by Laura Parker | August 2016 The Ogallala aquifer turned the region into America’s breadbasket. Now it, and a way of life, are being drained away. This story appears in the August 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. “Whoa,” yells Brownie Wilson, as the steel measuring tape I am feeding down the throat of an…
September 8, 2018 I’ve come from Wollongong to visit Allan Yeomans, the inventor of the Yeomans Carbon Still. It seems fitting that Allan’s workshop is located here at the Gold Coast, where hundreds of skyscrapers cluster along the beach, perched barely above sea level. What will happen to this place in the near future, when…
by Humeyra Pamuk | November 16, 2018 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture terminated a $240,000 purchase contract with Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods that had been awarded under the Trump administration’s agricultural trade bailout program, a move taken at the company’s request, a department spokesman told Reuters on Friday. The move comes weeks after…
Dear Mike, On Tuesday, Drovers issued a poll asking the question, “Do you believe the Beef Checkoff is helping stimulate beef demand and support your cattle business?” By Thursday afternoon, the polling showed that 70 percent of Drovers’ audience who responded flatly rejected the notion that the checkoff was helpful to their farms and ranches….
Dear Mike, Yesterday marked the start of the most critical phase in our four-year legal battle over the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s refusal to release public audit and financial documents related to Beef Checkoff Program spending. By law, farmers and ranchers are mandated to pay into the government fund for research, promotion, and development of…
by Phil Cross | November 8, 2018 OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, we thank a farmer. But there are fewer farmers in Oklahoma these days. The family farmer is disappearing as the cost of breaking even is getting higher. From atop the farmer’s grain elevator in…
by Joe Fassler | November 13th, 2018 Amazon chose the country’s two most powerful metro areas for its new headquarters. The choice signals the company’s vast ambition in policy, media, and physical retail. But what will residents of Arlington and New York get in return? Amazon officially announced its HQ2 decision on Tuesday morning, ending…
by Brian Barth | November 5, 2018 The last time the Farm Aid hotline rang like this, Ronald Reagan was president and Willie Nelson was playing a huge concert to raise money for hundreds of thousands of farmers across the country who were facing financial ruin. By the autumn of 1985, America’s “farm crisis” was…
by Dan Gunderson | November 8, 2018 Jesse Hall is sold on regenerative agriculture. “It crumbles, and it looks like chocolate cake,” Hall said. “Once it’s got the consistency of chocolate cake, and it’s spongy, that’s what you want.” And it’s got more life in it, too, from invisible bacteria to earthworms. “I can’t even…