Agriculture

Congress kicked the can down the road by failing to negotiate a new farm bill last year. The bill has been extended through the end of September, but experts say it won’t be easy for lawmakers to approve a new plan. During his 30 years of farming, Mark Recker has seen a lot of farm…

A U.S. Department of Agriculture report found “socially disadvantaged producers,” especially Black farmers, operate at a higher risk level compared to their white counterparts and are less likely to receive government payments. A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found farms operated by socially disadvantaged producers are more likely to be at high risk…

Back when Kelly Roberts was a kid during the 1970s, her family would scout their northeastern Oklahoma pasture every year, looking for the perfect eastern redcedar for their Christmas tree. “I remember traipsing across the pasture and there were very few,” Roberts said. “So we would have to walk a while before we would find…

The agriculture department’s annual projections show a slowing economy and lower crop prices for the upcoming year. The USDA also looks ahead to the next decade, showing rising crop yields but a competitive job market. Both inflation and interest rates will slow in 2024, according to preliminary projections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, while…

Deep in northern Michigan’s Huron-Manistee National Forest, the air reverberates with the sound of a tree harvester picking up fully grown jack-pines out of the ground like toothpicks. Once the trees are lifted, the machine, known as a forwarder, slices the tree into logs in less than a minute. “It cuts the trees to a…

A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that the population in rural areas is on the rise after a decade of decline. Parts of the Midwest and Great Plains saw increases, but not as much as in some other U.S. regions. Brad Gabel, a native of California, came up with the perfect…

Chris Gloninger was excited to start his new job as chief meteorologist at KCCI, a TV station in Des Moines, when he moved to Iowa from Boston in 2021. Gloninger had extensive experience — more than 15 years in TV meteorology, which included a regional Emmy-award winning weekly series on climate change. He looked forward…

Over 100 billion pounds of food goes to waste every year in America. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm to Food Bank is trying to cut down on that waste by connecting local farmers and food pantries, but it’s future depends on how much funding is included for the program in the next farm bill. Volunteers…

Farmers got a slightly smaller percentage of what consumers spent on food last year than the year before, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In most cases, Thanksgiving staples return cents on the dollar to farmers. Farmers received less than 15 cents for every dollar spent on food in…

Drought has affected several pumpkin-producing states, including Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. But rain arrived at the right time to produce a bumper crop in parts of the Midwest. John Ackerman says his pumpkin crop was a good one this year, despite the fact his fields saw no measurable rainfall for weeks in the late spring…