Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — The floods that have devastated large swaths of Nebraska and Iowa since late last week left house pets homeless, inflicted an unknown toll on livestock and led to several daring water rescues of animals from dogs to horses. Rescuers in the Omaha area, where the Platte, Elkhorn and Missouri rivers began spilling over […] Read more
Livestock, pets among victims in U.S. Midwest flooding
U.S. grains: Corn, wheat drift lower on weak export demand
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn and wheat futures closed nearly unchanged on Tuesday, with commodity funds reluctant to add to a heavy net short position despite pressure from slowing export demand for U.S. grains, analysts said. Soybean futures declined as traders awaited news from ongoing U.S. trade negotiations with China, the world’s top soybean […] Read more
SunOpta sheds U.S. Midwest organic corn, soy business
Reading Time: 2 minutes Organic food firm SunOpta Inc. has stepped out of the U.S. organic corn and soybean business in a $66.5 million deal with Minnesota-based organic startup Pipeline Foods. Mississauga-based SunOpta announced Monday it closed a deal with Pipeline last Friday for the Canadian firm’s organic and “specialty” soy and corn operations, which include five plants in […] Read more
U.S. grains: Corn firms as rainy Midwest outlook threatens harvest
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn futures firmed on Thursday on concerns that several days of rainy weather expected across the U.S. Midwest could disrupt harvesting of what is forecast to be a bumper U.S. crop. Soybeans also drew support from the wet forecast, but shed gains late in the session in a technical selling […] Read more
Minnesota finds source of Palmer amaranth on CRP land
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — An invasive weed likely entered Minnesota through seed planted on land in a U.S. conservation program, state agriculture officials said on Thursday, bringing to a close an official probe of a growing threat to agricultural production. Infestations of the weed, Palmer amaranth, have affected other states in the U.S. Midwest through seed planted […] Read more
Palmer amaranth threatening U.S. corn fields
Reading Time: 3 minutes Winterset, Iowa | Reuters — A U.S. government program designed to convert farmland to wildlife habitat has triggered the spread of a fast-growing weed that threatens to strangle crops in America’s rural heartland. The weed is hard to kill and, if left unchecked, destroys as much as 91 per cent of corn on infested land, […] Read more
Cruz’s Iowa victory could show Big Corn’s waning influence
Reading Time: 3 minutes New York | Reuters — U.S. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s victory on Monday in corn-rich Iowa could represent a major blow to the country’s controversial biofuels program, reflecting its waning influence over politicians even in the U.S. farm heartland. Cruz, a conservative senator from Texas and outspoken opponent of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), […] Read more
Is Manitoba the new Iowa?
Moisture gives the top U.S. soybean-producing state a yield advantage, but also causes more disease problems
Reading Time: 2 minutes Is Manitoba the new Iowa? That was the official theme of one Manitoba Agronomists’ Conference as professionals considered the future of soybeans in the Keystone province. It is also the question that producers and industry officials are pondering now that soybeans in Manitoba are well over the million-acre mark. The doubling of soybean acres in […] Read more
Iowa declares state of emergency over avian flu
Reading Time: < 1 minute Reuters — Iowa Governor Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency on Friday due to a rapidly expanding avian flu outbreak. State agriculture officials on Friday announced four more poultry farms — a million-bird commercial egg laying operation and three turkey farms — have initially tested positive for an H5 strain of the virus. “While […] Read more
Iowa reports biggest single U.S. outbreak of bird flu
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– Iowa, the top U.S. egg-producing state, found a lethal strain of bird flu in millions of hens at an egg-laying facility on Monday, the worst case so far in a national outbreak that prompted Wisconsin to declare a state of emergency. The infected Iowa birds were being raised near the city […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
