Latest Agriculture News

The Palestinian economy is in free fall and will require billions to rebuild, the UN says

Sep. 12, 2024 11:31 AM EDT

GENEVA (AP) — The Palestinian economy is “in free fall,” the United Nations reported Thursday, with production in Gaza plunging to one-sixth of its level before Israeli forces began a blistering military response to the Oct. 7 attacks in the territory. The report from UN Trade...

The Amazon's Ashaninka tribe restored their territory. Now they aim to change the region

Sep. 12, 2024 11:11 AM EDT

APIWTXA VILLAGE, Brazil (AP) — It was just before dawn when the Ashaninka people, wearing long, tunic-like dresses, began singing traditional songs while playing drums and other instruments. The music drifted through Apiwtxa village, which had welcomed guests from Indigenous communities in Brazil...

The Mississippi River is running low again. It’s a problem for farmers moving beans and grain

Sep. 11, 2024 12:51 PM EDT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The water level of the Mississippi River is unusually low for the third straight year, forcing barge companies to put limits on how much cargo they can carry and cutting into farm profits. It was just two months ago that much of the Mississippi River was above...

Pollution of the potent warming gas methane soars and people are mostly to blame

Sep. 10, 2024 06:43 AM EDT

The amount and proportion of the powerful heat-trapping gas methane that humans spew into the atmosphere is rising, helping to turbocharge climate change, a new study finds. Tuesday’s study finds that in 2020, the last year complete data is available, the world put 670 million tons...

Spring rains destroyed a harvest important to the Oneida people. Farmers are working to adapt

Sep. 09, 2024 22:13 PM EDT

This spring, a torrent of rain sent a river rushing over a field on the Oneida Nation in Wisconsin, destroying most of what was in its path, including the traditionally important crop of white corn. Families tried planting a second time, but it was too wet; many seeds dissolved in...

Jamaica's female farmers rebuild after Hurricane Beryl through women-led cash voucher program

Sep. 06, 2024 10:20 AM EDT

CROSS KEYS, Jamaica (AP) — Alance Wisdom got inside her home just in time to watch the ceiling of her front room collapse. As the rain rushed in, a violent wind ripped at the roof, piece by piece. “Everything just fell,” Wisdom, 79, said of the day Hurricane Beryl, the...

Judge in Brazil orders slaughterhouses to pay for Amazon reforestation

Sep. 05, 2024 19:56 PM EDT

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — A judge in the Brazilian state of Rondonia has found two beef slaughterhouses guilty of buying cattle from a protected area of former rainforest in the Amazon and ordered them, along with three cattle ranchers, to pay a total of $764,000 for causing environmental damage,...

Drought forces Kenya's Maasai and other cattle herders to consider fish and camels

Sep. 04, 2024 11:07 AM EDT

KAJIADO, Kenya (AP) — The blood, milk and meat of cattle have long been staple foods for Maasai pastoralists in Kenya, perhaps the country's most recognizable community. But climate change is forcing the Maasai to contemplate a very different dish: fish. A recent yearslong drought...

EU officials pledge to develop more water-saving technologies in farming as droughts worsen

Sep. 03, 2024 10:13 AM EDT

AYIA NAPA, Cyprus (AP) — Officials from nine southern European Union countries pledged Tuesday to work together to develop more water-saving technologies in agriculture as the prospect of worsening droughts puts additional strain on farmers and threatens food security. The promises...

Companies are crafting new ways to grow cocoa, and chocolate alternatives, to keep up with demand

Sep. 01, 2024 09:08 AM EDT

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Climate change is stressing rainforests where the highly sensitive cocoa bean grows, but chocolate lovers need not despair, say companies that are researching other ways to grow cocoa or develop cocoa substitutes. Scientists and entrepreneurs are...