But once the soil dries enough to get crops into the fields, higher prices for just about everything from corn to milk are expected to make 2007 a good year for the state's agriculture producers, offsetting higher production costs. Winter wheat and alfalfa were set back due to a warm spell followed by below normal temperatures in March, but Fischer expects those crops to rebound. He said the cold weather has already been hard on his alfalfa crop but he's optimistic it will rebound and...

A growing thirst in the United States for ethanol fuel has inflated world corn prices and brought a bonanza to corn growers, the backbone of traditional Mexican life. Now, with supplies short and prices for the grain on world markets reaching 10-year highs of over $4 a bushel in February, farmers are being feted by government ministers who want more corn acres planted for food and energy. Ever since, corn and bean subsistence farmers have been among Mexico's poorest, with small commercial...

After several months of subdued trade amid near-record high grain prices over supply concerns, traders said the onset of the fall-winter white corn harvest in Sinaloa this week got trading activity underway. MEXICO CITY (Dow Jones)--Physical trading picked up pace this week in the Mexican cash grains market as the new 2006-07 white corn harvest started in the key grain state of northern Sinaloa, traders and importers said Friday. Traders said a healthy number of offers quoted in the local...

Department of Agriculture says more than one-forth of the corn and oat crops were planted last week, and sugarbeet and green pea plantings also advanced as warmer temperatures improved field conditions. As of Sunday, an estimated 28 percent of corn acreage was planted, compared with 43 percent last year and 38 percent for the five-year average. PAUL (AP) - Planting of corn and small grains began in earnest last week, but progress is still behind average. Sugarbeet planting was 38 percent...

On April 18, 1977, amid mounting calls for energy independence, President Jimmy Carter donned his cardigan sweater and appeared on television to tell Americans that balancing energy demands with available domestic resources would be an effort the "moral equivalent of war. As corn growers in the developed world receive hefty subsidies from their governments, counterparts in the developing world become less competitive in the global market. Billions of impoverished people depend on corn and...