agriculture – News Stories About agriculture - Page 5

Dec 28, 2012 2:00 PM CST

Congress Gets to Work on Milk Cliff

...But will likely extend unpopular agriculture subsidies in the process

(Newser) - Fiscal cliff negotiations may be going nowhere fast, but the House and Senate agriculture committees are poised to temporarily avert another pressing crisis: the milk cliff . The two committees are drafting a short-term extension of as many as 37 expiring agriculture provisions, including one staving off a 1945 law that...

Why Milk Could Hit $8 a Gallon

Dec 21, 2012 11:14 AM CST

Why Milk Could Hit $8 a Gallon

Old law could be reinstated if Congress can't reach compromise

(Newser) - If Congress doesn't get its act together soon, old laws will cost all of America dearly—we're speaking, of course, of the Milk Cliff. If legislators don't take a break from fiscal cliff negotiations/posturing and pass a new farm bill by Jan. 1, the government will be...

Climate Change to Make Bananas Vital Food Crop

Climate Change's
New Vital Crop: Bananas

Climate Change's New Vital Crop: Bananas

Warming to force farmers to switch away from spuds

(Newser) - As the planet gets warmer, farmers are going to have to give up on certain crops and people are going to have to get used to radically changed diets, according to a new report. Agricultural experts predict that harvests of maize, rice, and wheat are set to fall in many...

Farm Exports to Drop
$1B Over Drought

Oct 10, 2012 1:05 PM CDT

Farm Exports to Drop $1B Over Drought

But one expert thinks the 1-year dip won't matter much

(Newser) - The nation's top agricultural negotiator said he expects farm exports to drop between $1 billion and $2 billion, though he doesn't think the one-year dip will drive away international buyers in the long run, reports the AP . Isi Siddiqui says the drought is to blame—less grain means...

In Record Drought,
Nation's Farmers
Twist in Wind

Oct 4, 2012 1:05 PM CDT

In Record Drought, Nation's Farmers Twist in Wind

Depression, lost land, ditched vacations

(Newser) - The worst drought in decades has reached farming families' personal lives, making for a year very different than they might have expected. "You probably can’t print our mood," says a South Dakota rancher. "The wife says she can’t drink enough to dull the pain of...

Farm Antibiotics
Make Us Sick

scientists say

Sep 9, 2012 2:56 PM CDT

Farm Antibiotics Make Us Sick

Farm lobby resists attempts to regulate drug use

(Newser) - Why are people getting sick and dying from antibiotic-resistant infections? In part because of the food we buy at the supermarket, advocates say. With the farm industry buying most of America's antibiotics, and pumping it into animals like chickens and pigs, we may be munching on germs that have...

Frackers Battle Farmers
for Water Amid Drought

Sep 6, 2012 2:01 PM CDT

Frackers Battle Farmers for Water Amid Drought

Gas companies scrambling to buy up supplies for drilling

(Newser) - The drought ravaging the heartland has thrown into stark relief an ongoing battle between farmers and energy companies for that most fundamental of resources: water. As the name implies, hydrofracking requires water, and lots of it—one well can use up to 5 million gallons—so gas companies are storming...

Organic Food No Better for You

STUDY SAYS

Sep 4, 2012 4:33 AM CDT

Organic Food No Better for You

Study finds no nutritional benefits

(Newser) - There's no question that organic food is better for the planet, but there's no evidence that it's better for the person eating it, according to a new study. Scientists analyzed four decades of research, and found that organic meat and produce have no more nutritional value or...

Taxpayers on Hook for $10B as Drought Ravages Crops

Aug 14, 2012 7:41 AM CDT

Taxpayers on Hook for $10B as Drought Ravages Crops

Subsidized insurance program draws criticism

(Newser) - Crop farmers are on track to record about $18 billion in losses thanks to this year's historically nasty drought—and by one expert's estimate, the federal government is on the hook for about $10 billion of that, thanks to the heavily subsidized federal crop insurance program, the Washington ...

House Ditches
Huge Farm Aid Bill,
Leaves for Recess

Aug 3, 2012 6:26 AM CDT

House Ditches Huge Farm Aid Bill, Leaves for Recess

House passes stopgap measure, but Senate wouldn't take it up

(Newser) - It's August and many Americans are taking well-earned summer vacations. And then there's Congress. House lawmakers took off for their August recess yesterday after refusing to consider a five-year measure to aid America's stricken farmers, reports the New York Times . Instead, they passed a stopgap $383 million...

