farmers

When 1,000 consumers were asked who they trusted in the food system, farmers were the clear winners, said the economists overseeing the new Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey on Thursday. Participants gave farmers an average score of 5.6 on a scale of 1 to 7.

Arizona's farmers are facing a water crisis, as the state diverts scarce Colorado River resources to booming population centers, reports Stephen R. Miller, in FERN's latest story with National Geographic. To deal with the situation, farmers are drilling deeper into aquifers or selling off land, but pressures will only mount with climate change.

In a speech on the future of agriculture, a former USDA official forecast a fundamental shift in the demographic makeup of the food and ag sector.

Fair trade products have exploded in popularity over the last two decades. In 2014 more than 40 percent of all coffee was produced under one of four initiatives: Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ Certified, and 4C. But how much do these certifications, which pay farmers a premium above …

Summer storms and unpredictable “flash droughts” have proven a challenge to farmers who grow malt barley in Montana. As the climate has gradually warmed, a once-hospitable environment for the grain has become far more tenuous, says Ari LeVaux in FERN’s latest story, with The Weather Channel. (No paywall)

Farmers voted overwhelmingly for President Trump last fall and they are ardent supporters to this day, according to a Farm Futures survey of 1,200 growers, as the president completed his sixth month in office. Some 49 percent gave Trump an "A" or a "B" grade on agriculture; only 10 percent, roughly the same portion who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton, gave him an "F."

A mandated interstate "pollution diet" intended to reduce nutrient runoff into the Chesapeake Bay is paying off, while voluntary measures to reduce nitrogen levels in Mississippi River have failed, writes a University of Michigan professor at the site The Conversation. "From my perspective, when we compare these two approaches it is clear that voluntary measures are not even making modest dents in nutrient pollution," says professor Donald Scavia, who has worked on the issue of "dead zones" for four decades.

Farmers and ranchers say they are in a better financial situation than a year ago, according to the Ag Economy Barometer's monthly survey. The Purdue economists who oversee the barometer said farmers are markedly more optimistic than last summer, with one factor being the expectation of lower taxes in coming years.

After almost completely removing the growth-promoting drug ractopamine from its pigs, Canada is outpacing the U.S. in pork sales to China, where the drug is banned. Canada has only beat out the U.S. in pork sales a handful of times in the last 20 years, says Reuters.

The March for Science, set for Saturday in Washington, may command attention for one reason: "It’s pretty rare for people in any occupation to march on their field’s behalf," says FiveThirtyEight in an examination of public protest. "When scientists travel from across the country to ask their government for respect and funding, the group they will most closely be emulating is farmers."

For the second month in a row, the Ag Economy Barometer declined, this time by 10 points, says Purdue University, based on a survey of 400 producers. Optimism zoomed with President Trump's election but has been on the decline since peaking at its highest-ever level in January.

Producers are worried about economic conditions in the farm sector and forecasts of a continued slump in farm income are eroding their confidence about the future, say Purdue University economists. The Purdue Ag Economy Barometer fell by 19 points during February, taking some air out of the "Trump bump" in farmer confidence that began in November and lifted producer sentiment to a record high in January.

A proud refrain of American agriculture is "we feed the world" of many nations and cultures although U.S. farmers are overwhelmingly white men. Kendall Lamkey, chairman of the department of agronomy at Iowa State University, is trying to diversify the sector by attracting students "from a wider pool – from cities and suburbs, and from minority groups," says the NPR blog, The Salt.

Researchers say farmworkers who experience a high pesticide exposure event, such as a spill, are more likely to have molecular changes in their DNA that may lead to certain types of cancer, says Environmental Health News (EHN). The research was drawn from the long-running Agricultural Health Study of 57,000 private and commercial pesticide users in Iowa and North Carolina.

Many farmers in California’s Central Valley, where 70 percent of the farmworkers are in the U.S. without documentation, voted for Donald Trump. But as Trump takes a hard line on immigration in his first few weeks in office, some farm owners are worried he won’t make any exemptions for agriculture, says the New York Times.

A post-election surge in producer optimism pushed the Ag Economy Barometer to a record high for the second consecutive month, says Purdue University, which conducts a survey of farmers and produces the monthly report.