U.S. Department of Agriculture

The Natural Resource Conservation Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is asking for grant proposals that aim to open up access to private land.

Earlier this month, a board was formed for the Wyoming Hemp Association.

The association is comprised of growers, processors, academics and bankers-all the stakeholders in hemp production.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced farmers who lost crops due to the irrigation tunnel collapse in eastern Wyoming are able to use their crop insurance policies.

Earlier this month, the Wyoming Department of Agriculture submitted its application to the federal government outlining the state's plan for regulating hemp growing in the state. Legislation passed this year by lawmakers provided funding to move forward on the plan, but Wyoming's Hemp Program Coordinator Scott McDonald said the U.S. Department of Agriculture won't look at state regulations for the industry until they've finished designing federal rules. 

The city of Cody is now home to Wyoming Legacy Meat, the first USDA-inspected full-service meat processing plant in the state in over 40 years. This will allow more ranchers to market their beef as “grass fed” and “natural” and sell it out of state.

Right now, there are several state-inspected slaughter plants and processors in Wyoming, but that meat can only be sold in-state to a limited market. That’s why most cattle are sold to feedlots, sweeping Wyoming’s beef into the nation’s bulk meat supply. 

Rural Americans are increasingly educated, but compared with urban areas, they lag behind in the number of adults with college degrees, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But in Wyoming, a local researcher has released an online tool to help workers follow educational paths to local employment.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has assigned natural disaster status to Big Horn and Park Counties. An early freeze in September last year significantly damaged farms in the area.

Freezing temperatures hit crops early causing bean, corn and sunflower losses. Park County lost over $7,000,000 of crops while Big Horn County saw more than $3,000,000 of damage.

Gregor Goertz is the Wyoming Farm Service Agency’s Executive Director and says some farmers were hit harder than others.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture starting a program that pays people to deliver dead trees to power plants that can convert them to biomass fuel.  Large swaths of Wyoming’s forests have been killed by pine beetle infestations and some say they pose a fire danger. Todd Atkinson with the Farm Service Agency says he hopes money will give people the incentive to harvest from more remote areas.