A judge in Columbus is preparing to hear arguments in a dispute over Ohio’s authority to regulate oil-and-gas operations, including wells disposing of fracking wastewater. Attorneys for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the operator of a Youngstown-area wastewater injection well address Judge Kimberly Cocroft. At issue is the department’s power to take action against the well, which disposes of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing and sits nearby at least 20 small seismic events that occurred in 2014. [node:read-more:link]

In a theoretical world, one place is as good as another for producing goods. But agriculture is where you find it, and for good reason. That’s just one of the factors that makes the ag market behave differently from the widget market. It’s also why some form of risk-mitigation through government farm programs are a good idea, say two ag-policy analysts. Rural and urban residents have seen this happen time and time again. [node:read-more:link]

In a joint release, NCBA and the PLC said the brief details how the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disregarded the statutory and constitutional limits of federal authority, lobbied on their own rule-making, and failed to craft a rule that meets the rigors of the law. [node:read-more:link]

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are turning wood pulp, a common waste material, into a flooring that generates electricity. The researchers chemically treated the wood pulp nanofibers that the flooring is made out of with two differently charged materials, so that when someone walks across the floor, these fibers then interact with one another, similar to static electricity. The electrons released by this vibration are then captured by a capacitor that is attached to the flooring and the energy is stored for later use. [node:read-more:link]

Don't call it a solar "farm" — at least not to a Maryland farmer.  The Maryland Farm Bureau's membership voted in 2014 to oppose appending the word "farm" to the label of any alternative energy-generation plant, including a solar farm facility.  Photovoltaic cells are springing up across the Eastern Shore at an unprecedented clip. Fueled by hefty government subsidies and relatively cheap prices for acreage, utility-scale solar facilities are supplanting one farm after another. [node:read-more:link]

There may be more improbable culinary trails than the one that leads from a red clay road here in the country’s most prolific peanut-growing state to Beyoncé’s plate at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles. But as zero-to-hero food tales go, this is a good one.  The star of the story is cold-pressed green peanut oil, which some of the best cooks in the South have come to think of as their local answer to extra-virgin olive oil. Buttery, slightly vegetal and hard to find, Southern green peanut oil is a new entry into the growing regional oil game. [node:read-more:link]

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has written to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about possible regulations on milk that Cuomo says could devastate the state's dairy export industry.  The Democratic governor said Monday that if the rules proposed in Canada take effect it could amount to a $50 million market loss for New York's dairy industry. Cuomo's office says the proposal would restrict imports of ultra-filtered milk from New York state. [node:read-more:link]

ADM is working with local permitting authorities and plans to begin construction in the near future, with a targeted completion date of mid-2018. The current Quincy facility will remain operational during construction. [node:read-more:link]

A Maine judge awarded a Machias, ME, man close to $730,000 in damages for injuries he sustained following a heat stroke collapse. Michael Lund sued Millard A. Whitey & Sons in 2015, claiming the berry farm did not prepare him for the burning of a field, work he says he had never done before. Lund allegedly became disoriented during the second burn of the afternoon of March 22, 2012 and collapsed. In a jury-waved trial in September, Superior Court Justice William Anderson found evidence that Millard A. [node:read-more:link]

Rents did drop between six and seven percent in some states, but in others the rates were five percent higher. Thirteen states saw higher cash rates this year, including Idaho, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, South Carolina and Mississippi. [node:read-more:link]