Featured
Safety exemptions for livestock haulers raise concerns for others on the road
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Exemptions for livestock haulers are designed to protect animals but come at a time when large-truck-related fatalities have been increasing.
Opinion
Opinion: Supreme Court needs to rule in favor of SNAP data transparency
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The Food Marketing Institute is trying to conceal how taxpayer dollars are being spent by recipients of the Supplemental Food Assistance Program. To date it’s been an almost eight-year court battle between South Dakota's Argus Leader newspaper and USDA and FMI.
University of Illinois
Scientists engineer shortcut for photosynthetic glitch, boost crop growth by 40 percent
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Researchers from the University of Illinois and U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service report in the journal Science that crops engineered with a photorespiratory shortcut are 40 percent more productive in real-world agronomic conditions.
Food for thought
Opinion: Don’t expect full resolution of U.S-China trade war in March
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When it comes to China rarely are things as they seem, there is no deal till there is a deal, and even after the ink dries China is fully capable of ignoring what they promised if it suits their national interests.
Government
Years later, little action on recommendations for Iowa’s pesticide inspections
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Problems the Iowa State Auditor’s office identified in a 2012 audit and subsequent reports and recommendations for investigating Iowa’s pesticide use violations still linger years later.
Opinion
Opinion: Ag blazing 5 for 2019 (and beyond)
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Breaking out major prognostic tools (including an 8-ball, Ouija board, paper fortune teller and dart board...yeah we're high tech around here) here are some of the big agricultural issues on the horizon for 2019.
Agribusiness
Federal judge strikes Iowa ‘ag-gag’ Law
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A federal judge has struck down as unconstitutional a 2012 Iowa law that banned undercover recording at agricultural production facilities in the state, saying the law’s primary aim is curbing speech critical of practices at those facilities.
Government
USDA rural broadband investment tops $200 million in 2018
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The USDA has announced plans for a pilot program to bring broadband internet to all of rural America.
The plan, which Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue calls a “proof of concept,” will provide $600 million dollars in grants and loans to internet service providers to bring connection to parts of the country that are too remote, underpopulated or expensive to serve.
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Lawsuit challenges rule easing environmental reviews for animal confinements
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A dozen grassroots organizations have challenged a USDA rule change that would make medium-sized animal confinements exempt from environmental review before receiving government-backed loans from the Farm Services Agency.
USDA to reduce work exemptions for some SNAP recipients
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The USDA wants to tighten work requirements for 2.8 million Americans receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.
The proposed rule change was announced Thursday, the morning President Donald Trump signed a Farm Bill that notably left out changes to SNAP.
Agribusiness
The air they breathe
The Trump administration bowed to livestock-industry pressure, and made it harder for neighbors of CAFOs to learn what pollutants they're inhaling.
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Recent actions by the GOP-controlled Congress and the Trump administration have exempted big livestock farms from reporting air emissions. The moves follow a decade-long push by the livestock industry for exemption and leave neighbors of large-scale operations in the dark about what they’re inhaling. If that weren’t enough, environmental advocates warn that the failure to monitor those emissions makes it even harder to assess the climate effects of large-scale agriculture.