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Borden Dairy Co., one of America's oldest and largest dairy companies, on Monday became the second major milk producer to file for bankruptcy in the last two months. Tumbling milk consumption combined with the rising price of milk have crippled the dairy industry with debt. Dean Foods, America's largest milk producer, filed for bankruptcy November 12.

"While House Republicans throw American workers under the bus for Big Ag today, Senate Rs are screwing US IT workers for Big Tech, GOP governors are lobbying for refugee increases & Trump signed exec order protecting Judaism as a new nationality. #AmericaLast is #winning"

As all eyes are on the House impeachment inquiry, elsewhere an agricultural bill that could provide a path to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants is rumbling through the chamber — leading immigration hawks to accuse lawmakers of trying to sneak in an amnesty while the nation is distracted. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, passed in the House Judiciary Committee last month, is scheduled for a vote on the House floor Wednesday. The bill provides a process for undocumented farmworkers to seek a temporary five-and-a-half-year “Certified Agricultural Worker” status if they have worked for approximately six months in the...

No one told Jack LaPant that he could be in violation of the Clean Water Act for farming his own land. That’s mostly because the federal law includes a clear exemption for “normal” farming activities. But it’s also because the government officials LaPant consulted didn’t view overturned dirt that has been tilled and plowed as pollution. In 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the Clean Water Act with the Environmental Protection Agency, began legal action against LaPant for plowing he did in 2011 to plant wheat on a ranch property he owned in Northern California. But in March...

Monkeys in India apparently can’t tell a tiger from a dog made to look like a tiger -- or at least that is what one farmer claims. The farmer, identified as Srikanth Gowda, said he has been able to protect his coffee crop from monkeys by painting his pet dog Bulbul with black stripes, an Indian news outlet reports.

President Trump lauded the partial trade agreement he struck with China this week, calling it the “greatest and best” deal in a tweet Saturday morning. As part of the deal -- which Trump and President Xi Jinping could sign as soon as next month -- China agreed to raise its agricultural purchases to between $40 billion and $50 billion from $8 billion to $16 billion and to make certain reforms on intellectual property and financial services. The U.S. will not raise tariffs on Oct. 15 from 25 percent to 30 percent. It’s still unclear whether Trump plans to halt another...

This pivotal week of China trade talks started with a slap in the face, but Beijing may be turning the other cheek. Despite the Trump administration ban on sales to 28 Chinese tech firms accused of a role in the government's human rights abuses, China is still talking about buying more soybeans. Beijing's determination to reach a deal, however small, sparked a Wednesday rebound for the Dow Jones and broader stock market after Tuesday's 314-point drubbing. The Financial Times reported that China is willing to boost soybean purchases by 10 million tons, worth about $3.5 billion at current prices. That...

IDAHO FALLS — Local miller Jeremiah Clark plans to soon expand into a new Idaho Falls facility with the capacity to process up to 5 percent of the world’s quinoa supply. Clark, owner of American Mills, LLC, contracts with 17 growers from American Falls through Ashton to raise his own proprietary variety of the nutrient-rich, pseudo-cereal crop. His quinoa fields range in size from 100 to 200 acres, and he’s already made Eastern Idaho the largest quinoa production region in North America. He hopes to have equipment installed by the end of October to commence operations at his new quinoa...

Systemic racism in the world of agriculture is being fought on a daily basis with an eye toward returning people of color to roles in operating farms and getting more nutritious foods to low-income communities. "The amount of farmland controlled by African Americans has consistently declined from a high point around the turn of the 20th century," Amani Olugbala, raptivist, spoken word artist and abolitionist, said Thursday night during "Farming While Black: Uprooting Racism, Seeding Sovereignty" in the Sanctuary of Epsilon Spires in the First Baptist Church in Brattleboro. "Right now, the folks who own the land are overwhelmingly white....

Indoor farming projects have been touted for their environmental benefits, but a lack of scalability and profitability have caused smart farm startups to fail all over the world. However, Seoul-based automatic indoor farming startup n.thing is betting on a modular approach for success. The company found that shipping containers are appealing as scalable indoor vertical farming units, especially in countries that are short of fertile land. The key to its flagship Planty Cube farming facility is a cluster of multiple 12-meter cargo containers, Kim Hye-yeon, CEO and co-founder of n.thing, said in an interview with The Investor. “A stand-alone, single-unit...

