The Mississippi River has been at major flood stage for 41 days and counting, and this week a temporary wall failed, sending water rushing into several blocks of downtown Davenport, Iowa. In that same area — the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois — the river crested at a new record height. [node:read-more:link]
The average age of America's hired farm laborers is steadily increasing, threatening the future of the nation's farming industry. The reason is the foreign-born workers, who comprise more than half the workforce, are getting older. At least half those workers are unauthorized. And because the United States is cracking down on illegal immigration, younger immigrants are not arriving to replace them.Between 2007 and 2016, the estimated number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico dropped about 22 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. [node:read-more:link]
The nation's most productive agricultural state will ban a widely used toxic pesticide blamed for harming brain development in babies, California officials said. The move would outlaw chlorpyrifos after scientists deemed it a toxic air contaminant and discovered it to be more dangerous than previously thought. State Environmental Secretary Jared Blumenfeld said it's the first time the state has sought to ban a pesticide and the move was overdue."This pesticide is a neurotoxin and it was first put on the market in 1965," Blumenfeld said. [node:read-more:link]
In areas where floodwaters have receded, farmers are left to deal with piles of sand, debris on their fields [node:read-more:link]
Animal welfare groups have reached a milestone agreement with ranching interests they say would save wild mustangs from slaughter but the compromise has opened a nasty split among horse protection advocates.The Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say their proposal backed by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation would eliminate the threat of slaughter for thousands of free-roaming horses primarily by spending millions of dollars on expanding fertility controls on the range.As part [node:read-more:link]
Food may be the next frontier in research on a wide array of potentially toxic chemicals increasingly showing up in drinking water and groundwater nationally. Art Schaap and Fred Stone milk dairy cows more than 2,000 miles from each other, but right now, neither one of them can sell their milk. [node:read-more:link]
Today, China accounts for almost half of Oregon Hay’s sales, with manager Vic Follen traveling to China three to six times a year for the company that exports for 50 or more U.S. [node:read-more:link]
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has warned President Trump that his U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement on trade can't pass Congress if he retains steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico. "If these tariffs aren’t lifted, USMCA is dead. There is no appetite in Congress to debate USMCA with these tariffs in place," Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said [node:read-more:link]
The Trump administration is ready to provide more federal aid to farmers if required, a White House adviser said on Monday, after rolling out up to $12 billion since last year to offset agricultural losses from the trade dispute with China. “We have allocated $12 billion, some such, to farm assistance. And we stand ready to do more if necessary,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters.The U.S. Department of Agriculture had previously ruled out a new round of aid for 2019. As of March, more than $8 billion was paid out as part of last year’s program. [node:read-more:link]
Organic farm product value doubles from 2012 to 2017: USDA Turn to organic comes as overall number of farms declines [node:read-more:link]
