farmers produce more food than any other country in the world and are tops in corn, soybeans, milk and cattle, according to a United Nations agriculture census. Within the next decade those older farmers will be looking for someone to take over their operations and selling millions of acres of land. At the same time, it's becoming more costly for young people to go into farming, and many of them see that they can make a better living by leaving the rural areas. Pennsylvania, Connecticut...

Thankfully, Sidwell said, many farmers took out crop insurance when they planted last fall, fearing another drought year. Anderson said he figured about 30 percent of the wheat around Garber had been cut, but he said that 30 percent represents about 70 percent of the total crop that will be harvested. The guys who have insurance will probably try to adjust out. Sidwell said farmers had sprayed to protect crops from pests and disease and that also has cost them. With test weights so low and...

Most of Africa, excluding South Africa, missed out on the green revolution of the sixties and remain sluggish in adopting biotech crops, thereby running the risk of losing out on the gene revolution. Neither plant variety protection (PVP) systems nor modern biotechnology offer miracle solutions to food insecurity and malnutrition in Africa; yet, they offer meaningful tools for enhancing food production and alleviating poverty. On the positive side, considerable efforts over the past decade...

Drivers in southeast Colorado are seeing something this summer that has been absent from the prairie landscape for a long time - too long if you ask the region's farmers. Crop yields of around 50-70 bushels per acre on dry land farms, combined with the highest prices since 1996, make this a very good year indeed for wheat farmers, weary from nearly ten years of unrelenting drought. Both the 1998 harvest and the current one have followed on the heels of tough winters with heavy snowfall, a...

The latest results include a cost of 2 cents per share, or about $18 million pretax, related to the nationwide recall of all of ConAgra's peanut butter products, 1 cent of earnings from discontinued operations and a 1 cent-per-share benefit from lower-than-expected taxes. Sioux City Journal: ConAgra 4Q profit more than triples despite recall. The latest results include a cost of 2 cents per share, or about $18 million pretax, related to the nationwide recall of all of ConAgra's peanut...