Articles by Fran Howard

Hormel Foods, a 132-year-old Fortune 500 company, realized that the share of hungry people in its home county hadn’t budged in a decade despite community food programs. So it decided to do something.

Plastic food packaging, especially single-use containers, is a growing problem for the food industry. According to the UN Environment Program, 460 million tons of plastic is generated each year worldwide. Almost half (46%) goes to landfills, 22% becomes litter, 17% is incinerated, and 15% is collected for recycling. However, less than 9% is actually recycled.

A new firefighting foam derived from soybeans could provide a new market for U.S. soybean meal and replace some of the substances that have contaminated underground water supplies with “forever chemicals” known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

The Defense Department and some members of Congress are looking at ways to reduce the skyrocketing rates of food insecurity among active-duty military members.

Following months of controversy, the Ohio Power Siting Board has given the go-ahead for construction to begin next year on the largest agrivoltaic solar farm in the United States. Agrivoltaics is the dual use of land for agriculture and solar photovoltaic energy generation.

The rice industry has been trying for years to prevent products made from riced or crumbled vegetables from being labeled as rice and even from being displayed in the same supermarket aisle as rice products. The industry has scored a few wins.

The state of America’s citrus industry is a tale of two coasts. Florida’s industry continues to reel from a devastating disease infestation and multiple hurricanes, and California has taken over as No. 1 in U.S. citrus production.

Internet service providers will soon be competing to provide high-speed, broadband internet service to the most remote and hard-to-reach areas in the country.

USDA is launching the largest new nutrition assistance program in decades this year, an effort to ensure low-income children have enough to eat when they’re not in school during the summer, but 15 states have opted out of the program.

USDA issued its first approvals for cell-cultured production last year, but so far, this fledging industry has failed to take flight, while sales of plant-based meats have been falling.