Governor Terry McAuliffe is heading up a delegation of Virginia economic development officials on a three-day trade and marketing mission to Mexico May 1-4, 2017.

Drew Van Hook, manager and instructor at Silver Eagle Stable in Nokesville, said horses experience many of the same emotions as do humans: happiness, sadness, fear, anxiety, anger. They also behave differently when they're ill. Pet owners recognize their dogs' and cats' dispositions because they live together but how do equestrians know what their horses are feeling?

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will conduct its March Agricultural Survey on more than 1,600 farmers in Virginia to determine their plans for the upcoming growing season. The survey will ask producers to provide information about the types of crops they intend to plant in 2017, how many acres they intend to plant, and the amounts of grain and oilseed they store on their farms.

Cassidy Rasnick has been appointed Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry for Virginia, according to a blog report from the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation.

In 2015, a strain of avian influenza resulted in economic losses of more than a billion dollars and led to the death of 50 million chickens and turkeys in the upper Midwest. That same strain, H5N2, was detected in a wild duck in Montana-wild waterfowl are known carriers of avian influenza.

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is surveying 900+ cattle operations in Virginia to provide an up-to-date measure of cattle inventories, Survey results are due out on Jan. 31.

"We urge everyone who puts up a cut Christmas tree to water it daily and then take it down right after the holidays," says Mike Curtis, NOVEC vice president, Public Relations. "The longer it stays up, the drier it becomes, and the more dangerous."

The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS) recently completed the 2016 cotton boll weevil survey and detected no weevils in Virginia. The destructive pest was first detected in the state in 1922.