Those who examine the impact of tariffs, climate change and taxes on rural America are among employees being relocated. The Agriculture Department is moving nearly all its researchers into the economic effects of climate change, trade policy and food stamps – subjects of controversial Trump administration initiatives – outside of …
THA MUANG, Thailand (AP) — Fall armyworms, a longtime American pest, are munching their way around the globe, raising alarm now in Asia after entrenching themselves in Africa. Experts say the insect was first found outside the Americas in 2016, in Africa, where it has infested up to half of …
As the partial government shutdown extends into its third week, the Department of Agriculture won’t say how long it can keep paying out food stamp benefits for the nearly 39 million people who depend on the program each month. The White House and House Democrats, locked in a bitter political …
WASHINGTON — If the world hopes to make meaningful progress on climate change, it won’t be enough for cars and factories to get cleaner. Our cows and wheat fields will have to become radically more efficient, too. That’s the basic conclusion of a sweeping new study issued Wednesday by the World Resources Institute, …
× Chicken farm buildings are inundated with floodwater from Hurricane Florence near Trenton, N.C., Sunday, Sept. 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) About 3.4 million chickens and turkeys and 5,500 hogs have been killed in flooding from Florence as rising North Carolina rivers swamped dozens of farm buildings where the animals …
The future may bring plagues of locusts to devastate crops as global warming worsens, these experts say. Insects are going to love it when the world turns hotter in the coming years. Not only will they spread more disease — they will eat more crops, researchers reported Thursday. That’s because …
The rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that crops are becoming less nutritious, and that change could lead to higher rates of malnutrition that predispose people to various diseases. That conclusion comes from an analysis published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, which also examined how the risk could be …
Despite some apparent de-escalation of Donald Trump’s trade war with China this week, it really hasn’t got started. Tariffs on $34bn (£26bn) of Chinese goods will come into force on July 6 and China will retaliate – with Trump-supporting farmers firmly in its firing line. US agricultural products that face trade …
April 6 (UPI) — Two the planet’s most damaging crop pests have combined, or hybridized, to form a new “mega-pest.” The new threat is a product of a marriage between the cotton bollworm and corn earworm. The cotton bollworm is common throughout Africa, Asia and Europe. It eats dozens of major …
The spread of Spodoptera frugiperda is threatening the region’s food safety AFRICA has been invaded on quiet wings. The fall armyworm, a pest known for munching its way through more than 80 plant species, first arrived in Nigeria in January 2016. Today, it can be found in 43 countries across …
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Federal government regulators proposed changes Friday in the way most hogs slaughtered for meat in the United States are processed in a series of new rules that officials say improve industry practices but critics say could imperil food safety. The new rules would allow hog …
Sometime around the turn of the last century, a blood-red, flint-hard “dent” corn with a rich and oily germ made its way from Appalachia to the islands of Charleston, S.C. The corn was grown out by local farmers and bootleggers, who found that it made spectacular hooch, or moonshine whiskey. …