Ahead of Tuesday's scheduled markup, the Senate Ag Committee has released a draft of its proposed farm bill. American Soybean Association President Danny Murphy welcomed the draft, saying, "Importantly, the draft released by the Committee would protect and strengthen crop insurance as well as ensure that a target price program to protect growers from low prices remains decoupled from current planting decisions, thus avoiding the possibility of production distortions.

Senator Chuck Grassley is pressing the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Trade Representative to engage U.S. trading partners in high-level discussions on breaking down barriers to biotechnology. Grassley is the former Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over international trade policy.

The Minnesota 4-H Foundation and University of Minnesota Extension are pleased to announce the 2013 Andrea Ruesch Regional 4-H Scholarship recipients. Congratulations to eight scholarship recipients, who received a $1,000 scholarship apiece:

On May 11th, letter carriers across the country (both for city and rural areas) will be collecting food for families in need as part of the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive, benefiting Minnesota families in need through Second Harvest Heartland. Stamp Out Hunger is the largest single-day food drive in the country.

How can you help out? Easy: collect non-perishable food items in a bag and leave it by your mailbox on May 11th.

Students in two programs at Iowa Lakes Community College are benefiting from a partnership with an area business. Spencer International worked with college faculty to provide the Farm Equipment and Diesel Technology students an opportunity to assemble and set-up a new Kinze planter, which enhances hands-on learning.

For several months, anyone was invited to nominate a farm mom who he or she believed made an impact in their community. American Agri-Women and Monsanto were tasked with narrowing it down from nation-wide submissions and have selected five final regional winners. Each regional winner was awarded $5,000 in cash from Monsanto.

Congratulations to the 2013 regional winners:

Minnesota Farmers Union (MFU) recently held its inaugural Women’s Leadership Conference titled Energizing Women and Growing Our Leadership.

Women are, and have always been, an integral part of the farm and this conference brought women from all across Minnesota together to tap into the leadership skills they already possess from working on the farm, and learning how to use those skills in their community, as well as meet and greet other women to share ideas and stories.

Tuesday evening saw the wrap-up of the 84th Minnesota State FFA Convention held at the University of Minnesota. Several local FFA chapters brought the heat to the State FFA Convention, combining their experiences and knowledge in order to WIN State FFA in several CDEs! Congratulations to the following teams:

Minnesota Soybean's newest issues video, featuring well-known outdoorsman, Ron Schara, shows consumers what farmers are doing to protect Minnesota land and water resources. Non-farmers are increasingly generations removed from farming, and may be concerned by the flood of messages regarding the impact of agriculture on water quality. Farming is just one of many human activities that can influence water quality. Farmers manage a lot of land, so they have more influence than most, but they also know and care more about it, and are actually doing more about it than most.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Des Moines Register he would give up part of his salary if the department were forced to furlough employees as part of government-wide across-the-board spending reductions known as sequestration.

“I’ve indicated that early in the process,” Vilsack said in an interview. “We’ll be doing what we have to do.” All cabinet secretaries make just under $200,000 a year.