Hilgedicks family farm is growing 1,600 acres of corn, soybeans and wheat as their primary crops, and is one of the many farms in Boone County receiving crop subsidies. In Mulch, the blog that accompanies the database, Cook pointed out that districts represented by the 18 subcommittee members received about a quarter of all crop subsidies. The uneven distribution of government subsidies the top 1 percent on Boone Countys list received 23 percent of total subsidy dollars is not a local...

The second is the renewal of the Marin Countywide Plan/2007 with deliberate onerous regulations to wound Marin Ag, and the third is the attempt by the local superintendent of the National Park Service to get rid of agriculture grandfathered onto local parkland. This latest 3-part threat to the largest part of local agriculture is just the latest reincarnation of threats to the existence of ranching in West Marin; it is not new, only a ratcheting up of a process openly advocated behind the...

As industrial farming has increasingly invested in a small number of crops and in genetically modified produce, older varieties of fruits and vegetables have disappeared. They believe that the agricultural practices of our time, restricted to so few plants, are vulnerable to potentially devastating diseases and infestations. The supermarket tomato, for example, is perfectly designed for shipping and storage, but its taste and texture are a far cry from homegrown varieties. Yet other lost...

Westar Representative Bill Birnel said the city s request to retain the ability to generate power caused Westar to do quite a bit of rethinking as they wrote new contracts. The also approved the city s budget, which is expected to decrease by about three mills this year, with one potential complication. Birnel said the council at that time could look at the option of being a green city, and purchasing a share of wind power, or green energy. One stipulation of the contract is the city would...

cotton subsidies, expressed dissatisfaction with Washington on Wednesday at the conclusion of talks aimed at avoiding a new WTO dispute between the two countries. The complaint was filed in July amid strained commercial relations between the two countries, which publicly blamed each other for the collapse of trade talks two months, which were seen as critical in the 151-member WTO's drive to conclude a new global commerce pact. He said Brazil would decide in a couple of weeks or months if...

Soybean and cotton farmers are suffering, and livestock producers are concerned about a lack of feed and forage going into winter, said David Tompkins, with the state Department of Agriculture. Some trees are already dropping their leaves because of the lack of water, and a short fall color season is predicted, said state Forest Protection Chief Darryl Jones, who fears that without widespread rain the fall wildfire season could be "very active. One chart on the state climatologist's Web...

August 17 2007 Record Rainfall Causes $200 Million in Ag-Related Losses COLLEGE STATION From watermelons left rotting in the field to flooded cotton and grain sorghum, record rains this spring and summer have resulted in $200 million in agriculture losses in South Texas, Texas Cooperative Extension and Texas Farm Service Agency officials reported Friday. August 17 2007 Record Rainfall Causes $200 Million in Ag-Related Losses COLLEGE STATION From watermelons left rotting in the field to...

So the new strategy, unveiled in a July plan issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and re-iterated this week by Chen Deming, a vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission in Beijing, is for most of the biofuel to come from non-grain sources, such as sweet sorghum, sugarcane and cassava. So the new strategy, unveiled in a July plan issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and re-iterated this week by Chen Deming, a vice chairman of the National Development and Reform...

Some help is on the way for farmers and livestock producers. The drought has hurt crop farmers, lowered lake levels and hurt water supplies in some communities. Hall said he has done farming work "on and off all my life. As those costs have risen, action at livestock auction barns has increased as farmers fighting for their livelihoods have been forced to sell their livestock. Transportation is often the biggest expense involved in buying hay, as farmers such as Woolfolk travel longer...