A new study contradicts decades of thought, research and teaching on the history of corn cultivation in the American Bottom, a floodplain of the Mississippi River in Illinois. The study refutes the notion that Indian corn, or maize, was cultivated in this region hundreds of years before its widespread adoption at about 1000 A.D. [node:read-more:link]
This time, suspicion is being buttressed by some economists with a proposition not too dissimilar to Laughlin’s: that immigrants could sap America’s vitality by bringing inferior cultural traits from their dysfunctional home countries to erode American social norms. It’s an unsettling assertion. It is laid out with striking candor by Paul Collier, the noted British development economist from Oxford, in his 2013 book “Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World” (Oxford University Press). “Migrants bring their culture with them,” he wrote. [node:read-more:link]
Agricultural labor is not just an issue for farmers. For every job on the farm, there are two to three more supported in transportation, food processing, equipment and supply manufacturing, sales and marketing, and other fields beyond rural farm communities. The ongoing shortage of available seasonal farm labor and the uncertainty related to the legal status of the existing workforce has prompted many growers to attempt to use a federal temporary guest-worker visa program for agriculture, known as H-2A. [node:read-more:link]
An environmental group is suing the Trump administration for delaying an endangered-species designation for the rusty patched bumblebee. The Natural Resources Defense Council says the U.S. Department of Interior broke the law by postponing the listing without public notice and comment. It was scheduled to take effect Feb. 10. But one day before that, the department put off the effective date until March 21 because of the administration's temporary freeze on new regulations. [node:read-more:link]
The Artic Apple, an apple that has been genetically modified to prevent browning, saw its first commercial harvest this past fall and is now being market tested in 10 Midwestern U.S. stores. Rabobank analysts recognize that the Artic Apple could truly test consumers’ willingness to purchase a fresh, GM produce item which delivers a consumer-centric characteristic. The World Health Organization has repeatedly stressed the safety of GM foods, but opponents continue to put the pressure on leading U.S. [node:read-more:link]
President Trump signed his first piece of legislation on Tuesday, a measure that could presage the most aggressive assault on government regulations since President Reagan. The bill cancels out a Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that would have required oil and gas and mining companies to disclose in detail the payments they make to foreign governments in a bid to boost transparency in resource-rich countries. [node:read-more:link]
Less than a year after legislators approved a bill defining how municipal bodies should treat agritourism, the New Hampshire Senate is considering another bill that would completely remove local regulation on the issue. During a Senate Public and Municipal Affairs Committee hearing, the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Bob Giuda, argued that the law passed in 2016 didn’t go far enough to protect the commercial interests of farmers. “We are allowing our local communities ... to define commerce in our state,” he said. [node:read-more:link]
State Fair officials on Friday announced they would give the city a minimum of $6 million to fix up Fair Park. The funds, which the State Fair is contractually obligated to use on such improvements, are an increase over last year's total. But the announcement coincided with increasing scrutiny of the State Fair's finances and whether the 24-day festivities make for a bad neighbor to the impoverished residents who surround the 277-acre city-owned park. [node:read-more:link]
Designing “smart bee storage” to revolutionize the industry has been a labor of love for Israel Bravo for the past 15 years – and it appears it’s an idea whose time has come, given the success of a prototype facility this winter. Bravo had looked far and wide to find a system that could dependably control the climate in a storage facility to keep bees healthy during their winter reprieve from pollinating crops and producing honey for human consumption. He finally found it in the expertise at Agri-Stor, a Twin Falls company that has been designing potato cellars for 60 years. [node:read-more:link]
Speaking to reporters after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Donald Trump yesterday downplayed the extent of changes he will seek in U.S./Canadian trade as he looks to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). "We'll be tweaking it, we'll be doing certain things that are going to benefit both of our countries," Trump said at a joint news conference with Trudeau on Monday. "It's a much less severe situation than what's taken place on the southern border. [node:read-more:link]
