Foreign Agricultural Service Administrator Daniel Whitley arrived in Dubai Feb. 15 to launch USDA’s first trade mission since November 2019. Whitley is kicking off the trade mission for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who arrives in the United Arab Emirates on Feb. 18 with a delegation of nearly 40 representatives. (National Hog Farmer)

A new temporary visa program for workers from El Salvador will provide a welcome labor pool for Illinois farms this year. Thanks to a 2020 agreement between the United States and the El Salvador governments, the labor program is set to bring skilled workers to the U.S. for maximum 10-month stretches. (The Center Square)

During Sunday’s showing of America’s biggest football game, Monroe Countians were greeted with a familiar face asking viewers to imagine a future where plastics are not made from petroleum, but corn. (Republic-Times)

Carbon pipeline companies looking to take carbon emissions from ethanol plants and pipe liquid carbon through multiple states are starting to face more organized landowner resistance. (DTN)

To better understand the media coverage about soil conservation practices, researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison used advanced data science methods to collect and analyze online stories about soil conservation from Wisconsin’s most-read agricultural print media outlets: Agri-View, The Country Today, Wisconsin Agriculturalist, and Wisconsin State Farmer. (Wisconsin State Farmer)

Wholesale inflation in the U.S. surged again last month, rising 9.7% from a year earlier, in a sign that price pressures remain high at all levels of the economy. (CBS News)