Crowdfunding could allow mom-and-pop investors to function as angel investors. Angel investors are usually the first or early-stage investors - often friends and family - who put money into start-ups and expect returns after many years when the companies go public. Crowdfunding would allow mom-and-pop investors to function as angel investors, as well. [node:read-more:link]
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising small financial contributions from a large number of people. The most well-known types of crowdfunding are internet-based and typically involve a donation instead of an investment. The Montana Legislature, however, enacted a unique kind of Montana-based crowdfunding law. Under the new law, the company must complete an application available on the Commissioner of Securities and Insurance website and pay a fee before soliciting investors. All investors in the crowdfunding project must be Montana residents. [node:read-more:link]
Rural disasters often mobilize two self-described groups: “The red-light team” from the official ranks of fire, emergency medicine and law enforcement systems. And “the Carhartt and cowboy-hat army,” including agriculture producers and their children, friends, and relatives serving officially and unofficially as emergency responders. Both groups bring critical knowledge and skills. An inter-agency effort that includes land-grant university Extension offices is helping these groups work together to achieve better results. [node:read-more:link]
The new CEO of the National Association of Wheat Growers wants to make sure farmers have a strong voice in writing the 2018 Farm Bill. Chandler Goule will begin July 5 as the organization’s top executive in Washington, D.C. He is moving over from his previous job as senior vice president of programs at the National Farmers Union. Goule said both organizations are grassroots, farmer-driven organizations. [node:read-more:link]
A new organization plans to help Oregon State University and Cornell University train people to make hard apple cider, an industry that is growing rapidly in the Pacific Northwest and is attracting the same sort of connoisseurs who favor the region’s craft beer and fine wine. Formation of the Cider Institute of North America (CINA) was announced in late May. Making and drinking hard cider is particularly popular in the Pacific Northwest. [node:read-more:link]
Neil Harl has been waiting for an uprising in the countryside that doesn't seem to be coming. A professor emeritus in ag economics at Iowa State University, Harl has been watching the consolidation of companies selling agricultural inputs his entire career. He recalls in the early 1980s there were more than 400 seed companies around the country. Consolidation in the seed industry intensified in the past three decades. Since 2010, two companies -- DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto -- have controlled 70% of corn hybrid sales, according to industry numbers. [node:read-more:link]
Consumer investments in distributed energy resources can save all ratepayers money by avoiding expensive grid infrastructure upgrades. Solar advocates have long been making this argument in regulatory proceedings around the country. Today, that vision is becoming a reality. [node:read-more:link]
In many parts of the country, areas that are now full of houses and schools and shopping centers were once oil and gas fields. You wouldn't know it by looking, but hidden underground, there are millions of abandoned wells. New development happening on top of those old wells can create a dangerous situation. In most states, there is no requirement for homeowners to be notified about abandoned oil and gas wells on their properties. In the Canadian province of Alberta, it's a different story. [node:read-more:link]
A Butler County judge has dismissed the second lawsuit a developer and 13 landowners had filed against Middlesex residents and non-profits opposed to fracking, the defendants. Dewey Homes & Investment Properties and other property owners, who collectively hold more than 440 acres of land, originally filed the lawsuit last May against five residents, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and the Clean Air Council. [node:read-more:link]
Peat miners, golfers, and landowners with real property containing or adjacent to Waters of the United States will benefit greatly from the Supreme Court’s May 31st decision in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v Hawkes Co. Hawkes resolved whether an approved jurisdictional determination by the Army Corps of Engineers (“Approved JD”) involving wetlands owned by a peat mining company in Minnesota is an appealable final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). [node:read-more:link]
