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Agribusiness

More crop insurance protection for agriculture disruptions

Washington, D.C. — Citing “continuing challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a statement said it aims to support farmers as they work to stabilize food prices and better feed populations both domestically and abroad. USDA’s Risk Management Agency is expanding double crop insurance opportunities in over 1,500 counties where double cropping is an option. The American Soybean Association has urged RMA to adjust the geographic line northward for producers to be eligible to ...

Sustainable soy-based tires developed

ST. LOUIS — The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company recently announced two lines of its commercial tires are now made with a renewable soybean oil compound. Both tire lines deliver the expected high-performance benefits. “Goodyear’s roll out of their first soy-biobased tires for waste haul and city buses is a breakthrough for U.S. soybean growers and the cities that depend on high-performing and sustainable tires,” said USB Chair Ralph Lott, a soybean farmer from Seneca Falls, New York. “City and other fleet leaders have told us they want soy in tires for such heavy equipment. ...

Minnesota man accused of falsely selling crops as organic

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota farmer is accused of making $46 million by passing off chemically treated corn and soybeans as organically grown. James Clayton Wolf was charged July 7 in federal court with felony wire fraud. Prosecutors say Wolf falsely labeled crops grown on his rural Cottonwood County farm as organic and that he defrauded grain buyers and undermined the nation's organic labeling system. Organic crops are grown from non-GMO seeds and without chemicals or fertilizers. They generate higher prices at market than non-organic crops. Organic crop certification is ...

Iowa court reverses precedent on Iowa pig farm lawsuits

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Iowa Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a long-standing precedent that allowed landowners to sue for damages when a neighboring hog farm causes water pollution or odor problems that affect quality of life. The court concluded, 4-3, that a 2004 decision was wrong. The earlier ruling established that a portion of Iowa's law providing immunity to livestock farms from neighbors' nuisance lawsuits violated the inalienable rights clause of the Iowa Constitution. It also found neighbors could sue if they had lived in the area long before the farm began ...

North Dakota AG clears farmland purchase tied to Bill Gates

FARGO, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota's attorney general has found the sale of a couple thousand acres of prime farmland to a group tied to Bill Gates complies with a Depression-era law meant to protect family farms because the land is being leased back to farmers. The state's Republican Attorney General Drew Wrigley had inquired into the land sale and on Wednesday issued a letter saying the transaction complied with the archaic anti-corporate farming law. The law prohibits corporations or limited liability companies from owning farmland or ranchland, but allows individual trusts to own ...

EXPLAINER: Why are Dutch farmers protesting over emissions?

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Farmers protested around the Netherlands as lawmakers voted Tuesday on proposals to slash emissions of damaging pollutants, a plan that will likely force farmers to cut their livestock herds or stop work altogether. The government says emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia, which livestock produce, must be drastically reduced close to nature areas that are part of a network of protected habitats for endangered plants and wildlife stretching across the 27-nation European Union. As tractors gathered outside the parliament building, Prime Minister Mark ...