High-Grade Cropland Gives Way To Urban Growth In Iowa – At Least Where There’s Growth

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Urban expansion, at least in the few areas where Iowa cities are growing, is eating up some of the state’s best farmland. In Ankeny, a central Iowa suburb of Des Moines that a May U.S. Census Bureau report ranked as the nation’s fourth fastest-growing large city from July 2016 to July 2017, much of the land being developed for housing is high quality soil for raising crops, an Iowa State University agronomy department survey shows.

Opinion

Opinion: Smithfield may profit from U.S. China trade war

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Generally speaking, pork barrel politics amounts to politicians trading favors to constituents or special interest groups for political support, often as campaign contributions. Pork barrel spending, better known as earmarks in federal spending bills, have surged in 2018. Who may be profiting this year? Smithfield Foods.

Cargill to pay $1.5 million to settle discrimination charges

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Cargill Meat Solutions, headquartered in Wichita, Kan., has agreed to pay $1.5 million to resolve charges of discrimination investigated by the Denver Field Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency announced today.

Agribusiness

Post merger, Bayer vague on lawsuit strategy, despite liability

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It’s been nearly two weeks since the merger between Bayer AG and Monsanto officially began its integration, two months since the deal closed and nearly two years since the planned deal was announced.

Despite that, newly appointed Bayer officials are vague on how they plan to handle the mountain of lawsuits inherited from Monsanto over pesticides such as glyphosate and dicamba.

Government
Since the creation of the World Trade Organization, the U.S. has been involved in 269 trade disputes.

Trade disputes explode under Trump tariff war

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As President Donald Trump continues to wage a multi-front trade war with some of the U.S.’ biggest economic partners, farmers have borne some of the heaviest financial burden.

More than a third of trade disputes involving the U.S. relate to agriculture, according to an analysis of disputes submitted to the World Trade Organization since its creation in 1995.

Agribusiness

Monsanto ordered to pay $289.2 million in landmark Roundup lawsuit verdict

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A San Francisco court has ordered the agribusiness company Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million in damages to a California man who alleges his cancer was caused by Roundup, the company’s most widely used herbicide. The verdict was issued Friday. Dewayne “Lee” Johnson filed the lawsuit against St. Louis-based Monsanto Co. in January 2016, "alleging exposure to the Roundup herbicide he sprayed while working as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District caused him to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma."