4-H CANADA REBRANDING UNDERWAY WITH NEW LOGO . . . DAIRY PRICES HIT SIX-YEAR LOW – BUT MILK POWDER STABILIZES . . . THE BUZZ ABOUT BLUEBERRY POLLINATION . . . ONCE AND FUTURE NUT: HOW GENETIC ENGINEERING MAY BRING BACK CHESTNUTS . . . NOVA SCOTIA RURAL SCHOOL CLOSURES THREATEN COMMUNITIES, SAY RESIDENTS . . .  OTHER NEWS OF INTEREST...

4-H CANADA REBRANDING UNDERWAY WITH NEW LOGO
Source: FCC 4-H Canada has a new logo. The 102-year-old youth development organization unveiled the update – the first in more than 50 years – at its annual general meeting in Fredericton, N.B., on June 11. Sporting a maple leaf at its centre, the new logo is part of a major rebranding for 4-H Canada to make it more relevant to today’s youth. “Agriculture has changed dramatically since 1913, and so has 4-H,” says Shannon Benner, chief executive officer of 4-H Canada. “We need to talk to young people today in the language that they speak and the brand is part of packaging 4-H to this generation of young people.” (read more)

DAIRY PRICES HIT SIX-YEAR LOW – BUT MILK POWDER STABILIZES
Source: The Bullvine
Dairy prices fell to a fresh six-year low at GlobalDairyTrade auction, amid continued doubts over demand, although there were signs of stabilization in the important milk powder market.
The GlobalDairyTrade index, which is based on prices paid at its bi-monthly dairy auctions, fell 1.3 percent from the last trading event to its lowest level since July 2009. Prices of anhydrous milk fat led the retreat, falling by 8.9 percent. The decline at the auction, run by the New Zealand milk giant Fonterra, was the seventh in a row – a spree in which prices have slumped by 30 percent – and chimed with continuing pessimism in the dairy market. (read more)

THE BUZZ ABOUT BLUEBERRY POLLINATION
Source: West Prince Graphic
With blueberries in bloom beekeepers do their final touches before moving them for pollination. The benefit is two-fold: blueberry growers depend on pollination while beekeepers supplement their income and can harvest honey by moving their beehives into the blueberry fields. Ken Peters, a beekeeper located on the O’Leary Road currently runs a 35-hive operation, or, at least, that is the number he put into pollination. Ken’s Honey Bee Farm lost 22 hives over the winter with a few more being too weak to survive and had to be combined with other hives. (read more)

ONCE AND FUTURE NUT: HOW GENETIC ENGINEERING MAY BRING BACK CHESTNUTS
Source: NPR One of the great autumn pastimes of the 1800s was nutting – where families, friends, and farmers went around clubbing stately chestnut trees, or shimmying up 100-foot tall trunks to pound the branches. A fusillade of nuts would fall to the ground and be scooped up instantly, to be transformed into pan-fried bread, porridge, pickles, preserves, cream pie – and countless other nutritious favorites of colonial times. Then, in the early 1900s, a plague decimated American chestnut trees. The deadly fungus, known as blight, caught a ride to the U.S. on a much smaller and fungus-resistant Chinese chestnut. The stately, soaring American tree was utterly vulnerable. Almost overnight, a quarter of our Eastern forests – 4 billion trees – vanished and with the trees went a nut that for centuries had nourished wildlife and humans alike. (read more)

NOVA SCOTIA RURAL SCHOOL CLOSURES THREATEN COMMUNITIES, SAY RESIDENTS
Source: CBC.ca
Provincial politicians need to take risks and jump on board with more innovative and entrepreneurial ideas if Nova Scotia is to thrive, says an expert in community development and social policy. "We have to figure out how to do way more, so that we don't have way less. That means we have to say yes to a lot more things and we have to be creative in developing a lot more things that fit the place we are and want to be," said Mark Austin. (read more)