corn

Ten employees at Syngenta Kauai were taken to the hospital when they walked onto a corn field 20 hours after the application of chlorpyrifos, reports The Civil Beat. Typically, workers are supposed to wait 24 hours before going back into the fields after a chlorpyrifos spray. Three of the workers stayed overnight at the hospital, but all have since been released and cleared for work.

The chemical and agricultural company DuPont says it expects "a slight year-over-year uptick" in corn plantings in the United States, the world's largest grower, and Brazil, the No. 3 grower behind China.

Leading into the Feb. 1 precinct caucuses that begin the presidential nomination process, Harper's says in a cover story that "it seems to defy reason" that Iowa, a farm state with a population of 3 million, "should play such an out-sized role. But Iowa is not over. In fact, it may be more relevant than ever."

Drought and excessive heat prevented farmers from planting a crop in much of South Africa's corn-growing region and the season is advancing; pollination and kernel-filling takes place in February and March in much of the country. USDA slashed its estimate of the nation's corn harvest to 8 million tonnes, down by one-third from a month ago and far below normal for South Africa, which normally supplies corn to other countries in its region.

Agriculture Minister Senzeni Zokwana said South Africa, an agricultural bellwether, "might be compelled to import maize by April or May due to ongoing drought, reports The Citizen newspaper.

When a poll put Donald Trump in second place in Iowa, biotech corn was fingered as the culprit on social media before the Trump campaign apologized, says Agri-Pulse. The dustup began when Trump's Twitter feed reposted a tweet that originated with a Nevada businessman, who noted that surgeon Ben Carson was leading Trump in Iowa, and then added: "Too much #Monsanto in the #corn creates issues in the brain?"

Corn is the staple crop of Mexico, consumed at the rate of nearly a pound per day per person, mostly as tortillas. So a court decision in August that repealed a ban on GMO corn resounded among activists and chefs, says Vice.

Soybean growers in Brazil, driven by higher domestic prices, will expand plantings for the tenth year in a row and reap a record 100 million tonnes of the oilseed, said USDA. Brazil is second to the United States as a soybean grower but the world leader in soybean exports.

Farm Belt farmers are headed for the lowest returns in years for operator and land from their corn and soybean crops, says economist Gary Schnitkey of U-Illinois at farmdoc daily.

Tar spot, a fungal disease of corn, was confirmed in north central Indiana, the first known instance of the disease in the U.S.

The government will make its first crop-subsidy payments under the 2014 farm law in October, with an estimated transfer of $6.5 billion to follow, said USDA deputy undersecretary Alexis Taylor at a House Agriculture Committee hearing.

A federal judge has decided that the bulk of lawsuits by thousands of farmers against Syngenta over a genetically engineered corn variety will proceed to trial, reports DTN.

Farm-gate prices for corn, soybeans and wheat, the three most widely planted crops in the country, "have declined sharply from record levels set in recent years and no quick price recovery is expected," says the University of Missouri think tank FAPRI in an update of its agricultural baseline.

The corn earworm is a widespread crop pest, particularly in the U.S. South, and adept at quickly developing resistance to genetically engineered crops. Over time, researchers looking at lab-selected strains of earworm have identified 20 genes that harbor mutations conferring resistance to pest-killing proteins in so-called Bt crops, which have been genetically engineered to produce bacteria that repel the earworm.