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Farmers have been looking to the heavens for decent weather since roughly the invention of farming. Now NASA wants to help with something a little more technical than crossing fingers. Ground control: On October 24, USDA and NASA signed an agreement to combine Earth observation, geospatial analytics and advanced data tools. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman formalized the partnership in Alabama. The goal is better agricultural informat

Bird flu has delivered another painful blow to the egg industry, this time at a large Illinois laying operation. There is no clever upside to losing nearly a million birds. By the numbers: Federal officials confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza affecting 934,600 laying hens in Clinton County, Illinois. Local officials identified the premises as a Rose Acre Farms site near Germantown. Rose Acre ranks among the largest U.S. egg producers. What happened? The affected flock

Maine growers may finally have one less expensive item on the farm shopping list. Naturally, Washington found a way to make that good news come with a new tariff twist. Border adjustment: The administration plans to remove tariffs on selected Canadian goods important to Maine farms and food businesses. The exemptions, announced October 23, are scheduled to take effect October 30. They cover machinery used for cleaning, sorting, grading, packing and wrapping agricultural produ

Washington is putting serious green behind making more fertilizer at home. Whether that delivers cheaper nutrients before the next planting season is a different question. Money in the ground: USDA selected eight fertilizer manufacturing projects for about $573 million in proposed federal funding. With private and other investments included, the package totals more than $1.34 billion. Domestic capacity is the goal, not an immediate fertilizer clearance sale. Why now? Global s

Western farmers are learning that a water right can be written on paper and still leave a field painfully dry. Two cases in the Pacific Northwest are putting that problem before judges. First in line? Idaho growers Jerry and Valerie Bingham, who farm 1,000 acres near Blackfoot, are challenging restrictions that stopped them from pumping groundwater. Their right dates to 1950. They argue the state treated their claim unfairly while allowing certain newer users to keep drawing

National FFA has spent generations teaching young people how to lead. Now some of the grown-ups are arguing about where the organization itself should go. That's one way to make a leadership lesson interactive. Jacket tug-of-war: Former officers, educators and lawmakers have questioned National FFA's approach to diversity and outside partnerships. An October examination describes disagreement over whether the organization is broadening opportunity or drifting from its agricul

American sheep producers have a bone to pick with lamb imports, and this time they took the argument straight to Washington. At an October 16 hearing, domestic producers said imports are squeezing their ability to compete, while Australia and New Zealand argued they are helping fill a gap in American supply. Sheep have entered the courtroom. Feeling fleeced: Industry testimony put the U.S. share of its own lamb market at 21.1% in 2025, down from 27.6% in 2021. The American Sh

A combine can draw a beautiful yield map, but it cannot tell you why one muddy corner behaved like it had personal grievances. That is where farmers are discovering the value of making their various datasets finally talk to one another. The detective work: In one recent field example, imagery revealed a soggy portion of a field beside clearly visible drainage-tile lines. By comparing maps instead of staring at one pretty image, the problem became easier to diagnose. Layer cak

Drones may look impressive swooping over soybean fields, but some diseases start in places a flying camera cannot easily see. If the problem is hiding beneath leaves, perhaps the solution needs wheels. Ground control: Engineers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale built a four-wheeled, battery-powered robot equipped with cameras aimed at the upper and lower portions of soybean plants. The target is frogeye leaf spot, a disease that can hide below the canopy before the f

Washington has found another way to argue over a puddle, and this time the definition may determine who needs federal permission to work near one. Water line: EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are reviewing feedback on their supplemental proposal for Waters of the United States, or WOTUS. The rule determines which waterways and wetlands fall under the federal Clean Water Act. For farmers, that can affect drainage, construction, and land-management decisions. Farm-side view:

Imagine a crop getting nitrogen delivered to its doorstep instead of waiting for another fertilizer pass. Bayer and a biotechnology startup are trying to make that less science fiction and more soil science. Root awakening: Bayer Crop Science and Switch Bioworks announced a collaboration focused initially on microbes engineered to produce nitrogen on plant roots. Switch’s approach uses a genetic switch intended to let microbes establish themselves before turning on nitrogen p

America’s farm debt pile is getting big enough that it may need its own machine shed. By the numbers: Farm sector debt is forecast to increase 4.6% to $605.1B in 2026, while farm assets rise to $4.47T and equity to $3.86T. In inflation-adjusted terms, debt is still expected to climb 1.5%. That is not a barn fire, but it is definitely smoke coming from the operating loan folder. Where it pinches: Real estate debt is projected at $399B, and non-real estate debt at $206.1B. Solv

Federal grazing just got a fresh push, and ranchers holding Forest Service permits got the memo in actual letter form. Very vintage. Very Washington. Roundup request: Brooke L. Rollins, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, sent a letter to livestock ranchers with grazing permits on U.S. Forest Service allotments, telling them to put the June grazing directive to work. The policy aims to streamline and expand federal-land grazing while staying inside existing law and regulations. Op

Farm childcare has entered the policy chat, which is overdue considering toddlers and PTO shafts have never been a recommended workplace pairing. The setup: New research briefs from the National Farm Families Childcare Survey put numbers behind a problem farm parents have been living for years. The survey reached 860 farm households with children under 18 across 47 states, and the findings tie childcare challenges to safety, farm business choices, finances and family well-bei

Corteva’s seed business just got its own company, and the legal paperwork arrived faster than a farm dog hearing a feed sack open. Split decision: Sixteen states and territories are suing Corteva and its new seeds and genetics spinoff, Vylor, claiming the new companyreceived valuable former DuPont assets without taking on PFAS liabilities. The suit seeks to unwind the transfer, which is not exactly the welcome basket most spinoffs dream about. Liability row: The complaint say

USDA is putting $180M into seeds, because apparently national security now starts with a packet and a prayer. Seed money: Brooke L. Rollins, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, announced the new Seed Sovereignty Initiative, a two-year push to sequence and characterize major crop collections held by USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. The goal is to protect plant genetic resources and make them more useful for breeders, researchers and farmers. Gene pool party: The National Plant

Michigan’s cage-free egg law survived its latest court challenge, proving the legal system can still put all its eggs in one basket and then argue about whether the basket is constitutional. Scrambled suit: A federal judge tossed the Trump administration’s challenge to Michigan’s egg sales law, which bans the sale of shell eggs from hens kept in conventional cages. The ruling did not crack the bigger preemption question. Instead, the court said the federal government had not

Labor math: Rural voters are divided over immigration enforcement, but farm labor math still refuses to fit neatly in a campaign ad. A rural voter survey found immigration near the top of the political pile, while separate polling showed about seven in 10 rural voters consider legal immigrants and temporary or seasonal farm workers important to local economies. That is a lot of nuance trying to squeeze through a narrow policy gate. Field reality: The tension is not exactly su

Fence-line fire: A Colorado rancher’s wildfire loss has wandered into one of the biggest climate liability fights in the country. Kathleen Kelley, a fourth-generation Colorado rancher, saw the Lee Fire scorch nearly all of her ranch, dry up water for hundreds of cattle and force her to sell the herd that had anchored the operation. Her story has become part of a broader caseasking whether fossil fuel companies can face state-level claims for climate damages. Court corral: The