Agricultural damage from Hurricane Michael's rampage last week is expected to top $1.3 billion in the Southeast, with $1.2 billion of the total in Georgia alone, according to officials. Cotton and pecan farmers suffered the worst damage in Alabama and Georgia.Roughly 100 chicken houses were destroyed in Georgia, including more than 2 million chickens.Florida suffered damage to at least 3 million acres of timber as well as peanuts, cotton and other agricultural commodities. [node:read-more:link]

Hurricane Michael was responsible for the loss of at least 84 poultry houses and 2 million birds in Georgia, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture. [node:read-more:link]

Oregon regulators have fined Lost Valley Farm, the state’s second-largest dairy, $187,320 for 224 violations of its wastewater permit. The penalty comes as the dairy’s owner, Greg te Velde, faces bankruptcy proceedings, a pending permit revocation, criminal contempt of court sanctions and felony drug charges in two states.The Oregon Department of Agriculture announced the fine exclusively in a tweet Friday afternoon. It’s the largest fine the agency has ever imposed on a dairy or other confined animal operation. [node:read-more:link]

Agricultural damage from Hurricane Michael's rampage last week across Georgia, Alabama and Florida is forecast to top $1.3 billion, with pecan and cotton farms the hardest hit as well as the region's poultry operations, according to officials. "Hurricane and cotton is like oil and water — it just doesn't mix at all," said William Birdsong, an agronomist with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and Auburn University in Headland. [node:read-more:link]

Tariffs are an ongoing concern for farmers as harvest is delayed due to wet conditions in many areas of the Midwest. Even with the trade deals made with Mexico and Canada, concerns continue. [node:read-more:link]

The Trump administration’s plan to allow year-round sales of higher-grade corn ethanol would have limited impact on the depressed U.S. ethanol market, with record supplies and prices for the fuel hovering near the lowest in a decade, analysts said. [node:read-more:link]

A quarter of rural Americans say that drug addiction is the biggest problem their communities face, according to a new poll of rural residents. A lot of that assessment is based on first-hand information. About half of rural residents say they personally know someone, like a friend or family member, who has struggled with opioid addiction. [node:read-more:link]

One of the Trump administration’s major efforts to prop up ailing coal companies has run aground in the White House, a setback to an industry that had hoped for a major resurgence after Donald Trump won the presidency. [node:read-more:link]

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke drew immediate flak Monday for proposing to use military bases on the West Coast to export coal and natural gas despite the opposition of environmentally minded state governments — with critics saying it just won’t work. “It’s really impressive how this administration churns out harebrained schemes for their Department of Cock-Eyed Ideas,” Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington state, a Democrat, told POLITICO. “The president must be getting really bad advice. It’s not going to work. [node:read-more:link]

Large U.S. companies are acting on renewable energy goals at a record pace. Through August of this year, they have already procured nearly 4 GW of utility-scale wind and solar capacity—breaking the previous full-year record, set in 2015, by nearly 750 MW. But the transmission infrastructure pipeline is likely not sufficient to meet corporations’ future low-cost clean energy needs. [node:read-more:link]