Kansas

Although Kansas has been the site of several high-profile fights over the future of chicken farming, the state’s Senate advanced a bill last week that would increase the cap on how many chickens a farmer can raise at once.

Last fall, a small community in northeast Kansas made headlines when thousands of residents protested the announcement that a Tyson poultry processing plant would soon be built nearby. Once the residents of Tonganoxie won their “No Tyson in Tongie” campaign, other communities followed suit. Now, state lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make it easier for communities to vote on whether to introduce new poultry processing facilities or large-scale farms in their communities, reports High Plains Public Radio.

Corn ethanol represents the first generation of biofuels. Cellulosic ethanol, made from grass, woody plants, and crop debris, was supposed to be the second generation.

Wind turbine companies "have lobbied for low or non-existent property taxes and steep depreciation schedules," meaning little new revenue for rural school districts from the giant windmills that dot the Midwest and Plains, says the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and Flatland, a part of Kansas City PBS. In an introduction to four stories about wind power, the MCIR and Flatland say their multi-state collaboration uncovered "how states like Kansas have given away the wind farm."

Eight months after he was elected president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, David Schemm resigned to pursue, in NAWG's words, "other professional opportunities in his home state of Kansas." The High Plains Journal said Schemm "has reportedly been tapped to accept the position of Kansas Farm Service Agency executive director," but there was no official word.

Less than two weeks ago, Tyson food executives, officials in Tonganoxie and Leavenworth counties in Kansas and Gov. Sam Brownback revealed a $320-million plan to develop "a chicken hatchery, feed mill, meatpacking plant and 300 to 400 poultry grow houses," reports the Topeka Capital-Journal. By Monday, 2,400 residents, including many ranchers, had gathered in the streets to protest the chicken plant, cheering a sign held by a 4-year-old: “No Tyson! No friggin’ chickens! No kidding!”

Last fall, the FBI derailed a plot by homegrown extremists to blow up an apartment complex in Garden City, Kan., that housed Somali refugees who had come there to work in the town’s meatpacking plants. In the latest story from FERN, produced in partnership with The New Republic, Ted Genoways tells how the town rallied around its newest residents.

For wheat farmers in western Kansas, the heavy snow and freezing temperatures that recently swept through their region were a one-two punch that flattened a promising crop.

Kansas is an intensely Republican state, yet Democrats have hopes of an upset in the first U.S. House race in the age of Trump, a special election today to replace Mike Pompeo, who quit Congress to become CIA director. The Democratic nominee, civil rights lawyer James Thompson, "has spooked Republicans in Washington" with a Bernie-Sanders-style campaign, says The Nation.

One-third of the land growing winter wheat is in drought territory, triple the portion that was affected two months ago, says USDA's Ag in Drought report. Dry conditions are a threat to establishment — and potential yields — of the crop, which is planted in the fall, lies dormant during the winter and is harvested in the spring.

Just elected to a second term as senator from Kansas, Republican Jerry Moran quashed reports that President-elect Donald Trump wants him to serve as agriculture secretary. Moran told KWCH-TV in Wichita that he has not been offered the position.

When Kansas dairy farmers expanded their herds and couldn't recruit enough local labor, they began recruiting immigrants from Central America as long-term employees with effects that are altering rural society and economics, according to Kansas State University researchers. Associate sociology professor Alisa Garni says immigrant labor and economic development have gone hand in hand.