Farming

The Farm-to-School movement is out to revolutionize the humble school lunch with food grown on local farms. But the path from cropland to cafeteria is full of complicated twists and turns. A new wave of federal funding is trying to smooth the way.

The Pleasant Hill Republican represents the 55th House District, which takes in a portion of Cass County.

About a quarter of the United States’s irrigated cropland sits on top of the Ogallala Aquifer in the Great Plains. But water levels are dropping, and states are taking different approaches to monitoring how much groundwater irrigators are pumping out.

Farmers say Title One — a farm bill program that sends money when crop prices or harvests get low enough — isn’t working as a buffer against tough years. Yet others argue the nearly 100-year-old safety net is costing billions of dollars with few strings attached.

The consensus of agricultural economists is that crop prices, especially for corn, soybeans and cotton, will go down this year. The cost of farming is also expected to go down but not as much.

Recent heat and drought have fueled concerns about this year’s corn crop, as producers in the Midwest see a wide range of conditions.

Western Illinois landowners and farmers are needed for a survey about the challenges they face on their land. The Illinois Extension’s survey will turn the feedback from landowners in Adams, Pike, Brown, Hancock and Schuyler counties into educational programming and resources to help them.

The farm bill sets crucial policy for food assistance, crop insurance and more, and it’s set to expire Sept. 30. Congress is unlikely to meet that deadline, but they still need to decide how much money to spend on the bill.

A fifth of reported heat-related deaths between 2017 and 2022 were agricultural workers, according to OSHA data. Academics, occupational health specialists and advocacy groups are calling attention to the under-reported impact of climate change on this group from heatwaves.

If not repaired, the aging bridge, the only connection to Choteau Island for vehicles, could be further shuttered to the dismay of farmers, utility providers and government agencies.