Corn prices were tumbling Monday on concerns that a forecast for a bumper crop could swamp the market. Elsewhere, the greenback was mixed in the foreign currency markets. Other key grains were showing weakness also, with soybeans sliding 2. Sugar prices were bucking the downward trend, gaining 1% at 10 cents a pound. As for the metals, copper prices were slipping 2 cents at $3. Benchmark futures prices for corn were losing 4. The dollar was lower against the yen, buying 121. Investor...

NEW YORK - Commodities prices declined broadly Tuesday as the oil market relinquished its early gains and the weakness spilled into the precious metals market. Lead surged nearly 4 percent on the LME to another record high after the world's second-largest lead refiner, Doe Run co., announced sharp production cutbacks at a Missouri refinery that suffered an explosion on Friday, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report. A barrel of crude oil briefly reached an 11-month high on Tuesday, then...

Though not a well-known handicraft like cross stitching or knitting, wheat weaving is a folk art that has been around for ages. It has become engrained in our society -- used for food, alcoholic beverage production and even homebuilding. In early European, Asian and South American civilizations, straw art objects were created to please the crop spirits and encourage healthy harvests. Texler weaves an array of decorative wheat objects, including wall hangings, wreaths, house blessings and...

Her husband, John, is serving in Iraq, and the combines they'd lined up to cut their wheat weren't coming after all. Trying to line up another harvest crew was proving to be very frustrating until neighbors and friends stepped in. Sure enough, four combines, five trucks and neighbors arrived for harvest. The Shillington family donated coolers filled with soda. MAX Verna Lemon was up a creek without a custom cutter. And those gifts are our friends and neighbors. Verna said she was waiting...

In a sense, the fact that people have become so complacent about having a plentiful food supply is itself a testament to his accomplishment revolutionizing the production of basic foodstuffs, and in the process proving wrong better-known scientists such as Dr. Print Article This is a printer friendly version of an article from www.washingtontimes.com To print this article open the file menu and choose Print. Print Article This is a printer friendly version of an article from...