Articles by Noah Wicks

A bipartisan group of 25 lawmakers sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Purdue on Monday demanding that USDA include apple growers in the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program after the department decided to keep apple growers out of the program.

USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced Monday that it will provide eight states with an additional $2.8 million for suppressing high grasshopper and Mormon cricket populations.

PepsiCo and Corteva Agriscience announced Tuesday that collaboration between academics, government officials and members of the private sector has led to the sequencing of the full oat genome for use in open-source applications.

Agri-tourism operations around the nation have seen differing levels of success dealing with stay-at-home orders and visitor restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Some farms, notably U-pick operations, are finding it easier to adapt. Others aren’t.

USDA will provide $1.6 billion in loans and loan guarantees to rural electric cooperatives and utilities in 21 states, the Trump administration announced Monday.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it will supply the 12 state members of the Hypoxia Task Force with an additional $840,000 to go towards “improving water quality” and “reducing excess nutrients” in the Mississippi River/Atchafalaya River Basin.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agricultural specialists seized 19,555 pounds of prohibited meats entering the LA/Long Beach Seaport from China between April 6 and June 6.

The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture released updated guidelines for meatpackers Friday after the country’s meatpacking plants saw a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases.

Retail orange juice sales rose to the highest levels seen since 2015 in April, when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted stay-at-home orders and business closures.