A major U.S. dairy manufacturer is betting that steadily climbing milk prices will help the company outmaneuver smaller competitors.
Dean Foods, a Texas-based processor and distributor, anticipates milk prices will top $15 per hundredweight in 2010, up from about $13 at the end of 2009, a ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 12:34 PM
ROME -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, blamed for plunging his people into starvation, has used his platform at the U.N. anti-hunger summit to decry what he called his neocolonialist foes.
Another longtime African strongman, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, held another nightly soiree Tuesday, ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:04 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Congress crafts legislation to impose new oversight on complex instruments blamed for hastening the financial crisis, a major sticking point has emerged over companies that use the derivatives to hedge risk.
Some lawmakers want to exempt so-called "end users" of der ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 9:47 AM
PARIS (AP) -- Shares in French yogurt and bottled water company Groupe Danone SA fell on Thursday after the company reduced its medium term annual sales growth target.
In Paris afternoon trading, shares were down 3.8 percent at ยค40.92 ($60.82).
The maker of Evian mineral water ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 12:04 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Obama's nomination of Rajiv Shah, Agriculture undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics, to head the U.S. Agency for International Development, has won praise, but is also raising questions about the future of USDA agricultural research programs.
S ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 9:49 AM
Official: Forests slow warming
WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) -- The nation's top Forest Service official says national forests can store more carbon to slow global warming, but he warns that such a goal must be balanced against the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Forest Service Chief T ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:04 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Homeland Security Department will give a seal of approval to businesses volunteering to use an electronic program to check workers' immigration status.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday the public should know which companies are following the l ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 4:34 PM
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -- Federal immigration officials are cracking down on Vermont dairy farmers asking them to provide records to prove their workers are legal.
Kelly Loftus, a spokeswoman for the state Agency of Agriculture, says immigration officials visited four farms on Thursday ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 4:04 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- Developments this week could determine whether the fertilizer wars may finally be coming to an end.
Canada's Agrium Inc. said Thursday that shareholders controlling 62 percent of CF Industries stock have backed its $5.1 billion buyout offer, which CF Industries' mana ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 12:18 PM
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The holidays may not be so sweet this year.
Nestle -- which sells nearly all the canned pumpkin in the U.S. -- says poor weather hurt its harvest, creating a potential shortage of its Libby's pumpkin pie products through the holidays.
In a statement to customers t ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 11:18 AM
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) -- Prosecutors have dismissed all 72 immigration charges against a former Iowa kosher slaughterhouse manager.
The move came after Sholom Rubashkin's conviction last week in federal court on financial fraud charges.
Prosecutors filed the motion Thursday morni ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 12:18 PM
GENEVA (AP) -- The World Trade Organization opened investigations Thursday into a European Union ban on American poultry, and U.S. labeling rules for cattle and hog imports from Canada and Mexico.
In a dispute meeting dominated by agriculture, the WTO set up panels to review the poultry and ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 8:49 AM
PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) -- The Army is dropping its appeal of a court ruling related to plans to step up training at Pinon Canyon.
The Army appealed a Sept. 8 federal court ruling that said it didn't adequately assess the environmental effects of increasing training at the southeast Colorado si ...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 3:34 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's top Forest Service official says national forests can store more carbon to slow global warming, but he warns that such a goal must be balanced against the risk of catastrophic wildfires.
Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told a Senate panel on Wednesday that ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 12:49 PM
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Poet LLC, the nation's top ethanol producer, says it is has reduced its cellulosic ethanol production cost during the past year from $4.13 per gallon to $2.35 per gallon.
The Sioux Falls-based company plans to produce 25 million gallons of ethanol each year from p ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 9:33 AM
SANDY, Utah (AP) -- The Utah Farm Bureau has hit an all-time high in membership.
The Farm Bureau reports that its membership at the end of October was 27,313 families, an increase of 16 percent.
Utah Farm Bureau CEO Randy Parker says the membership milestone shows how Utah families re ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 8:04 AM
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A North Carolina congressman says police got their facts wrong when they denied a messy Capitol Hill protest against corporate hog farms out of concern about spreading swine flu.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Wednesday that U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge scolde ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 8:04 AM
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Federal agriculture authorities have declared disaster areas in parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee due to crop losses from a combination of severe spring and fall flooding and summer drought.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the de ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 7:49 AM
ROME (AP) -- U.N. officials say years of drought and war, as well as high food prices and the global financial crisis, have made the Horn of Africa one of the most critical hunger areas in the world, with some 23 million people not getting enough to eat.
The World Food Program will need ...
Friday, November 20, 2009 7:49 AM
ROME (AP) -- Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, blamed for plunging his people into starvation, has used his platform at the U.N. anti-hunger summit to decry what he called his neocolonialist foes.
Another longtime African strongman, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, held another nightl ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:34 PM
A fungus problem with the potential to create widespread damage to corn crops in the Dakotas for perhaps the first time in memory might not be as ominous as first feared.
Initial tests are showing that the corn ear molds that are showing up in North Dakota and South Dakota are not of ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 9:19 AM
DENVER (AP) -- A Colorado agriculture group and Chaffee County have been allowed to intervene in a lawsuit challenging livestock grazing on about a quarter-million acres on the Pike and San Isabel national forests in south-central Colorado.
A federal magistrate Monday approved requests by the C ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 8:49 AM
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) -- Tristesse Jones will probably never drive a tractor or guide a combine through rows of soybeans at harvest time.
There isn't a farm within miles of where she grew up on Chicago's west side, but she's set to graduate with a bachelor's degree in crop sciences fr ...
Thursday, November 19, 2009 8:49 AM
MIAMI (AP) -- A traveler who arrived at Miami International Airport earlier this month must pay a $300 penalty for trying to smuggle fresh sweet potatoes from Bolivia into the United States by disguising the vegetables as a candy.
According to a news release, U.S. Customs and Border Protection ...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 10:33 AM
Examiner newspaper, occurred around Oct. 28.
"It's continuing. Every week, I hear of something else being gone somewhere else," Bartron said.
Since the thefts, Bartron said he has had to pay for improved lighting as well as surveillance camera upgrades at the dealership. He has also remov ...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 9:03 AM
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- North Dakota sunflower farmers are facing not only wet harvest conditions, they're also dealing with more combine fires.
Larry Neubauer, who farms near Bottineau, says combine fires have been more of a problem this fall because of the time that passed between the killing ...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:48 AM