Top Agriculture News

In the wake of Hurricane Helene, USDA staff is available to assist when you are ready. USDA is working diligently to implement program flexibilities and waivers, to help streamline your recovery process. We are regularly reviewing our programs, so please check in periodically with your local USDA office for updates.  Documenting Loss We encourage you […]

Floodwaters from Hurricane Helene swamped the Southern United States, with virtually every commodity impacted. Farm Policy News says cotton, pecans, poultry, and timber were hit the hardest by the hurricane. It brought chicken processing plants to a halt, and caused severe damage to some flocks, while also downing pecan trees and flattening crops. A USDA […]

Somerset, Pa., Oct. 3, 2024 – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small announced today that USDA is partnering with farmers and small businesses to expand access to clean energy and lower energy bills through the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). “As drivers of our economy, farmers and rural business owners deserve affordable […]

Illinois farmer Kenneth Hartman, Jr., is the new president of the National Corn Growers Association. He’s selected “Building Bridges” as the theme for his year in the president’s chair. “Where that came from is we have a bridge that’s on the farm that was here before my grandfather bought this farm. My great, great grandfather, […]

Crops across the Southeast are feeling the impact of last week’s Hurricane Helene. USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey says, considering the swath of winds and heavy rains from a stretch from Florida’s big bed to as far north as areas of Virginia and Tennessee… “Believe it was 140 miles per hour moving much faster that pushed […]

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Hurricane Helene has left millions without electricity, water and phone service across the Southeast in the six days since making landfall. Now many people are relying on old-fashioned ways of communicating and coping. In one North Carolina town, local leaders are updating residents at meetings in the town square. Message boards list the names of the missing. Mules delivered medical supplies to mountaintop homes. The death toll has topped 180, and many people remain unaccounted for. President Joe Biden surveyed the devastation in the Carolinas from the air on Wednesday and plans to tour disaster areas in Georgia and Florida on Thursday.

A port strike is now in place. Negotiations between the International Longshoremen Association Union, which represents about 85,000 port workers, and the United States Maritime Alliance employer group representing about 40 ocean carriers and terminal operators, failed to come to an agreement before the contract expired, and while President Biden says he will not intervene, […]

The Agriculture Department is out with its newly revised forecasts for production and prices for the poultry industry, both for broilers and turkeys. Now in most years, the outlook stories for those two products are very similar, but not this time. “Broilers and turkey, kind of opposite situations there.” With a promising outlook for broiler […]

Senate Ag Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) called for emergency assistance for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities who suffered devastating losses in the wake of Hurricane Helene. “This is a horrible blow to farmers, ranchers, and rural communities across the Southeast just as the harvest season was getting started for many crops,” Stabenow said. “As Chairwoman […]

A new study says hurricanes in the United States are hundreds of times deadlier in the long run than the government calculates. In fact, the researchers say they contribute to more American deaths than car accidents or all the nation’s wars. Wednesday’s study says the average storm hitting the U.S. contributes to the early deaths of 7,000 to 11,000 people over a 15-year period. That dwarfs the average of 24 immediate and direct deaths that the government counts in a hurricane’s aftermath. Study authors said even with Hurricane Helene’s growing triple digit direct death count, far more people will die in future years in part because of Helene’s effects.