
AgTech Week brings pitch competition for startups, discussions on biomanufacturing to Champaign-Urbana
AgTech Week is a celebration of Champaign-Urbana’s ag tech industry.

AgTech Week is a celebration of Champaign-Urbana’s ag tech industry.

U.S. soybean farmers this fall had faced the grim reality of losing their largest foreign buyer, until President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping struck a deal last week.

Scientists and seed companies are working on shrinking corn. The subtle difference in height has led to some big changes in how shorter corn can be planted and managed in the Corn Belt.

The Trump administration is promising billions in a bailout for farmers. This harvest season the trade war with China has added to the farm economy’s woes, as producers deal with lower crop prices and high costs.

China typically buys close to half of the soybeans grown in the U.S. But the ongoing trade war means farmers in the Midwest must consider other options — and none are as profitable.

The program previously had its funding cut by the Trump administration. An anonymous $1 million donation will help keep the lab running.

Farmers are planning on putting fewer acres of soybeans in the ground this spring amid retaliatory tariffs from China and higher production costs.

For his second term, Trump proposed various tariffs on the campaign trail and after his election, including a 60% tariff increase on Chinese imports and an additional 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico.

Many economists and commodity groups say import taxes on products from countries such as China, Mexico and Canada could boomerang and harm U.S. agriculture.

GIBSON CITY – In August, nine inches of rain dumped on one of Randy Aberle’s fields of corn and soybeans near Gibson City, Illinois. “We had some areas in those fields that the water was four feet deep,” he says. Luckily, he says, those fields have enough slope that the water drained off within a

It’s been almost ten months since the signing of the first phase of a trade agreement between the United States and China. In the lofty deal, China…