Farming | featured news

A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.

In 2012, farmers harvested less than three-fourths of the expected corn crop.

The world urgently need to adopt drought-management policies as farmers from Africa to India struggle with lack of rainfall and the United States endures the worst drought it has experienced in decades, top officials with the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday.

The worst drought in a half century will continue to plague most of the U.S. Midwest crop region for at least the next 10 days, with only occasional showers providing some relief mainly in the east, an agricultural meteorologist said on Thursday.

Some cornstalks in fields around the farm where David Kellerman works stand tall, but appearances can be deceiving. When the husks are pulled back, the cobs are empty. No kernels developed as the plants struggled with heat and drought.

Kansas State University student Greg Peterson and some friends were unwinding at a drive-in restaurant when LMFAO's song "Sexy and I Know It" came on the radio. But as the chorus droned on, the 21-year-old found inspiration. He switched "sexy" to "farming" as he began rapping. Then he started coming up with lyrics. It would be fun, he thought, to do a video parody with his brothers when he returned home to the family farm in central Kansas.

A program that puts billions of dollars in the pockets of farmers whether or not they plant a crop may disappear with hardly a protest from farm groups and the politicians who look out for their interests.

Two farms have been quarantined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as the agency continues to investigate last month's discovery of mad cow disease at a California dairy farm.

With water increasingly scarce in the West, a new program is allowing some farmers to sell their allotment of it for whatever price they can find, but it comes with a hitch... They can continue to farm all their land, or they can stop farming some of it and earn more than $500 an acre — more than the market value of a crop like alfalfa in a given year — simply by not using the water required to nourish those crops. Water saved is sent on to thirsty cities and suburbs to the west: San Diego, Los Angeles and Palm Springs.

Are you out of work? Are you looking for a job? If the answer to those questions is "yes," Gov. Nathan Deal has an idea for you: Become a farm worker.