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One in three or more farms in Arkansas could be shuttered by next spring if the federal government doesn’t provide some type of supplemental assistance to farmers this fall, Agriculture Council of Arkansas President Joe Mencer told Talk Business & Politics. Commodity prices continue to plunge and as of mid-August the state’s ag sector was projected to lose $1.145 billion this season and that number has ballooned by another $300 million by the end of the month to $1.4 billion as rice prices spiraled downward to an eight-year low. And, the overall losses will almost certainly continue to rise, Mencer...

As Phoenician sailors ventured into the waters of the western Mediterranean Sea to establish new settlements in the early first millennium b.c., they deliberately brought the familiar scents of home with them, according to a statement issued by the University of Tübingen. Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) recently analyzed more than 50 miniature ceramic vessels found in ancient tombs, houses, and sacred areas at a Phoenician site on the island of Motya, off the west coast of Sicily. The study determined that all had been made in southern Phoenicia, near present-day Beirut,...

While the development of agriculture is often associated with the Fertile Crescent, past research has shown that farming actually developed independently at different times and places around the world, including Africa, the Americas, and eastern Asia. New evidence from a cave in southern Uzbekistan continues to show that the advent and spread of agricultural technology is more complicated than originally thought, according to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. Recent archaeological work in Toda Cave uncovered evidence that the region's inhabitants were already engaging in sophisticated harvesting practices 9,200 years ago. Wear patterns on stone tools...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted two separate shipments of bushmeat at Detroit Metropolitan Airport last month, including one haul of primate meat, in seizures officials say highlight the dangers of disease entering the United States. Bushmeat—defined by U.S. health agencies as meat from wild animals such as bats, monkeys, and cane rats—is illegal to import into the country. CBPOps and DFODetroit announced the discoveries Saturday in a joint post on Instagram, writing, “Scary!!! @DFODetroit CBP agriculture specialists intercepted back-to-back bushmeat at @DTWShots. Bushmeat poses serious risks to public health and violates federal regulations. CBP remains vigilant in protecting...

======================================================================= NATIONAL AVIATION DAY National Aviation Day on August 19 recognizes the pioneers of human flight. #NationalAviationDay For centuries, humans have been fascinated by flight. In ancient China, kites few to investigate the weather. Inventors such as Leonardo da Vinci developed many ideas about flight, too. Gliders and balloons lifted humans into the sky, but none of the inventions gave a person control of where they flew. Before Powered Flight The physics of flight and propulsion play key roles in who became pioneers. George Cayley used aerodynamics while designing fixed-wing aircraft. His designs would later inspire Orville and Wilbur Wright....

Hundreds of employees are losing jobs at a grape nursery owned by Wonderful Co., one of the state’s biggest agricultural operations. The company says it is unrelated to a contentious battle by the United Farm Workers to unionize workers at the nursery in Kern County. One of California’s largest agricultural employers plans to close a Central Valley grape nursery by the end of the year after laying off hundreds of employees, including many supportive of a United Farm Workers effort to unionize the workforce. Wonderful Co., owned by billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick, plans to shut down the majority of...

Violet, 5, wants to know: what was life like before refrigerators? And Ellinor, 6, asks: how did they make ice in the old times? In this episode, we learn about the history of ice harvesting and the industry that built up around it, where ice cut from lakes in New England was shipped to as far away as India and the Caribbean.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird, along with 22 other AGs, sent a letter demanding answers from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) over its Financial Institutions Net-Zero Standard. The letter, addressed to SBTi CEO, David Kennedy, demands documents on member commitments, funding sources, and insurer actions tied to the Financial Institutions Net-Zero Standard, which may violate the law, and have harmed consumers. Bird posted on social media: “Making net-zero a goal actively harms Americans, creates risk for energy independence, and increases the cost of safe, healthy, nutritious food." ... Specifically, the AGs argue that SBTi's Standards are unlawful and raise...

Farm equipment giant John Deere announced this year it is investing nearly $20 billion over the next decade to bolster its US operations as part of its ongoing commitment to American manufacturing. “We look forward to carrying forward our founder’s legacy of ingenuity as we continue building and investing in America,” Cory Reed, president of Deere & Co.’s worldwide agriculture and turf division for production and precision agriculture in the Americas and Australia, told FOX Business. The company’s $20 billion investment focuses on the development of new products, “cutting-edge” technology and more advanced manufacturing capabilities, Reed said. John Deere is...

Long before bourbon dominated the liquor market, rye whiskey reigned supreme. Now, a Midwestern distiller is teaming up with scientists to bring back a long-gone type of grain and turn it into spicy, bold whiskey. The source is a wooden schooner named the James R. Bentley that's been sitting in Lake Huron for nearly 150 years. The ship sank in Nov. 1878 after striking a shoal.

