Articles by Ed Maixner

The farm bill mandates a Soil Health Demonstration Trial, paying farmers to experiment with ways to build soil carbon and then record their results for potentially new markets in the future.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program will take on a broader role, with more dollars and longer contracts, as it emerges under 2018 farm bill provisions.

Congress chose the Prairie Pothole Region to try out shorter-term Conservation Reserve Program contracts, infusing the 34-year-old program with lower-cost alternatives for farmers wanting to idle their least productive cropland.

Congress will soon pass a popular catch-all parks, public lands bill that rancher groups also support, though with caveats.

The urban side of soil and water conservation is becoming a major player at the National Association of Conservation Districts' annual conventions.

The Bee & Butterfly Habitat fund is just a tad of pollinator enhancement efforts across the country, but it's already helping landowners seed bee and butterfly habitat in 12 states.

America’s agribusiness sector wants some slices of whatever Congress cooks up for roads, bridges, rural broadband and other improvements.

A slow farm economy spells a downturn in demand for operating loans in much of America, despite fraying farm profits, as more farm debt moves to low-interest farmland mortgages.