Dairy Funding for Cattle Disease and Assisting Specialty Crop Exports

**The National Milk Producers Federation received funding from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to help with projects designed to advance cattle disease preparedness.

The first will expand on the National Dairy Farmers Assuring Responsible Management Biosecurity Program.

The FARM program provides dairy farmers with tools to protect their herd and employees from everyday and foreign animal diseases.

The second will bring together stakeholders to implement a foot-and-mouth disease diagnostic.

**USDA Undersecretary, Alexis Taylor announced funding for the first five projects under the new Assisting Specialty Crop Export initiative.

The initiative is designed to create more and better markets at home and abroad for U.S. producers and agribusinesses.

The partnership between USDA and the specialty crops sector will focus on addressing non-tariff trade barriers that hinder U.S. exports of fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, horticultural crops, and other products.

**The National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau led a coalition of over 900 ag groups in supporting a federal fix to California’s Prop 12 in the next farm bill.

In a letter to House Ag leadership, the coalition highlighted several problems, including marketplace mayhem, despite a warming from Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Without congressional action, the letter warns producers are “at risk” of arbitrary and conflicting state laws in all 50 states.