Sheep have taken over the job of lawnmowers and maintenance workers in parts of Turin, Italy, according to Ananova news service. But in some cases city police are having to do shepherd’s work moving the sheep along traffic lanes from city lawn to lawn.

The city is employing about 700 sheep keep grass verges and lawns in city parks neatly trimmed. Environment officials in Turin said they were spending about $48,000 a year to cut the grass for just one of the bigger city parks. Now their lawn mowers do not require gasoline and the “mowers” can be sold at the end of the grass cutting season to bring money in to the city coffers.

Some complaints have been lodged. Drivers don’t like the sheep roadblocks when the flock is being moved, and park visitors complain about the fertilizer left behind by the grazing lawnmowers.

Forecasts for this growing season show corn production down from last year, even with heavy biofuels subsidies going to corn producers, according to the Texas Cattle Feeders Association newsletter. The National Agriculture Statistics Service reports that farmers plan 86 million acres of corn this year, an 8 percent drop from last year. The recently released report has already caused a rise in corn on May futures to a record $6 per bushel.

Some of that corn acreage will go to soybeans, according to NASS, as soybean acreage is projected to increase 18 percent to 74.8 million acres. Wheat acreage is up 6 percent, currently 63.8 million acres.

The United States has about 134 ethanol production plants in service, compared to 68 plants five years ago in 2003, according to an article on the Green Car Congress website. U.S. ethanol plants produced 1.9 billion gallons of ethanol during the first quarter of 2008, according to Bentek Energy, L.L.C., an energy market watch firm. In the first quarter of 2007 production was 517 million gallons less, so this year’s numbers are way up, about 37 percent.