You dont put bacteria genes into corn crops so you can grow acres of it to feed cows, pigs and chickens in feedlots so Americans can center every meal around meat. The scare thing about genetically modified plants is that they spread their altered DNA into other plants being grown for food and also into the wild. Raise your hand if you think its a good idea to splice genes from very different species into the the plants we grow for food. The rats who ate modified corn were found to exhibit...

As for other crops, there has been a "surprisingly fair yield" but it would have been much better if there was rain to go along with it, Teague explained. While many were glad to see sunny and dry weather through last winter and early spring, this area has seen so much of it that a serious drought has developed. The wheat crop was a total loss for grain, although the leaf and stem that can be used for livestock feed was salvageable. drought monitor report with southern sections of the...

Temperatures that tied a record low of 25 degrees on April 7 and set a record low of 21 degrees on April 8 destroyed about 200,000 or more acres of corn statewide, said Angela Thompson, state extension corn specialist. HUNTER nhunter@jacksonsun.com Many farmers have begun replanting corn in the hopes of salvaging acreage destroyed by Easter weekend's freeze. Replanting costs about an additional $65 an acre, so planting prices for some acres of corn now total about $260 per acre. Madison...

Department of Agriculture has been issuing dietary guidelines, there has been a stark inconsistency between the federal government's advice and its food funding. Take corn, the most highly subsidized crop, which received $9. Corn production has more than doubled since the 1970s, and all this artificially cheapened corn is unloaded on the public, largely in the form of tasty but empty-calorie junk foods. True, the USDA has been doing more, over time, to promote health through dietary...

This is one of those years, and the 2007 Farm Bill reauthorization is heating up to become the most scrutinized food and farm policy debate in recent history. Originally conceived as an emergency bailout for millions of farmers and the unemployed during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, the Farm Bill has snowballed into one of the most significant forces affecting food, farming and land use in the United States. It's time to stop federal subsidies for large commodity items, such as corn...