farms news stories on Newser

Farming's Future: No More Plows?

Dustin Lushing — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:15:00 CDT

A transformation in farming may be under way, one that leaves plows in the dust. It's called "no-till" farming, and the AFP (via Raw Story ) catches up with the growing trend in Indiana. The idea is that a plow—or on a smaller scale, a garden shovel—disrupts the...

Farms See Record Number of Grain Bin Deaths

Nick McMaster — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:46:05 CST

Grain bins are innocuous-seeming, necessary parts of big agriculture—but they're proving deadly for a record number of farm workers, and OSHA is taking notice. A worker trying to clear damp clots of corn or soy beans can quickly find himself in a sinkhole, his chest compressed by hundreds of...

Dioxin Scare Shuts German Farms

Rob Quinn — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 03:04:33 CST

Nearly 5,000 farms in Germany have been forced to close after the carcinogen dioxin was found in large amounts of pig and chicken feed. Thousands of hens were culled after a feed manufacturer was found to have used contaminated fats, the BBC reports. Officials are now scrambling to trace...

Haunted Houses Are Saving Family Farms

Evann Gastaldo — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 11:55:23 CDT

With only 45% of the nation’s farms showing income from farming, it’s not agriculture keeping many family farms alive these days: It’s “agritourism.” Farmers who used to be scared of losing their business are putting those fears to use by creating “agri-tainment” operations that go far beyond the traditional pumpkin...

FDA Finds Maggots, Manure, Rodents in Hen Houses

Jane Yager — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:20:00 CDT

You might want to skip the omelet for breakfast this morning: Federal inspectors recently found live mice, pigeons, and eight-foot piles of manure inside the hen houses of two massive Iowa egg farms suspected of causing a nationwide outbreak of salmonella . At one of the farms they also found "dead...

'Hobby Farms' Cropping Up

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:18:00 CDT

Most evenings, Gary Mithoefer can be found at the end of a long gravel driveway off a busy highway, tending two garden plots filled with white sweet potatoes, squash, cabbages, and a dozen other vegetables still thriving in early fall. The 62-year-old, who gardens after his workday ends at his...

Farmers Raise a Stink Over Fees for Flatulence

Mary Papenfuss — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:16:00 CST

Farmers' noses are out of joint over proposed regulations that would fine them for their livestock's flatulence, reports AP. Operations with herds over a certain size would be charged per animal to offset the amount of greenhouse gasses contained in their rather voluminous belching and farting, according to the EPA...

PETA Video Shows W.Va. Workers Abusing Turkeys

Ambreen Ali — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:00:00 CST

Just ahead of Thanksgiving, workers at a West Virginia farm are shown stomping turkeys and twisting their necks to kill them in an undercover video released by PETA, AP reports. The employee who filmed the stomach-turning scenes says the birds are kept in overcrowded barns and that employees brag about...

Vermont Begins Push to Save Historic Barns

Michael Roston — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:11:50 CDT

To Vermonters, the aging barns dotting their landscape are as important to the state's character—and tourism—as maple syrup or skiing. But the cost of maintaining them and the decline in family farms have taken a heavy toll, the Boston Globe reports. Now the state is conducting a "barn...