Latest Agribusiness Headlines

All the headlines from our Agribusiness Topic Page, ordered by recency.

Companies Bringing Safety Technology to Grain Storage

Jul 31 2013 // The one sure-fire way to avoid dying in a grain bin is to stay out. That’s where Scott Haugan and some high-tech wizardry come in. The Des Moines Register reports Haugan, who runs the Howgan grain storage technology...

Dead Farmers Get Millions in Federal Crop Insurance Payouts

Jul 30 2013 // The U.S. Agriculture Department paid out $32 million in soil conservation payments and crop insurance aid to dead farmers from 2008 to 2012, congressional auditors said on Monday, calling for stricter rules to prevent...

OSHA Investigates After Lightning Hits 9 Colorado Farm Workers

Jul 26 2013 // Federal authorities are investigating safety procedures at a northern Colorado farm after nine workers were struck by lightning. Two of the workers in the organic fields in Wellington were critically injured when the...

House Crop Insurance Bill on Hold Again Over Food Stamp Cuts

Jul 25 2013 // The Republican-controlled U.S. House will try to cut billions of dollars from the food stamp program before negotiating an overall farm bill with the Senate, the House majority leader said on Thursday two months before the...

Colorado Senators Push FEMA for Details On Wildfire Mitigation

Jul 24 2013 // Two senators are pushing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to detail its efforts to mitigate wildfires. Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet and Idaho Republican Mike Crapo (KRAY’-poh) also want FEMA to identify...

U.S.-Led Trade Talks Gain Heft, Complexity, as Japan Joins

Jul 24 2013 // Japan joined U.S.-led trade talks on Tuesday, adding its weight to a pact that covers two-fifths of the world economy but raising further doubt over whether negotiators can prise open sensitive sectors such as farm goods...

AIR Worldwide Analyzes Landslides, Building Damage from China Quake

Jul 23 2013 // Catastrophe modeling firm AIR Worldwide has released its analysis of the damages suffered by rural communities in northwest China’s Gansu province from the “devastating earthquake on July 21 at 23:45:56 UTC...

Crop Insurance Rule Causing Confusion for Some Midwest Farmers

Jul 23 2013 // Last year’s drought has contributed to confusion over crop insurance rules for some Upper Midwest farmers who couldn’t get a crop in the ground this past spring due to the opposite weather extreme – too...

USDA Offering Drought Loans in 4 Nevada Counties

Jul 22 2013 // Federal agriculture officials have declared Storey County a primary natural disaster area due to drought, making farmers and ranchers in four Nevada counties eligible for emergency loans to bolster their operations. Farm...

Iowa Egg Farms Settle Suit Over Salmonella Recalls

Jul 17 2013 // The Iowa egg producers blamed for a 2010 salmonella outbreak have settled a lawsuit brought by a California distributor that lost profits from the foodborne illnesses and the resulting product recalls, court records...

USDA Issues Drought Disaster For East Idaho Counties

Jul 15 2013 // Federal agriculture officials have issued a disaster declaration for Clark County in eastern Idaho due to a lack of rain for the last two months. The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week also put four other nearby...

Heavy Rains Cause Major Floods, Mudslides in China: AIR Worldwide

Jul 12 2013 // AIR Worldwide reports that “days of heavy rain across the mountainous Yunnan and Sichuan provinces of southwestern China have caused widespread flooding and triggered landslides. Official reports state that 99...

House Passes Republican Farm Bill Without Food Stamps

Jul 11 2013 // House Republicans passed a five-year U.S. farm-policy bill that retains subsidies to farmers and strips out food-stamp spending, costing it Democratic support. The plan was approved today 216-208, with no Democrats in...

Guy Carpenter Facilitates Launch of Multi-Peril Crop Insurance in Australia

Jul 10 2013 // Guy Carpenter & Co., LLC, a global risk and reinsurance specialist and member of Marsh & McLennan Cos. has facilitated the launch of a Multi-Peril Crop Insurance (MPCI) product for Australian grain growers for the...

California Officials Probe Another Farmworker Death

Jul 10 2013 // California workplace safety officials are investigating the death of a second farmworker as possibly heat-related. The state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health said on Monday that a 37-year-old farmworker...

House May Split Food Stamps from Rest of Farm Bill

Jul 10 2013 // U.S. House leaders have decided to split food stamps and other nutrition programs from farm subsidies and bring an agriculture-only bill up for a vote before the August recess, a Republican leadership aide said. Such a...

U.S. EU Launch Free Trade Talks Despite Spying Concerns

Jul 9 2013 // The United States and the European Union began talks on Monday on a landmark bilateral free trade agreement, despite European concerns about U.S. spying that had threatened to delay the start after nearly two years of...

Agri-Groups Urge New House Vote on Farm Bill

Jul 3 2013 // Hundreds of U.S. farm and agribusiness groups have urged Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to try again to pass the $500 billion, five-year farm bill that suffered an historic and unexpected defeat in...

New El Nino Warnings Could Help Farmers Withstand Drought, Floods

Jul 2 2013 // Scientists have found a way to forecast El Nino weather events in the Pacific a year in advance, long enough to let farmers plant crops less vulnerable to global shifts in rainfall, a study showed on Monday. While far from...

China Expands System to Track Food Shipments

Jul 1 2013 // China is expanding a pilot system that tracks the movement of meat and vegetables to the supermarket shelf as part of efforts to tighten supervision of its scandal-plagued food industry. Under the programme, which is...