A car park opposite the infamous New York City housing estate where rapper Jay-Z grew up seems an unlikely place for an agricultural revolution. Ten shipping containers dominate a corner of the Brooklyn parking area, each full of climate control tech, growing herbs that are distributed to local stores on bicycles. This is urban farming at its most literal. The containers are owned by Square Roots, part of America's fast-expanding vertical farming industry, a sector run by many tech entrepreneurs who believe food production is ripe for disruption. The world's best basil reputedly comes from Genoa, Italy. Square Roots grows...

Beneath a blazing mid-August sun at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines last week, liberal voters crowded around the Des Moines Register’s political soapbox to hear the Democratic presidential candidates speak. Meanwhile, on the other side of the fairground, farmers in the sheep, cattle and swine barns tended to their animals. A Trump poster hung from a rafter in the sheep barn and a Trump flag flew in front of a row of massive black cows in the cattle barn. Yet the farmers—who will play a key role in the 2020 presidential race in Iowa—didn’t talk much about politics...

A research paper currently being pushed by a researcher at the College of Brockport Gender Studies program wants society — feminists — to talk about the unseemly “sexual exploitation” of dairy cows in order to “fully fight gendered oppression.” The author claims the dairy industry is rife with ‘sex-based discrimination’ (of cows), and compares insemination of the cattle to “rape.” The milking of cows is, of course, “sexual assault.” This isn’t satire, so be careful, if you start buying into this, you too could be assimilated. According to Campus Reform: A paper currently being promoted by a New York University...

Been listening to the democrats and the talking heads for the last few days worrying about the China trade negotiations and tariffs hurting the Iowa farm economy, especially soybeans for export to China. Well, with every democrat running--including Biden--promising to eliminate coal, gas & oil if elected, I'm wondering how they expect the farmers to farm or get their products to market without fuel? Without tractors? Without farm equipment? Without trucks? Trains? Ships? Obviously, eliminating coal, gas & oil would devastate the coal, gas & oil producing states, but also the states that depend upon abundant supplies of coal generated...

Data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Value Added by Industry series, recently released by USDA’s Economic Research Service, indicates that – on a broad level – agriculture contributed a record-high $1.05 trillion to U.S. gross domestic product in 2016, up $35 billion, or 6 percent, from the prior year. U.S. GDP in 2016 was $18.6 trillion, thus agriculture’s contribution represented 5.7 percent of the U.S. economy. However, as a direct result of falling commodity prices, in 2016, the contribution of farm production to U.S. GDP fell to $136.7 billion, down 6 percent from 2015, and the lowest level since...

I know that this headline is alarming, but it is actually a direct quote from a notice that was recently posted in a Kroger supermarket. And as you will see below, similar notices are being posted in the canned vegetable sections of Wal-Mart stores nationwide. I would encourage you to examine the evidence in this article very carefully and to come to your own conclusions about what is happening. At this moment, social media is buzzing with reports of shortages of canned vegetables all around the country. But so far, the mainstream media is being eerily quiet about all of...

Spring weather has delayed the Texas watermelon harvest, casting doubt on the supply ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. Fields across the state are behind schedule due to weather, meaning peak sales for the summer holiday are in jeopardy statewide, growers say. Gary Collins first started growing watermelons 66 years ago. This season, he said, has been “pretty rough.” “Ground was cold, ground was real cold,” Collins said.

Farmers in Illinois whose land has been thrashed by flooding have given up on planting. Instead of growing food, they decided to throw a party. And who could blame them? The storms that have caused major flooding in Illinois have forced farmers to give up on their crops. Forecasts for even more rain also sent corn futures to a 5-year-high, bringing the food crisis ever closer to reality. Few farmers will even see a benefit from the higher prices because they can’t even get their corn planted in the ground. Dozens of corn farmers and those who sell them seed,...

The Green party in Germany said it will ban industrial farming to reduce global warming if it comes to power.

The Green party in Germany has said it intends to ban industrial farming as part of a wide-ranging and costly package to combat climate change should they come to power. Katrin Goering-Eckardt, the party’s leader in the Germany parliament, said her party would establish a fund worth at least €100 billion to finance climate projects including dam construction, reforestation and environmentally friendly transportation projects. Ms Goering-Eckardt did not go into further details on a timeline for the prohibition of intensively reared meat. But the proposal is likely to stoke up debate over whether the Greens are still Germany’s Verbotspartei (prohibition...