annual movement of cattle to summer grazing pastures is starting earlier than usual as California’s unrelenting drought dries up winter forage lands.

It’s part of the costly challenges facing ranchers faced with diminishing grazing lands, and paying a premium to buy and deliver hay.

With spiking fuel costs and mounting time pressures, their costs are also soaring for lining up trucks to transport livestock to still-serviceable summer pasture areas.

**The White House released its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Rural Playbook designed to help local, state, tribal, and territorial governments in rural areas unlock the benefits of investments in the national infrastructure.

The Rural Playbook provides rural communities with information on the “what, when, where, and how to apply” for funding under the law, making lobbying unnecessary.

**A crop insurance fraud case totaling $40 million dollars led to 23 people charged and 17 others paying penalties.

DTN says the case began in 2014 at the USDA’s Inspector General Office after tips of alleged fraud at Clay’s Tobacco Warehouse in Kentucky.

The defendants are accused of cheating the crop insurance program out of anywhere from under $10,000 to many millions of dollars.

The most common scheme centered around farmers with a good tobacco crop working with insurance agents and adjusters to claim the crop was damaged by storms or pests.