Agriculture

WASHINGTON — Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack has emerged as a leading candidate for secretary of agriculture in the Biden administration, reprising a role he held under President Barack Obama, according to people familiar with the nomination process. The people said that while Vilsack... Read More

WASHINGTON - House Democrats made history on Thursday when the caucus voted to make Reps. Gregory Meeks, of New York, and David Scott, of Georgia, the first African-Americans to chair, respectively, the chamber's Foreign Affairs and Agriculture Committees. Meeks, who... Read More

WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., announced in a release that the U.S. House of Representatives passed a critically needed fix to the 2018 Water Resources Development Act that would... Read More

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- The Washington State Department of Commerce has announced $300,000 is available for grants to shellfish growers impacted by declining exports and restaurant sales due to COVID-19.  Local and global market demand for Washington’s world-renowned shellfish has dropped... Read More

On Wednesday, Rep. Antonio Delgado, D-N.Y., was honored by the American Farm Bureau Federation with their prestigious “Friend of Farm Bureau” award, an honor bestowed on lawmakers in recognition of their agricultural efforts for their farming communities. To receive the... Read More

WASHINGTON – United States Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., received the “Friend of Farm Bureau” award from the American Farm Bureau Federation on Tuesday.  Spanberger, who serves on the House Agriculture Committee and as chair of the Subcommittee on Conservation and... Read More

WASHINGTON – Last year, roughly 10.5% of all U.S. households lacked access to enough food for “an active, healthy life for all household members,” according to a report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service. This figure is down slightly from... Read More

As the pandemic shut down restaurants this spring, California farmers and ranchers saw their markets drop by half, leaving many with fields full of crops but no buyers. And as millions of people lost their jobs, the state’s food banks... Read More

MIAMI — Decorative landscaping in the early 1900s introduced a new shrub to Florida whose young leaves were pink and whose berries were a deep purple. The plant, called shoebutton ardisia, started invading forests and wetlands within decades. It continues... Read More

NEW YORK - The Rockefeller Foundation has published a paper calling for immediate action to reform the U.S. food system. Amid the pandemic and deep economic downturn the country is facing, food insecurity has escalated, particularly among Black, Indigenous and... Read More

NORTH JEOLLA PROVINCE, South Korea — It wasn’t yet 9 a.m., but Promdeth Phonsrikaew stood sweat-soaked in the field. He was in his third hour of picking tobacco, beginning shortly after dawn at the foot of a mountain in a... Read More

Richard Oswald, still mourning the loss of his family’s homestead to flooding along the Missouri River, is planting corn and soybeans into ground that last year was feet deep underwater. It’s probably good, he said, to not have too much... Read More

When the coronavirus started shutting down livestock markets, Darvin Bentlage knew his farm would take a hit. Springtime cattle sales usually bring in about a third of his ranching income, and cattle prices were already at a low, he said. ... Read More

WASHINGTON — What’s milk? For Jason Gallion, the only full-time farmer serving in the Maryland state Senate, the question is a no-brainer. “It’s always been assumed the definition of milk is that it’s from a mammal,” said Gallion, 43, whose... Read More

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s been more than 91 years since the last crop was pulled from the soil of an old farm field that, hidden away in a science reserve just north of the Twin Cities, has been left to grow... Read More

New federal regulations would make it harder for hemp growers to prove their plants are not marijuana, in what could be a major setback to a promising industry legalized just two years ago, farmers and state officials say. The U.S.... Read More

WASHINGTON - In a strong show of bipartisan cooperation just hours after they were at each other's throats over the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Democrats and Republicans threw their support behind a new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.... Read More

WASHINGTON — Moving to offset the impact his trade war has had on rural America, President Donald Trump has bypassed Congress to send some $20 billion in aid to farmers, mostly going to a bundle of states that are essential... Read More

PHOENIX, Ore. — Ajit Singh strode across his 16-acre hemp field toward a broken-down harvester. He’d been hoping all day that the mechanic now crouched beside the machine could get it back up and running. It was late October and... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House Problem Solvers Caucus, a group dedicated to finding bipartisan consensus on important issues, has endorsed a bill to extend earned visa status to individuals who can show they've been regularly employed as an agricultural laborer in... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal employees overseeing public lands in the U.S. were assaulted or threatened at least 360 times over a five-year period ending in 2017, a sign of increased tensions between the employees and anti-government groups, the Government Accountability Office... Read More

Mark Tuttle cuts straight to the point when describing the field and weather conditions he has faced this year on his farm in southern DeKalb County. “In one word, I’d say: ‘miserable,’ ” said Tuttle, who grows corn, soybeans and... Read More

TERRA BELLA, Calif. — It was 2015 and, as far as John Konda knew, farming still had a viable future in the San Joaquin Valley. So he expanded. The Tulare County grower planted 75 acres of pistachios, adding to a... Read More

WASHINGTON - A provision in the Justice Department’s annual funding bill is likely to alter the criminal liability risks for sellers and handlers of cannabis products. Ten states have authorized limited sales of the psychoactive drug for recreation, despite the... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced Thursday that it is repealing an  Obama-era clean water rule that had placed limits on polluting chemicals that could be used near streams, wetlands and other bodies of water. According to the Environmental Protection... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the media and general public are not entitled to every bit of information a government body collects about private businesses. The underlying case came to the high court from South Dakota... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration would exempt many new genetically engineered crops from regulation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under a broad overhaul of biotechnology rules announced on Wednesday. The overhaul, which the department said would cut the cost... Read More

CHICAGO — On a winding road on the outskirts of a small Rust Belt town in eastern Indiana, a fish hatchery is poised to raise the country’s first genetically engineered animal approved for human consumption by the U.S. Food and... Read More

WASHINGTON — Agriculture interests this year have successfully lobbied for a host of new state laws to protect farms from litigation over foul smells, loud noises and declining water quality. The push comes after years of nuisance lawsuits the agriculture... Read More

WASHINGTON — Officials in California are crying foul over a Trump administration plan to slash firefighting assistance payments to the state, which could amount to millions of dollars in lost income for fire departments. The U.S. Forest Service, in turn,... Read More