A new federal report about climate change should be a wake-up call to Iowa, a state with an economy heavily dependent on agriculture. It should also be a wake-up call to the 90 percent of registered Republicans here who see truth-telling as an essential trait in an American president, according to a new Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll.  There are truths revealed by science. This country needs a president who believes them.Which brings us to this report, compiled by 13 federal agencies. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. meat industry is gigantic, with roughly $200 billion a year in sales and growing. But the industry faces emerging threats on two fronts: plant-based meat substitutes and actual meat grown in labs. Plant-based meat substitutes are a lot more, well, meaty than they used to be. They sear on the grill and even "bleed." They look, taste and feel in the mouth a lot like meat. Of course, taking the animals out of the meat business is not good news for people who raise meat animals for a living. [node:read-more:link]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted oil major Exxon Mobil Corp a financial hardship waiver this year temporarily freeing its Montana refinery from U.S. biofuel laws. [node:read-more:link]

The Agriculture Department on Thursday proposed a rule to more strictly enforce existing work requirements on more food-stamp recipients by reining in states’ ability to waive time restrictions. The release of the rule comes on the same day President Donald Trump is expected to sign the farm bill into law — and the timing is no accident.The proposal, which was initially expected to be released before the midterm elections, is the administration’s response to concessions House Republicans made on food stamps in the final bill. [node:read-more:link]

Craig Dunnum didn’t read the recently released National Climate Assessment which predicts the nation’s farm commodity contribution to the economy—$136.7 billion in 2016, already low due to falling prices—will be increasingly vulnerable to droughts, floods, pests, and disease. Instead, he lived it.The fourth-generation farmer in south-central Wisconsin has been through four 100-year floods in the past eight years. This year was the worst ever, with 20 inches of rain in 10 days. Two dams broke, flooding the small farming community nearby with eight feet of water. [node:read-more:link]

The Agricultural Act of 2018 raises FSA loan guarantees to $1.75 million from the current $1.399 million. It also doubles the loan limit for direct farm ownership, or real estate, loans to $600,000 and increases the limit on direct farm operating loans by $100,000 to $400,000. Elfmann said lenders often use a combination of banking products to meet borrowers' needs. With an FSA loan guarantee, the bank or another lender closes the loan and advances the funds to the borrower. In the event the borrower defaults, FSA reimburses the bank. [node:read-more:link]

They were found dead in front yards and in cars on the streets of rural Jackson County, West Virginia. [node:read-more:link]

There are 60 million people, almost one in five Americans, living on farms, in hamlets and in small towns across the landscape. For the last quarter century the story of these places has been one of relentless economic decline. This is, of course, not news to the people who live in rural and small-town America, who have been fighting for years to reverse this decline. But now, the nation’s political class is finally noticing. [node:read-more:link]

Pandora's box was a large jar given to Pandora that contained all of the world's evils. She unleashed it all when she opened the jar. [node:read-more:link]

Around the world, in all types of mining, automated machines are replacing human diggers. Forbes magazine calls them “the robots that will mine in hell.”The magazine described a 7,000-foot-deep Arizona copper mine where temperatures are 175 degrees Fahrenheit and warm water drizzles constantly. [node:read-more:link]