Harvest Public Media | Cultivating stories from the ground up

Without Adequate Crop Scouting, Pests Like Hungry Caterpillars Can Eat Through Farmers' Profits

Walking through rows of growing crops helps farmers monitor for harmful insects, leaves that are damaged by disease or other problems that could reduce their overall harvest at the end of the season. And this year in Iowa, there’s a menace that, left to its own devices, could munch farmers out of profit.

4 Midwestern Farmers Sentenced In Massive Organic Fraud Case

Even With More Acres Planted Than Expected, The Ag Outlook Isn't Great

Tyson To Rebuild Western Kansas Plant, But Fire Idles Operation Indefinitely

By Brian Grimmett & Angie Haflich • Aug 13, 2019

Tyson Fresh Meats plans to reopen the Holcomb, Kansas, beef packing plant partially destroyed by a weekend fire — it’s just not sure when.

Tyson said in a news release that it will recruit some employees to rebuild the plant, which processes about 5% of the country’s cattle.

USDA Inspector General: Moving Research Offices From DC To KC Isn't Quite Legal

By Amy Mayer • Aug 6, 2019

Amy Mayer / Harvest Public Media file photo

Critics of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to move two of its research agencies from Washington, D.C., to the Kansas City area got more ammunition this week.

Iowa's Rural Voters Are The First To Have A Say, Which Holds Sway Over Candidates' Policies

By Amy Mayer • Aug 2, 2019

Presidential candidates have been fanning out across Iowa for months ahead of the 2020 election, creating an opportunity for voters to get agricultural issues on the national agenda.

FDA To CBD Retailers: Don’t Make Unfounded Health Claims

By Madelyn Beck • Jul 30, 2019

Esther Honig / Harvest Public Media file photo

Federal agencies are scrambling to establish regulations for hemp and hemp products as farmers in the Midwest and around the country start growing the crop.

In the meantime, the government is warning companies not to make health claims about CBD they can’t back up.

Farming Is Headed Toward A Gene-Editing Revolution, And Hoping The Public Comes Along, Too

By Madelyn Beck • Jul 26, 2019

Sci-fi writers have long warned about the dangers of modifying organisms. They come in forms ranging from accidentally creating a plague of killer locusts (1957) to recreating dinosaurs with added frog genes (2015).

Now, with researchers looking to even more advanced gene-editing technology to protect crops, they’ll have to think about how to present that tech to a long-skeptical public.

Economists Say Trump Administration Is Overpaying Farmers For Trade Losses

By Dan Charles • Jul 25, 2019

If you're caught in a trade war, it's good to be a farmer.

Lots of American companies have lost sales since the Trump administration and China embarked on the current cycle of tariff-raising and retaliation. Few, if any, have been compensated as handsomely as farmers.

3 Million Could Lose Food Stamp Benefits Under Trump Administration Proposal

By Pam Fessler • Jul 23, 2019

The Trump administration wants to change the way states determine who qualifies for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 3 million people would lose their food assistance as a result.

These Programs Will Pay Kansas Farmers For Crops They Won't Harvest

By Corinne Boyer • Jul 18, 2019

GARDEN CITY — Three years ago, rancher and farmer Jay Young got intrigued by a YouTube video.

A North Dakota farmer championed the idea of cover crops — plants that would be considered weeds in many other contexts — as robust plants for his cattle to graze on.

Young applied the cover crop strategy – rotating rye, radishes, turnips, oats and barley – to his land just east of the Colorado border. The plants held the soil in place, trapped nutrients in the ground and made the ground nicely spongy.

Scientists Desert USDA As Agency Relocates To Kansas City Area

By Merrit Kennedy • Jul 17, 2019

Two vital research agencies at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are hemorrhaging staff as less than two-thirds of the researchers asked to relocate from Washington to the Kansas City area have agreed to do so.

JBS Accounts For A Quarter Of Pork Bought By The Federal Government To Offset Trade Losses

By Chris Walljasper & Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting • Jul 10, 2019

A Brazilian-owned meat processing company undercut its competition by more than $1 per pound to win nearly $78 million in pork contracts through a federal program launched to help American farmers offset the impact from an ongoing trade war.

As a result, JBS USA has won more than 26 percent of the $300 million the USDA has allocated to pork so far — more than any other company, according to an analysis of bid awards by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

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