The roughly 150 mph winds hopped over Chef Menteur Highway and blew out walls at a NASA assembly plant. By the time the tornado fizzled out over Lake Borgne, it had caused millions of dollars of damage. Together with a cluster of other windstorms, it yielded the seventh presidentially declared major disaster of 2017. States have come to rely on these declarations, a practice that helps individuals and communities recover from disasters. [node:read-more:link]

The Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) this week announced approval for local sponsors to purchase agricultural easements on 58 family farms representing 8,737 acres in 28 counties. Logan County has several such easements in place. Local sponsoring organizations, which include land trusts, counties and local Soil and Water Conservation Districts, receive funding from the Clean Ohio Fund to manage the Local Agricultural Easement Purchase Program (LAEPP). The easement ensures farms remain permanently in agricultural production. [node:read-more:link]

It has been remarkable how quickly the “buzz” about rural voters and their electoral impact has faded. Many Main Street advocates, myself included, predicted the super-majority of rural voters who carried Donald Trump to victory would prompt a policy spotlight that would shine brightly on small towns and rural spaces. After all, without rural voters there would be no President Donald Trump.Then, the incoming administration waited until the day before the inauguration to announce an Agriculture secretary-nominee. [node:read-more:link]

Hernandez worked on the Knoepkes’ farm in Pepin County for 16 years. He shared that home with his wife and two young sons, Thomas, 5, and Liam, 4. That day, at Thomas’ last day at Noah’s Ark Preschool, he cried as he told his classmates that he will not be starting kindergarten with them in the fall. He had never been to Mexico.Earlier this month, Hernandez and four other men, who for years had milked and cared for cows on dairy farms among the hills of western Wisconsin, drove away in the direction of their mountainous hometown of Texhuacan. [node:read-more:link]

In the past year, the GMO debate has faded as attention has shifted to the promise of genetically “edited” foods in which producers trim existing DNA in foods rather than introducing new DNA, as the case in GMO-based genetic engineering. DuPont has emerged as a major innovation in genetic editing with a new unit called CRISPR-Cas, designed to improve seeds without incorporating DNA from other species. [node:read-more:link]

DC power lines are being used again thanks to their ability to outperform AC lines over long distances and directly connect with renewable power sources. This makes bringing green energy from distant rural locations to urban centers possible. In the near future, the few DC transmission lines which are now scattered all over the country may be connected by nine or more new long-distance lines. These high-voltage DC (HVDC) lines are a reflection of the geography of renewable power trends. [node:read-more:link]

Renewable energy often gets dismissed as a relatively insignificant part of the power picture because it doesn't generate as much of America's electricity as coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants. The president of the United States has even said he doesn't think wind "works," and he's certainly no fan of solar energy.  But the opinions that wind and solar are fads, or are too minor to care about, or "don't work" are simply wrong. In fact, wind and solar will soon overtake nuclear for the percentage of U.S. power they generate, and coal could be next. New data from the U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Enlist corn will be available for farmers in the U.S. starting in the 2018 growing season. Dow AgroSciences made the announcement after China approved the import of corn grown with the new trait. The announcement was made along with approval for Monsanto’s Vistive Gold soybeans and renewed approvals for 14 other GMO crops. [node:read-more:link]

Several ag groups on Friday expressed concern over President Donald Trump's announcement that his administration will make it harder for Americans to travel to Cuba and restrict some business activities with the island nation location only 90 miles from Florida. The Republican-leaning American Farm Bureau Federation, the Democratic-leaning National Farmers Union, the U.S. Grains Council and wheat groups all said that the changes, while not related directly to agriculture, could hurt U.S. [node:read-more:link]

Three consumer groups on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Sanderson Farms Inc. accusing the company of falsely advertising that its chicken is “100 percent natural.” The groups suing Sanderson Farms are the Organic Consumers Association, Friends of the Earth and Center for Food Safety. In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in California, the groups said testing in 2015 and 2016 by USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service found 49 instances in which samples of Sanderson products tested positive for residues of synthetic drugs. [node:read-more:link]