The modern potato exists thanks to a 9-million-year-old hybrid between tomato-like and potato-like plants. Credit: Shutterstock ========================================================================== Scientists have finally uncovered the ancient secret behind the potato’s origin—and it involves an unexpected genetic romance. About 9 million years ago, a wild interbreeding event occurred between a tomato-like plant and a potato-relative in the Andes. This rare hybridization gave rise to the first tuber-forming plants. Ancient Hybrid Sparked the Potato’s Origins An international team of scientists has discovered that the modern potato originated from a natural crossbreeding event between tomato plants and potato-like wild species in South America around 9 million...

Archaeologists have re-examined a 2500-year-old residue found in bronze jars at an underground shrine in Paestum, Italy, previously identified as a wax/fat/resin mixture. Using a multianalytical approach, the authors have detected lipids, saccharide decomposition products, hexose sugars, and major royal jelly proteins supporting the hypothesis that the jars once also contained honey/honeycombs. Paestum honey: (A) underground shrine in Paestum, Italy; (B) one of the hydrias on display alongside a Perspex box containing the residue at the Ashmolean Museum in 2019; (C) graphic representation of the arrangement of the bronze jars inside the shrine; (D) sample from the core of the...

During the Neolithic Revolution, the development of agriculture led to an epic shift in the way human societies lived. As agricultural technology spread out from the Near East, traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles diminished in favor of more sedentary farming communities. This transition was usually accompanied by a dramatic shift in diet. However, according to a statement released by the University of York, this was not necessarily the case in Japan. Agriculture, rice, and millet were introduced to the Japanese islands from the Korean Peninsula around 3,000 years ago. Research conducted by archaeologists from the University of York, the University of Cambridge,...

King Charles FLIPS OUT as Starmer ARRESTS Farmers for ‘Non-Compliance’ Britain ERUPTS! Farmers protesting inheritance tax and property reassessments, protests spreading, mass arrests for "non-compliance," King Charlie outraged and calls Starmer and bawls him out. Two-tier doubles down and makes arrests higgledy piggledy. Grass roots resistance grows and is now called "The Freedom Front". Nigel Farage gaining points, galvanizing the resistance. Protests now in cities, including London... Transcript linked below video

A flurry of mainstream media reports, from Bloomberg, The Guardian, Financial Times, and CNN, among other outlets, claim that climate change is causing rising food prices “worldwide,” based on a single new study. This is false. Bad weather has always impacted crop production, and there is no actual evidence that extreme weather is increasing. Globalization of media coverage is simply making it easier to hear about bad weather elsewhere in the world, meanwhile crop production and yields globally continue to set records – a fact the same media outlets largely ignore. Focusing on the coverage by Bloomberg, in an article...

What does it really mean to have German ancestry? If you’ve taken a DNA test and seen the "Germanic" label, your story is far richer, older, and more dynamic than any single result. Groundbreaking genetic research reveals that Germans descend from a tapestry of Ice Age hunters, early farmers, horse-riding steppe migrants, Celtic warriors, and global travelers. Each left its enduring mark, blending survival, innovation, and migration into the DNA of modern Germans. Why German Genetic Origins is Different | 22:17 Evo Inception | 52.4K subscribers | 47,642 views | July 18, 202500:00 – Introduction: Beyond the "Germanic" Label 00:21...

Would you look at that? Trump's tariffs are having their intended impact for American businesses. At least for now. In Alabama, farmers are showing their gratitude for President Trump's tariffs which are making business boom in the produce world. It's only been two days now and we've actually had a lot more calls of people having interest in doing business and the price hasn't even changed. So, this leveling the playing field with international trade actually ... levels the playing field? A 17% tariff was all it took?? From NBC 13 in Birmingham: Many are concerned this will mean higher...

Amid disastrous green diktats and crippling cuts to farmers’ livelihoods, the out-of-touch elites in Brussels seem to have forgotten where their food comes from. This afternoon, farmers from all over the European Union met outside the European Parliament to march on the Berlaymont, the European Commission’s HQ. Organised by COPA-COGECA, the umbrella body for 22 million European farmers, the demonstration should by all rights be a wake-up call for Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The unions will hand over a petition signed by 6,335 organisations, along with a symbolic pair of boots, in protest of the EU’s plans to...

Alcohol may have done more than just fuel celebrations in ancient societies. A study led by Václav Hrnčíř from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology suggests that indigenous fermented drinks helped ancient societies grow in size and complexity. The study, published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, draws a link between alcohol and the rise of structured governance. Researchers analyzed data from 186 traditional societies worldwide. They found that communities producing their own alcoholic drinks, like fruit wines or cereal beers, often showed higher levels of political organization. The team focused on societies that existed before industrialization and widespread...

Our study explored the evolutionary trajectory of grapevine cultivation in Italy through the analysis of archaeological grape pips spanning approximately 7,000 years...During the Early Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods, the absence of morphologically domestic grapes suggests a reliance on wild grape gathering, possibly with some experiment of proto-cultivation of wild grape.Despite previous research showing the presence of domestic grapes in Middle Bronze Age sites such as Pertosa Cave in southern Italy and Sa Osa in Sardinia, our study of grape pips from several other sites do not reveal robust evidence for domestic grapes in Middle Bronze Age sites in...