WASHINGTON - The United States wastes billions of kilograms of food each year, and the Department of Agriculture wants that to change.
 Throwing away food is not only wasteful, the agency says, it is bad for the environment.
 On Tuesday, the USDA and the Environmental Protection Agency introduced a new campaign to reduce food waste.
 Agriculture Secretary Tom […]

WASHINGTON - This is the time of year when farmers in the northern hemisphere count on bees and other insects to pollinate orchards, vegetables and berry fields. But what has the beekeeping world abuzz this season is the continuing phenomenon of mass honeybee deaths — and how governments on two continents are responding to them.
 
 U.S. […]

WASHINGTON - Prices of corn, soybeans and wheat are likely to decline this year, according to the latest forecast from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
 Although farmers are going into this season with the ground still extremely dry after last year’s record-breaking drought, the USDA still expects good yields this year.
 Weather, like the winter storm which […]

WASHINGTON - New rules hailed as the biggest improvements in U.S. food safety since the 1930s took a step forward Friday. Regulators say the proposals may prevent more than one million cases of foodborne illness each year.
 They come two years to the day since President Barack Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act. They are […]

WASHINGTON - For many Americans, New Year’s Eve focused on the U.S. Congress going over the so-called “fiscal cliff” of massive tax hikes and spending cuts.  But congressional gridlock has produced another precipice, this one in the dairy aisles of U.S. grocery stores.
 Beginning in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress wrote legislation intended to […]

WASHINGTON - Big American fast-food chains have entered the fight against an alternative fuel policy that critics say is pushing up the price of food worldwide.
 
In a new lobbying effort, they are calling on Congress to repeal a law that requires gasoline to contain ethanol, a fuel produced mainly from corn.
 
Corn competition
 
When you drive up […]

WASHINGTON - A bill extending and reforming U.S. agricultural programs cleared a key legislative hurdle on Thursday as the Senate approved a five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill by a vote of 64 to 35.
 
The Senate appeared to cast aside partisan politics to pass bill, which will help low-income Americans buy food and compensate U.S. farmers for […]

WASHINGTON - Two South Korean retailers have discontinued selling U.S.-imported beef after a new case of mad cow disease was discovered in the United States.
John Clifford, the chief veterinary officer for the U.S. Agriculture Department, announced the discovery Tuesday.
“The animal was a dairy cow from the state of California,” said Clifford.  “Our laboratory confirmed the […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. regulators are taking steps to check the spread of antibiotic-resistant infections from animals to humans.  The Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, is giving farmers three years to end their practice of using antibiotics solely to help animals grow.  The European Union already has banned this use of antibiotics, but it is […]

AMARILLO - Beef prices may be headed upward due to a severe, lingering drought in the southern United States which is putting a major financial squeeze on the region’s cattle producers.
Across Texas cattle country, livestock auctions have been unusually busy. As grazing lands dried up, cattlemen have been selling their livestock earlier in the season […]

HOUSTON - A report issued Wednesday by the Texas Agrilife Extension Service, an agency of the southwestern state, indicates that this year’s drought in Texas is among the worst on record and that agricultural production has fallen because of it. That is bad news for consumers around the world.
More than 90 percent of the state […]

HOUSTON - Flooding along the Mississippi River has ruined crops, damaged farmland and delayed barge traffic in parts of the southern United States.  Officials say diversion of some of the water through spillways in Louisiana, though, eventually will ease the flow and help speed the return to normalcy. Closings of some sections of the river […]

WASHINGTON - More steps are being taken to improve U.S. food safety.  The Agriculture Department unveiled new regulations April 5 that would force meat and poultry companies to delay shipments to consumers until government inspectors get results of products they have tested for E-coli bacteria and other contaminants. 
The move is an effort by the government […]

WASHINGTON - New data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture indicates that domestic food prices are likely to remain high in the coming months and could go higher.
With the UN food agency’s price index at its highest level since records were first kept in 1990, experts are eager for information on what farmers will produce […]

WASHINGTON - The head of the World Bank says a sharp rise in food prices has pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty. World Bank President Robert Zoellick is calling on the Group of 20 leading and emerging economies to put food first on its agenda.
The World Bank’s latest food price index is just three […]

NEW DELHI - More than 900 farm, health and nutrition experts from over 60 countries have gathered in the Indian capital, New Delhi, to discuss how agriculture can help meet the needs of the world’s poor people.  The experts are calling on nations to incorporate health and nutrition as a goal in farming.
Nearly one billion […]

WASHINGTON - American taxpayers may soon be subsidizing Brazilian cotton farmers in order to protect the earnings of U.S. drug companies. That’s one way to look at a new agreement aimed at ending a long-running dispute within the World Trade Organization between Brazil and the United States.
It’s the first time the U.S. has been penalized […]

WASHINGTON - On a sunny afternoon in the southern U.S. state of North Carolina, Gwen Pitt is supervising the cotton harvest. As a large machine mashes the cotton into a solid brick a bit smaller than a train car, Pitt says her crop is destined for one of the world’s most popular fashion items.
“We have […]

WASHINGTON - With world leaders meeting in Rome to discuss ways to tackle global hunger, a new report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds more Americans than ever before are experiencing food insecurity.
The USDA report estimates that 49 million Americans had trouble getting enough to eat in 2008. That’s the largest figure since the […]

BERQIN - As Israel’s army removes more checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, many Palestinians are experiencing an economic boom. Some of that growth has come from the production of olives, a staple in the region since ancient times.
Many think olive oil exports from the West Bank could be a foundation for the economy of […]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Government Accountability Office is questioning the generous government subsidies companies receive for producing maize-based ethanol for fuel. In a recent report, the GAO recommends that regulators look at the broader environmental impacts of raising crops for biofuels.
Promoting ethanol to lessen oil imports may have unintended consequences
In a bid to reduce dependence […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. agriculture officials have launched a program to reconnect Americans with knowledge about the source of their food supply and boost business for local farmers.
Urban dwellers disconnected from sources of food
As farmland has given way to cities and suburbs, most Americans today have very little contact with farms and farming. As a […]

GENEVA - The United Nations reports markets in forest products have been dealt a serious blow by the economic crisis. A new report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe says the housing crisis in the United States and Europe is largely responsible for one of the biggest drops ever in the consumption of […]

ROME - Agriculture ministers from the major industrialized nations called on Monday for increased agriculture production as a way to combat world hunger.  At the end of a 3-day meeting in northern Italy, G-8 ministers also took a first step toward fighting speculators who have helped push up the price of basic foods, sparking riots […]