The giant Idaho potato is wrapping up its seven-month journey around the country by basking in a Los Angeles area media blitz, and industry officials are already planning next year's tour.
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Pesticide manufacturers recently tried to persuade a federal appeals court to overturn restrictions against spraying several common pesticides near waterways. The controversy relates to a 2008 finding by the National Marine Fisheries Service that chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion jeopardize West Coast salmon species that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. Read more at CapitalPress.com
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The size of Idaho's 2012 winegrape crop is below normal, but winemakers say the quality of the grapes produced this year is exceptional.
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In this podcast, editors and reporters look out why and how struggling dairy farms are abandoning the business, how researchers are using genetic engineering to create crop cultivars that still avoid biotech regulations, and the outcome of this year’s apple harvest.
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Idaho's sugar beet industry is enjoying a good harvest, with good tonnage and high sugar levels over most of the crop.
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U.S. potato industry leaders estimate a free trade agreement with Panama that takes effect Oct. 31 should boost frozen fry exports to the Central American nation by at least $10 million, once fully implemented.
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The expiration of the 2008 Farm Bill and the inability of Congress to pass a new one has put at risk U.S. Wheat Associates' foreign trade programs and, conceivably, the future of the international marketing organization.
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The Idaho Barley Commission has funded an expert who will develop barley-specific training to help growers use crop insurance and advanced marketing methods to maximize their returns. Art Barnaby, a Kansas State University professor who helped the industry transition crop insurance to a public and private partnership program in 1980, will offer two workshops early next year.
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Idaho Dairymen's Association is exploring every option for improving the economic position of producers after four of the most volatile years in recent history.
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In this podcast, editors and reporters talk about how a shortage of drivers in the trucking industry is affecting agriculture, an expected rise in the number of sexual harassment cases targeting farms, and why mushroom sales are booming despite higher prices.
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One of Idaho's worst-ever fire seasons has resulted in the state's governor and timber industry reminding people that forest thinning and grazing can be valuable tools to help control fires. More than 1.73 million acres of land have burned in Idaho this year.
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The U.S. Department of Labor missed a deadline in processing 37 percent of the H-2A foreign guestworker applications it received in 2011, according to a government report. That included 7 percent that were approved less than 15 days before workers were needed.
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Harvested canola acreage jumped dramatically this fall throughout the Pacific Northwest, doubling in Idaho, according to USDA. Canola is used as a high-protein feed that bolsters milk production of dairy cows, a biofuel and a culinary oil.
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Idaho's dry bean harvest is projected to be the largest since 1990, despite initial worries that yields would be stymied by drought. The USDA projects the 2012 Idaho bean crop will total 3.02 million hundredweight, up 61 percent from last year.
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While Idaho dairymen have suffered high feed costs and some of the lowest milk prices in the country, they have remained competitive relative to other regions over the past few years.
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We’ll talk about the dairy industry’s response to video of animal abuse on an Idaho dairy farm, how the Supreme Court may shake up the patent system in a case involving Monsanto, a firm that sells West Coast hay around the world, and how a creamery is mixing bitter politics and sweet ice cream.
Western Innovators — a Capital Press ebook with 42 profiles of leaders in research, business and community — is available from Amazon.
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Farmers in the nation's main onion-growing region planted about 10 percent fewer onion acres this year, as low prices last year tempted many growers to turn more to other higher-priced crops. But industry leaders hope higher prices this year will result in onion acres in Idaho and Washington's Malheur County.
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Idaho's rapid increase in corn acres continued this year as Gem State farmers planted a record amount. According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 380,000 acres of corn were planted in Idaho in 2012, which, if realized, would be 30,000 more than the previous record set last year.
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Sugar beet growers should reap a slight benefit from high cattle feed prices, according to officials with Amalgamated Sugar. Amalgamated sells the byproduct of sugar production for feed — either as a pressed, wet pulp for local use or a dried product that's shipped as far away as the Pacific Rim.
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The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a dispute between a soybean farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman and Monsanto Co. over the company's efforts to limit farmers' use of its patented, genetically engineered Roundup Ready seeds.
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A new private aquifer recharge program could lead to the first new irrigation development within the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer since the state issued a moratorium on expanding water rights in 1992.
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In this podcast, editors and reporters take a look at how agriculture figures into the presidential election, Monsanto’s latest foray into genetically engineered wheat, and lawsuits taking aim at the pork and beef checkoffs.
Read Tim Hearden's blog at timhearden.blogspot.com
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A few weeks ago, I sent questionnaires to both of the major presidential campaigns and their responses were featured in this week's Capital Press Page One centerpiece. For the paper's purposes, the answers needed to be edited for clarity and space. We don't have space limitations online, so here's how the campaigns responded to us in their own words.
U.S. potato industry officials say recent progress toward opening more of the Mexican market to their fresh shipments stands to improve an already promising long-term export picture. U.S. fresh spuds are now imported only within about 16 miles of the Mexican border.
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Idaho dry bean growers are mulling the possibility of helping fund a bean breeder position at the University of Idaho with the goal of developing a commercial pinto cultivar that would perform better in Idaho's climate and soil conditions.
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Americans recently chose Five Guys Burgers and Fries as their favorite fast-food burger chain and Idaho spud farmers can be counted among the company's biggest fans.
With 1,078 stores around the nation, Five Guys is now the largest purchaser of fresh potatoes from Idaho.
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The number of Pacific Northwest acres planted to club wheat will remain steady despite the disappearance of a price premium farmers received in past years, a trade organization's representatives say.
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A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging the partial deregulation of genetically engineered sugar beets, declaring the case moot.
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