The state of Hawaii and the Trust for Public Land have closed on the acquisition of 2,882 acres of forest and fallow lands near the Helemano Military Reservation in Central Oahu from the Dole Food Co. The $15.16 million purchase price was funded by a half dozen public and private sources: $1.5 million from the Hawaii State Legacy Land Conservation Fund; $5 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Legacy Program; $2 million from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

In a first for the Bay Area, developers hoping to break ground on a new housing complex next year are wooing potential residents by offering a quirky but increasingly popular perk. It’s not a golf course, health club or even a pet spa — the big draw will be a farm, and access to all the tomatoes, zucchini and kale you can eat. [node:read-more:link]

In August 2017, $27 million worth of soybeans shipped to China through Washington state’s port of Vancouver. This August’s total shipment: $0.The drop, driven by President Trump’s escalating trade war with China, has meant real pain for the longshoremen responsible for transporting the cargo at the port. With fewer crops to load onto ships bound for China, the number of shifts available for longshoremen has fallen. [node:read-more:link]

After two -days of public meetings this week in Washington D.C., the government can claim it is getting ahead of the day when meat grown from cells grown in the lab becomes available in the marketplace alongside meat grown on the hoof.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the federal government’s top two food safety regulatory agencies, co-sponsored this week’s meetings. [node:read-more:link]

he Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City released it third quarter Ag Finance Databook last Friday and its headline read “Large Scale Financing Drives Ag Lending Activity Higher.” In summarizing its findings, the report said, “Large operating loans made by large agricultural banks led to a significant increase in farm lending in the third quarter of 2018. A sharp increase in the volume of loans exceeding $1 million was a primary contributor to the increase in non-real estate farm lending. [node:read-more:link]

A judge has further delayed an Arkansas hog farm's permit application to operate near the Buffalo River watershed. Newton County Circuit Judge John Putman issued a stay Wednesday on an order issued in August by the Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission. The order had reopened the permit application process for C&H Hog Farms. The farm is permitted to house about 6,500 hogs on Big Creek. [node:read-more:link]

DowDuPont Inc.’s agriculture unit is taking a $4.6 billion charge in the third quarter after the business lowered its long-term expectations on sales and profits, a move that underscores challenges agribusinesses are facing in the Americas. DowDuPont said in securities filings Thursday that it recalculated the fair value of goodwill and other intangible assets on the books of the merged Dow and DuPont company, and determined that the values of assets in its agricultural unit had fallen. [node:read-more:link]

“Non-real estate lending increased significantly in the third quarter, according to the National Survey of Terms of Lending to Farmers. The total volume of non-real estate farm loans was more than 30 percent higher than a year ago.  This sharp growth in farm lending followed steady increases earlier in 2018 and represents the largest annual percentage increase in the third quarter since 2002.” [node:read-more:link]