A hearing room packed with raw milk producers and a few of their customers listened to Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture officials propose an overhaul of the state’s milk regulations on Thursday, Oct. 7.
Five PDA officials presented their case to the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission, a five-member group charged with ensuring that new regulations are both legal and effective. In the end, after nearly 4-and-a-half hours of testimony and questions, the IRRC commissioners voted 3-2 to disapprove the PDA’s proposed rule change.
     Commission Chairman Arthur Coccodrilli, a businessman from Peckville, asked the department to try again. The proposed regulations are designed to bring the commonwealth’s rules in sync with those of the majority of other states, a move that one PDA official said was 25 years overdue. Read more at http://www.lancasterfarming.com/1016-Milk-hearing




     The director of the only tractor test lab in the Western Hemisphere will be talking tractor testing at Binkley and Hurst’s annual Customer Classic next 
month. Roger Hoy, director of the Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory, will be making two one-hour presentations each day of the Customer Classic, 
which is being held Nov. 17 and 18 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the dealership in Lititz, Pa.
     The test lab is the country’s only officially designated tractor testing station. Tractors are tested according to the codes of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Twenty-nine other countries adhere to these codes. 
     The lab was started in 1920 after a disgruntled Nebraska farmer found that three tractors he bought did not perform as advertised. According to Hoy, the farmer’s efforts led to the enactment of a state law requiring all tractors be tested on their performance before being sold. Early testing focused on the tractor competing against horse-drawn implements. Things have changed since then. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres prepared a report on the upcoming event for our print edition or the website at http://www.lancasterfarming.com/Tractor-Test-Lab-to-be-Featured-at-Dealer-Event


     Members of the Berks County Livestock Clubs exhibited and sold their 4-H projects at the 2010 Annual Roundup at the Reading Fairgrounds the end 
of September. The sale featured 104 project animals grossed $77,225. For more details and photos check out our print edition or online at 
lancasterfarming.com.  http://www.lancasterfarming.com/Livestock-Sale-Grosses-More-Than--77-000-for-Berks-4-H-Youth


     When Russell Shaw started a small apple orchard 10 feet north of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1909, he had no idea it would still be there 100 years in 
the future. The story of how that initial enterprise grew into a century-old agricultural enterprise is recounted in our current edition by Lancaster Farming correspondent Linda Sarubin. To read the story and see the photos, click here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/Family-Roots-Run-Deep-at-Shaw-Orchards



     Two Pennsylvania cows were named grand champions of their breed recently at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wis. Tex-Star Othello Peri, exhibited by Springville Farm and Fisher of New Enterprise, Pa., took grand champion and best uddered at the International Milking Shorthorn Show and also won the aged cow class. Hard Core Farms of New Enterprise was named premier breeder and premier exhibitor at the Milking Shorthorn show. For the story and photos, see http://www.lancasterfarming.com/Pa--Cows-Take-Honors-at-World-Dairy-Expo