“It is abundantly clear that getting vaccinated is the single most effective thing we can do to protect ourselves, our families, and our communities,” CEO Donnie King said in a memo to employees. Tyson Foods is incentivizing workers with a $200 bonus to do so, on top of the already established policy of providing up to four hours of pay for getting vaccinated outside of work.

This survey, which sampled over 1,380 adults living in all US states and the District of Columbia during the current survey set, began in 1973 during the Watergate scandal. Since 1993, Gallup has tracked 14 core institutions and the public’s confidence. During the last 15 years, confidence has remained below 36%. Before 2006, confidence was typically above 40%.

The NASEM are private, nonprofit institutions that provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation to resolve complications and inform public policy decisions related to science, technology, and medicine. They operate under an 1863 congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

The report addresses our physical understanding of the climate system and climate change, using the latest scientific advances and evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, global and regional climate simulations. This report also details how human influence has affected the climate over time.

"Life expectancy has been increasing gradually every year for the past several decades," Elizabeth Arias, a CDC researcher who worked on the report, told Reuters. "The decline between 2019 and 2020 was so large that it took us back to the levels we were in 2003. Sort of like we lost a decade."

After the disappointing rejection from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had denied the petition from the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) to rescind California’s Proposition 12 (Prop 12) as unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause.

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) are advising Massachusetts to defer implementation of the Act to Prevent Cruelty to Farm Animals (the Act). With just five months until enforcement, NPPC and NAMI state that the Attorney General for the state is 19 months late in providing rules and regulations for the Act to farmers and producers.

The Exposing Agricultural Trade Suppression Act (EATS Act) was introduced as a rebuttal to California’s Proposition 12 (Prop 12), a policy that would establish minimum space requirements for breeding pigs, calves raised for veal, and egg-laying hens within the state. It also bans the sale of pork, veal, and eggs from animals raised elsewhere if their living conditions do not meet California’s standards.

The Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) lost the challenge they brought against the Beef Checkoff. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed the constitutionality of the program. R-CALF claimed the program violated the First Amendment.

Tom Vilsack, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Secretary of Agriculture announced that the USDA will provide $67 million in competitive loans through the new Heirs’ Property Relending Program (HPRP), aimed to help agricultural producers and landowners resolve heirs’ land ownership and succession issues, specifically in minority communities.

A study recently published in the Journal of Animal Science aimed to evaluate the effects of increasing levels of β-glucanase on the modulation of jejunal mucosa-associated microbiota in relation to nutrient digestibility and intestinal health of pigs fed diets with 30% corn distiller’s dried grains with solubles and xylanase. A recent study, Chen et al. (2020) evaluated the effects of increasing levels of xylanase on intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs and demonstrated that xylanase effectively enhanced intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs.

Historically, rye has not been used in swine diets due to ergot contamination and high concentrations of antinutritional factors. However, new hybrid varieties offer a reduction in ergot contamination and antinutritional factors. Recent research has compared hybrid rye to barley, wheat, and soybean meal when fed to sows; however, no data compares it to corn diets.

Manganese (Mn) is an essential element used as a cofactor for enzymes involved in synthesizing cholesterol, which is the precursor for producing steroid hormones necessary for proper reproductive function.

Energy is the most expensive component of swine diets; thus, optimizing energy utilization is needed to reduce costs. One way to maximize utilization is matching dietary energy supply to its requirements by pigs. Energy values of certain feedstuffs are critical to making this match. In North America, canola meal, field pea, and wheat millrun (WE) are alternatives to soybean meal (SBM) and cereal grain.

Optimizing the survivability of pigs is crucial for both animal welfare and the productivity of farms. Typically, up to a third of pigs do not survive to harvesting. Survivability is poorest from birth to postweaning and various factors such as environment, infection and other external stressors can impact morbidity and mortality.

Hot carcass weight (HCW) and birth weight (BW) are two heritable traits that are of high value in commercial pig breeding. These traits are valuable because they are needed to calculate accurate predictive breeding values.

The source of trace minerals in animal feed may impact its digestibility. In this recent study published in the Journal of Animal Science, researchers compared the neutral detergent fiber (NDF) digestibility of hydroxy trace minerals (HTMs) and sulfate trace minerals (STM) in steers. They hypothesized that the source of trace minerals would impact both digestibility and rumen fermentation. They also hypothesized that ruminal soluble concentrations of minerals would differ based on trace mineral source.

Heat stress has had significant adverse effects on the swine industry, including infertility in sows, characterized by anestrus, increased wean-to-estrus interval. However, heat stress is not limited to lactation. It may also affect a sow during gestation, causing increased embryo mortality, reduced farrowing rate, reduced litter size and weight, and an increased number of stillborn piglets.

Guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) is a naturally occurring precursor to creatine and is an important fuel source for muscle; therefore, it can improve the performance of growing cattle. Scientists believe the mechanism by which performance is enhanced includes increases in IGF-1 serum and feed conversions.

Crossbreeding, genetically crossing purebred lines to improve the performance of the progeny, is widely practiced in pig and poultry production. However, this practice is made more challenging because the selection practices occur on purebred lines, but the performance improvements are measured in the crossbred offspring. The genetic correlation between purebred and crossbred performance can be predicted, meaning a breeding value can be calculated for crossbred animals.