Drought Now Worst Since 1956

Jul 17, 2012 7:52 AM CDT

Drought Now Worst Since 1956

More than half of continental US affected

(Newser) - The US is in the grip of the worst drought in more than 50 years, with almost 80% of the country either in drought or in abnormally dry conditions. The NOAA's latest report finds that 56% of the continental US is in drought, the sixth-highest percentage on record and...

Non-Browning Apple
Has Growers Seeing Red

Jul 13, 2012 10:03 AM CDT

Non-Browning Apple Has Growers Seeing Red

Genetically-engineered fruit has some growers fuming

(Newser) - It sounds like magic: an apple that won't turn brown when cut or bruised. But the genetically-engineered fruit's special powers aren't enough to win over other apple growers, who say it's just unnatural. The Arctic Apple, from small Canadian firm Okanagan Specialty Fruits, could hurt consumers'...

Obama's 'Boring' Aid
Is Saving Lives in Africa

nicholas kristof

Jul 12, 2012 2:02 PM CDT

Obama's 'Boring' Aid Is Saving Lives in Africa

Nicholas Kristof: US emphasis on agriculture isn't sexy, but it's effective

(Newser) - President Obama deserves credit for a great foreign aid success, writes Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times , but it's a safe bet you haven't heard of it. That's because it's happening not in a war zone or some sexy locale but on small farms in...

Candy Makers Fight
Sugar-Protection Bill

Jul 6, 2012 9:36 AM CDT

Candy Makers Fight Sugar-Protection Bill

Bitter battle over sweets pits agriculture against sweets manufacturers

(Newser) - It's sugar versus sugar on Capitol Hill, as growers are facing off against candy makers over the United States' longstanding import restrictions that keep sugar prices high, reports the Los Angeles Times . Both sides are spending millions of dollars lobbying over the latest farm bill now before Congress—the...

Bad News for
Food Prices as
Corn Crop Shrivels

Jul 5, 2012 9:05 AM CDT

Bad News for Food Prices as Corn Crop Shrivels

This was supposed to be the best harvest in generations

(Newser) - This year saw the largest corn planting in 75 years, and only two months ago, experts predicted a record corn harvest that would send food prices downward. But those high hopes have given way to murmurs about the drought of 1988 ... and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Portions of...

Scientists
Crack Tomato
Genome

May 31, 2012 9:10 AM CDT

Scientists Crack Tomato Genome

Which should allow producers to breed tastier ones

(Newser) - What makes a tomato a tomato? Researchers now know all 35,000 genes that make up the answer to that question, Reuters reports. An international team of scientists has fully mapped the order, orientation, types, and relative position of all those genes inside both a domesticated and a wild tomato...

Is War on Drugs
Bad for Chocolate?

Apr 26, 2012 9:06 AM CDT

Is War on Drugs Bad for Chocolate?

Gourmands fight for native Peruvian cocoa

(Newser) - To cut down on production of the coca plants behind cocaine, the US has pushed an alternative crop to Peruvian farmers: a high-yielding cocoa hybrid. And while CCN-51 has had commercial benefits, there's one problem, chocolate experts say—it just doesn't taste that good. Instead, these connoisseurs say,...

Environmentalists Fear
New Biotech Corn

Apr 24, 2012 3:33 PM CDT

Environmentalists Fear New Biotech Corn

Dow's 'Enlist' resists powerful herbicide

(Newser) - Debate is raging over a new biotech corn engineered by Dow Chemical. The corn, called "Enlist," is intended to solve farmers' struggle against tough weeds; that's because it's resistant to a powerful herbicide, also made by Dow. But environmentalists fear that wind, heat, and humidity would...

Sorry, Critics, Sustainable Farming Is Not a Myth

OPINION

Apr 21, 2012 11:46 AM CDT

Sorry, Critics, Sustainable Farming Is Not a Myth

Small-scale agriculture provides a path toward real solutions: Joel Salatin

(Newser) - In a recent New York Times op-ed , James McWilliams dismissed the movement toward smaller-scale, sustainable farming as ultimately unworkable in terms of logistics, and nowhere near as good for the environment as proponents suggest. In doing so, he called out one of the movement's leaders, Joel Salatin of Virginia'...

Farmworkers Seize Land in Massive Honduras Protest

Apr 19, 2012 3:31 AM CDT

Farmworkers Seize Land in Massive Honduras Protest

Plantations are on public land, activists say

(Newser) - Honduras saw its own kind of Occupy protest erupt yesterday. Thousands of impoverished farmworkers in the Central American nation took over land belonging to major landowners in a coordinated series of protests around the country, reports the BBC . The farmworkers insisted that the land was public land that small farmers...