Harvest Public Media | Cultivating stories from the ground up

For Farmland Conservation, It Comes Down To Who Owns It

Lin Warfel puts farmland owners in central Illinois into two categories: Those with a deep connection and desire to preserve their land, and those obsessed with short-term money. The 80-year-old still owns the land that’s been in his family since his great-grandfather arrived in Champaign County in the 1800’s. After farming it for decades, he now rents the corn and soybean operation to his neighbors down the road. It’s a crop-share arrangement. Warfel provides the land and pays the taxes. His...

After Meatpacking Outbreaks, Questions Loom Around Protecting Workers In The Future

World’s Biggest Meat Processor Says It’s Nearly Overcome A Cyberattack That Shut Down Its Plants

Trump Plants Seeds Of Rural Revival With Friendly Farm Audience

By Scott Horsley • Jan 8, 2018

White House via / YouTube

Updated at 4:45 pm ET

Egg Prices Expected To Rise In First Months Of 2018

By Amy Mayer • Dec 28, 2017

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts consumers will be paying less for beef, pork, lamb, chicken and turkey in early 2018 than at the start of 2017. Not so for eggs.

Soaring Popularity Of Grass-Fed Beef May Run Into Roadblock: Less Nutritious Grass

By Alex Smith • Dec 27, 2017

A few years ago, Kansas City restaurateur Anton Kotar surveyed the local and national restaurant scenes and concluded his town’s reputation as a steakhouse paradise had slipped.

The problem, he says, is the way conventional beef is raised – bulked up with grain on feedlots, making it cheap and plentiful and changing what Americans expect to taste.

Harvest's Top 10 Stories of 2017 (And A Short Note)

By Harvest Public Media • Dec 26, 2017

The Nebraska Sandhills are sand dunes covered by prairie grassland. The area is used primarily for cattle grazing and some farming. — Grant Gerlock / File/Harvest Public Media

We can’t get enough of year-end lists, so here are the stories that Harvest Public Media’s reporters and editors thought were interesting, thought-provoking, unique or just plain fun:

Help Wanted Signs Dot Rural Areas. The Catch? Housing Is Hard To Come By

By Grant Gerlock • Dec 21, 2017

Grant Gerlock / Harvest Public Media file photo

In places where the unemployment rate is well below the national average — states like Nebraska, Colorado and Iowa — one would think it’d be easier for communities to recruit new residents to fill open jobs.

But the housing market works against rural towns and cities where jobs often stay open because there are too few affordable homes and apartments to buy or rent, or the ones that are affordable need lots of TLC. It’s a situation that threatens to turn low unemployment from an advantage into a liability.

Sweeping Changes To U.S. Tax Code A Mixed Bag For Farmers, Rural Hospitals

By Grant Gerlock • Dec 20, 2017

The tax reform proposal could benefit small-town businesses, but it could also undermine programs that support rural hospitals if the national debt grows. — File: Grant Gerlock / Harvest Public Media

Many rural businesses and farms will benefit from the tax overhaul passed Wednesday by Congress. But there’s a catch: If the changes fail to spur economic growth as intended, programs that rural areas rely on could be on the chopping block.

One provision in the massive bill, which President Trump has yet to sign into law, allows small business owners to deduct 20 percent of their business income. It also expands the deduction for small business investment — a popular provision among farmers, who can write off the cost of things like a new tractor.

Cellulosic Ethanol Push Stalls In The Midwest Amid Financial, Technical Challenges

By Amy Mayer • Dec 19, 2017

Advanced biofuels have been touted as the next step beyond the corn-based ethanol that’s the bulk of the country’s renewable fuel for cars and trucks. These next-generation options were supposed to bring jobs to rural communities and provide farmers with fresh revenue sources, in addition to reducing the carbon footprint of vehicles.

Nearly a decade of federal incentives encouraged companies to invest in cellulosic technology, which produces ethanol from crop waste such as stalks, cobs and leaves left on fields after harvest, and at least three plants were built in the Midwest since 2014.

But cellulosic ethanol is harder to make than grain ethanol because it uses the inedible and irregular parts of the plants, meaning it was tough for machines to chew up the wet, heavy material. And companies faced other challenges, such as a steady supply, fluctuating markets and stalled policy decisions.

Small Payouts From Farm Safety-Net Programs Make Big Difference In Rural Schools

By Amy Mayer • Dec 14, 2017

Amy Mayer / Harvest Public Media file photo

The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay out almost $7 billion this year through two safety-net programs that offer farmers some assistance during tough financial times.

While most of it goes to farmers who grow corn, soybeans, wheat and other crops, K-12 public schools also get a sliver of the total payout. That’s a benefit for often rural districts that are struggling due to state legislatures trimming back their cut of education funding.

Lawsuit Attempts To Force USDA To Reinstate Livestock Fairness Rule

By Grant Gerlock • Dec 14, 2017

Cattle gather for a drink on a ranch in Nebraska. Some cattle producer say meatpacking companies have too much control over the market and the USDA needs stronger rules to ensure fair access. — Grant Gerlock / Harvest Public Media file photo

The U.S. Department of Agriculture faces a lawsuit that argues the federal agency must bring back a proposed rule that defined abusive practices by meatpacking companies.

Farmers from Alabama and Nebraska and the Organization for Competitive Markets, a nonprofit that works on competition issues in agriculture, filed the suit Thursday in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In Organic Labels Consumers Trust, But Fraud Threatens The Industry

By Kristofor Husted • Dec 14, 2017

Peyton Manning, the NFL quarterback-turned-pitchman, apparently has another side hustle: Certifying shipments of grain as organic for a Nebraska-based agency called OneCert.

Problem is, OneCert president Sam Welsch doesn’t remember hiring Manning for his business, which is accredited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to inspect everything from small vegetable farms to processing plants and international grain operations.

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