Opinion
Opinion: ERS relocation nothing more than political retribution
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Now that the dust has settled on the move of USDA's Economic Research Service from Washington D.C. to Kansas City Dave Dickey takes stock.
Government
Does efficient irrigation technology preserve groundwater? A new GAO report says the answer is probably no.
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Note: This story is embargoed for republication until Nov. 24, 2019
Efficient irrigation may produce more crops, but it doesn’t appear to preserve groundwater, according to a federal report released this week. Decades of irrigation has already depleted aquifers that many irrigated farms rely on, according to the report from the Government Accountability Office, and efficient systems appear to not help. Minus a few exceptions, GAO researchers found “there is no change in the amount of water farmers apply to a field with more efficient technology,” according to the Nov. 12 report.
#agalerts
#AgAlerts: Small towns struggle; pesticide buffer zones; farm bankruptcies up
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The current large farms, utilizing far fewer farms than in the past has created population loss that threatens scores of small towns that sprouted on the prairie in a different time, when larger numbers of small farmers depended on them.
Energy
Rush to attract wind turbine investors leaves Kansas school districts shortchanged
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The exemption leaves untaxed for life nearly $630 million in Kansas wind farm equipment, according to the Kansas Department of Revenue. If it were on the tax rolls, that equipment would generate around $82 million a year in additional revenue for the 24 rural counties with wind farms.