Seattle’s technology billionaires are many things: innovators, visionaries, philanthropists and some less polite descriptors, depending on whom you ask. But thanks to some scrupulous digging by industry journal The Land Report, which tracks land ownership across the country, we now know that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has another feather in his multi hyphenated career Read More
The derecho, which raced through the Midwest and focused its attention on Iowa, led to $7.5 billion in damage. That's more expensive than some hurricanes.Read More
The charitable organizations called food banks are getting a lot of attention and donations right now. But they aren't nearly as important or effective as SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.Read More
Around a million beef cattle are born each spring in the Northwest — about 228,000 in Washington, 533,000 in Oregon and 495,000 in Idaho last year. It takes a large crew working close to get through hundreds of cattle at a time, and ranchers say the job can’t wait — coronavirus or not. Read More
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is working with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to see how wage rates for immigrant farmworkers can be reduced. Critics say it will hurt all workers.Read More
The rule, which was to take effect April 1, would have tightened work requirements for some food stamp recipients. But a judge said flexibility in food aid is needed amid a pandemic.Read More
The pending federal rule changes could push a million kids off free or reduced-price school meals, at least temporarily.Read More
For the love of Johnny Appleseed! Why are so many apples left hanging (and rotting) on trees in Northwest orchards after the fall harvest? Industry experts and growers says it’s a combination of factors – but really not due to tariffs, as some people think.Read More
In 2019, the federal government delivered an extraordinary financial aid package to America's farmers. Farm subsidies jumped to their highest level in fourteen years, most of them paid out without any action by Congress.Read More
Dairy farmers in Massachusetts are using food waste to create renewable energy. Each farm produces enough to power about 1,500 homes. This helps prevent the release of methane, a greenhouse gas.Read More
The proposal, announced Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, comes in response to a request from the state, which wants to be fully exempted from a Clinton-era rule that limits road construction and timber harvesting in tens of millions of acres of national forest.Read More
Lots of American companies have lost sales since the Trump administration and China embarked on the current cycle of tariff-raising and retaliation. Few, if any, have been compensated as handsomely as farmers.Read More
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says states can’t block the interstate transportation of hemp, but law enforcement in Idaho says it won’t follow those guidelines.Read More
A couple of federal agencies you probably haven't heard of keep track of what farmers grow, what Americans eat and how the country's entire food system operates. And the Trump administration wants them out of Washington, D.C.Read More
Scientists infected the cats with toxoplasmosis and later killed them. Bipartisan members of Congress complained about the practice, and the agency ended the program.Read More
The Trump administration has proposed changing food stamp rules to require able-bodied adults without children to work 20 hours or more a week or lose benefits. Read More
Across the western U.S., towns surrounded by public lands are facing an increasing bind: They're seeing a huge surge in visitors coming to play in the forests and mountains surrounding them, which is leading to an economic boom. But, at the same time, federal funding to manage these lands has been drying up.Read More
The rule will give administrators more leeway in serving up white breads, biscuits, tortillas and white pastas by requiring that only half of the grains served in school meals each week be whole-grain rich. Read More
The West is way behind on reducing the buildup of hazardous fuels we created. And much of the work we do to reduce those fuels is missing the key ingredient: fire.Read More
Trade was at the forefront of the conversation with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue July 2 in Spokane. Perdue said President Donald Trump has assured him “he’s not going to allow agricultural producers to bear the brunt of trade disruptions” with China, Canada or Mexico—countries Perdue calls “the big three” for U.S. international trade.Read More
The intense fire season of 2017 led to calls for more "treatment" of federal forests to remove excess fuel that can make for bigger, hotter wildfires. But while there's broad bipartisan agreement that more needs to be done to promote forest health, the opposing sides can have very different pictures of what that looks like on the ground.Read More