Farm & Field
Why the Midwest is recruiting California dairies
As drought, feed costs, and urban development wear on West Coast milk producers, states like Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa are pitching themselves as a dairy heaven. Even in California, the nation’s No. 1 dairy state, many dairy farmers are listening.
Group seeks to get rid of Kansas sales tax on food
Led by KC Healthy Kids, a nonprofit organization supported in part by the Kansas Health Foundation, a coalition is being formed to guide a legislative effort to exempt food from the state sales tax.
Greener pastures of the Midwest attract California dairies
California’s branded as the state with happy cows, but increasingly, not necessarily happy dairy owners. Some are some selling their cattle and heading to the Midwest.
Women have always been farmers, now they’re being counted
When farmer Sondra Pierce had her first child, she decided to forgo daycare. “Soon as I had my son, because I had my son very early, I would put his car seat in the tractor and he would ride with me,” Pierce says. During harvest on her sugar beet farm in rural Boulder County, Colo.,…
Crop dusting pilots navigate dangerous airspace
Mike Lee steers his plane over the Missouri-Arkansas state line, checking out a checkerboard of green and brown fields of rice, cotton, corn and soybeans. Lee is the owner of Earl’s Flying Service, a crop dusting business in Steele, Mo., and he’s scouting some farm fields that his pilots will treat later in the day….
Tougher times put young farmers’ dreams on hold
Grant Curtis remembers the day he went shopping for his first tractor. “It was an eye opening experience,” he said. “Walking into a dealership, getting the prices, walking back to the bank and pleading my case. Saying, ‘I want to get back to the farm, but I need a way to do that.’” Curtis, in…
Migrant farmworkers remain crucial to harvest
On a warm October afternoon Veronica Jaramillo walks through rows of skinny apple trees on the orchard where she works as the sun sinks behind rolling Missouri hills. The 30 year-old migrant farmworker reaches into a tree on the Waverly, Mo., orchard, and in one fluid motion, picks a Golden Delicious apple. “I don’t like…
However Colorado votes, GMO labeling debate far from over
Voters in Colorado Tuesday will decide whether or not they want the state to require labels on foods containing genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs. The 2014 ballot measure highlights a much larger national conversation about the safety and prevalence of genetically modified foods.
‘Ag-gag’ law may have hindered report of animal cruelty at Missouri hog farm
A recent Missouri law meant to protect farmers may be making it harder to report alleged animal abuse, as animal welfare organizations have feared. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) on Wednesday asked law enforcement in Mercer County to investigate allegations of abuse at Murphy-Brown’s Badger-Wolf pig-breeding operation in northern Missouri. But…
With curbside composting, food waste not a total loss
Wasting around 40 percent of all the food produced in the U.S. certainly has its drawbacks: It’s not feeding people in need, it’s expensive and it does a lot of environmental damage. But across the country, cities, towns and companies are finding food waste doesn’t have to be a total loss. In fact, it can…