There’s something happening in Alaska’s small agriculture industry. It’s little noticed by most, but there are signs. Farmers are selling all they produce. Many think they can sell more.“If farmers sell out, they’ll grow more,” state agriculture director Arthur Keyes said. [node:read-more:link]

74 incidents of excess air pollution have been reported since the hurricane hit, totaling more than one million pounds of emissions. More is on the way. [node:read-more:link]

Gov. Paul LePage has told legislative leaders that he will call an emergency legislative session to amend a food sovereignty bill that the federal government has criticized as unlawful. A separate issue LePage says needs fixing during a special session is a funding snafu involving the Maine Office of Geographic Information System, which was identified in early August. [node:read-more:link]

With Dow-DuPont's $150 billion merger closing Thursday, the newly combined business's first spin-off could be the agribusiness formed by Johnston-based seed giant Pioneer and Indianapolis' Dow AgroSciences, experts say. "It makes sense, from my view, that agriculture" could be the focus of the first company formed, said Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar in Chicago. Here's why: Dow Chemical Co. [node:read-more:link]

Dole Food Co. is planning to sell its sprawling corporate headquarters and uproot its strawberry operations in Southern California as it seeks to sweeten its books ahead of yet another public stock offering. The world’s largest fresh fruit and vegetable company, owned by Los Angeles billionaire David H. Murdock, is nearly $1.3 billion in debt and operates with low margins and declining revenue. That makes the sale of some of its vast real estate holdings in Hawaii and the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

It’s been three long years of decline, but farm revenue is now expected to rise this year, slightly, according to a forecast released today by the USDA’s Economic Research Service. Both net cash income and net farm income will be stronger than they were last year, bringing revenues close to the historical average, according to ERS economists.Net cash income for farmers is now forecast to reach $100 billion, about 13 percent more than farmers made last year, according to the report. [node:read-more:link]

“People around here are breathing much cleaner air,” said Lynne A. Liddington, director of Knox County Air Quality Management. The Knox County Health Department announced Wednesday that for the first time in nearly 20 years, Knox and the surrounding counties of Anderson, Loudon, Blount, and part of Roane have been designated as meeting attainment for the Environmental Protection Agency's National Ambient Air Quality Standards concerning particulate matter 2.5. [node:read-more:link]

Kozmon is among the animal lovers who pushed for a new law to provide state oversight of nonprofit pet adoption groups. It cracks down on everything from shoddy health and record-keeping to unscrupulous pet dealers rebranding themselves as nonprofit “rescues” and peddling puppies from the same puppy mills adopters seek to avoid. The law, signed by Democratic Gov. [node:read-more:link]

On Tuesday, the Humane Society of the United States introduced a ballot initiative called the Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act, which calls for a requirement that all pork and veal sold in California be produced without restrictive crates, and that all eggs produced and sold in the state be cage-free. It would make California the only state other than Massachusetts, which passed similar legislation last year, to have such regulations on farm animal welfare. The biggest potential impact of the initiative could be on pork. [node:read-more:link]

“Today, the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America estimates that homeowners covered by federal flood insurance pay just half of the “true-risk cost” to insure their properties. In the highest-risk areas, they pay just a third.” A series of disasters has left the NFIP struggling financially. Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy devastated the flood insurance program’s budget and today, the program is about $24 billion in debt. [node:read-more:link]