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Farmers backed Trump. Now some say they’re losing patience.

Rural approval of the president falls to a new low amid rising bankruptcies and trade uncertainty, and some farmers accuse the GOP of making a hard business harder.

Jun 19 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

Tata's iPhone parts factory faces India health probe after farmer contamination complaints

An Indian state health authority is investigating how liquid discharged from Apple supplier Tata's iPhone components factory has affected farmers, some of whom complained about skin issues from contamination in their farmlands, according to three officials and a document ​reviewed by Reuters.

Jun 19 • 3:30 AM EDT • Health • reuters.com

Plot Twist Books Launches Bookmobile To Boost Business On NW Side

Plot Twist Used Book's bookmobile is stocked with about 300 books. The colorful bus will make appearances at farmers markets and street fests throughout the summer.

Jun 18 • 9:00 AM EDT • Business • blockclubchicago.org

Agrivoltaics could help Va. farmers stay in business, power electric grid

Virginia is hoping that the concept of agrivoltaics will help farmers continue to produce crops while also helping produce solar energy.

Jun 17 • 4:39 PM EDT • Business • wtop.com

Ready for some vegetable-based entertainment this Father’s Day? | Los Gatan

Who’s ready for a day at the races? The legendary Annual Zucchini Car Races are making a comeback. They’re scheduled to return to the Los Gatos Farmers’ Market Sunday, June 21. Landing on Father’s Day, this will be a fun way to bond with the family and work together to design the perfect race car—out […]

Jun 17 • 4:13 PM EDT • Entertainment • losgatan.com

This week in Santa Cruz County business: Santa Cruz-based crowdfunding site, Sea Dubs mark milestones; next steps for Pajaro Valley apple growers

In her weekly look at local business, Jessica M. Pasko notes highlights for Climatize and the Santa Cruz Warriors, what South County farmers are hearing in the wake of bad news from Martinelli's and plenty more comings, goings and dates to know.

Jun 17 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • lookout.co

Community Market a super summer kickoff in Fulton

FULTON — It was a super market in Fulton on Saturday.The Fulton Community Market joined forces with the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce’s Fulton Farmers Market and the CNY Arts Center Arts Market to bring a variety of goods and activities to downtown Fulton. × This page requires Javascript. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. kAmuF=E@? $2G:?8D q2?< AC@G:565 DA@?D@CD9:A[ 2?5 E96 6G6?E H2D AC6D6?E65 3J E96 uF=E@? $A64:2= tG6?ED r@>>:EE66]k^AmkAm$F?D9:?6 8C66E65 E9@D6 2EE6?5:?8 E96 DF>>6C 2>F?:EJ @C82?:K2E:@?D]k^Am #placement_726068_0_i{width:100%;margin:0 auto;}var rnd = window.rnd || Math.floor(Math.random()*10e6);var pid726068 = window.pid726068 || rnd;var plc726068 = window.plc726068 || 0;var abkw = window.abkw || '';var absrc = 'https://ads.empowerlocal.co/adserve/;ID=181918;size=0x0;setID=726068;type=js;sw='+screen.width+';sh='+screen.height+';spr='+window.devicePixelRatio+';kw='+abkw+';pid='+pid726068+';place='+(plc726068++)+';rnd='+rnd+';click=CLICK_MACRO_PLACEHOLDER';var _absrc = absrc.split("type=js"); absrc = _absrc[0] + 'type=js;referrer=' + encodeURIComponent(document.location.href) + _absrc[1];document.write('');kAmu@@5 G6?5@CD :?4=F565 |C] |:>F?:EJ |2C>F?:EJ |2C2;@C 6G6?ED 4C62E65 2?5 >2?2865 3J E96 ?@?AC@7:E[ 2==\G@=F?E66C $A64:2= tG6?ED r@>>:EE66 @7 uF=E@?] %96 6G6?ED 2=D@ :?4=F56 E96 2??F2= u2== u6DE:G2=[ E96 r9C:DE>2D %C66 {:89E:?8 6G6?E[ 2?5 E96 C646?E q:8 %CF4< s2J] %96 $A64:2= tG6?ED r@>>:EE66 :D ?@E 277:=:2E65 H:E9 2?J 8@G6C?>6?E2= @C82?:K2E:@?]k^Am googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('ad-2978731'); });

Jun 16 • 7:00 AM EDT • Entertainment • oswegocountynewsnow.com

Family farmers squeezed by high costs, uncertainty

McBee Farm & Cattle Company rancher Steven McBee Jr. discusses how large monopolies and rising input costs are leading to challenges for family farms on ‘The Bottom Line.’

Jun 15 • 7:30 PM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com

In Retrospect: Poland, Russia, Europe

In April I spent a few days with Zryw, a Polish non-profit organization that recruits young people to enter politics and public life. Their aim is to build a new generation of civic leaders in Poland. I’ve followed their evolution from the beginning; my son is one of the founders. (“Zryw” means “impulse” or “burst of speed” in Polish). Julie Chmielewska, one of Zryw’s leaders, interviewed me at the event. Here is the conversation, lightly edited for grammar and context: Julia Chmielewska: Assuming that culture shapes institutions, could we conclude that some cultures are more prone to authoritarianism? Anne Applebaum: I don’t think so. Every culture, every nation, and every country has the potential for change. When we look at history, we can see that nations do change. Poland has changed, for example, from the 1980s to today. There’s a completely different mentality here than the one I encountered when I first visited, in 1988. The current generation sees the world through a different frame. So no, I don’t believe that certain nations are doomed to authoritarianism, or to anything. Of course, there are political and cultural traditions, but they can always be challenged. JC: So do you think there’s something intrinsic in human nature that pushes people to democracy, freedom? AA: I think there is something in human nature, a deep instinct, that pushes people towards freedom, yes. People who live in authoritarian countries – and I’ve heard this from them over and over again – sooner or later find themselves angered by a feeling of helplessness. They can see the unfairness of crooked courts, irrational political decisions. They naturally dislike the fact that somebody has all the power while they have none. In those circumstances, people who have no political background at all sometimes are politicized just by that frustration. I’m thinking of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, for example, who was a Belarusian housewife, until the circumstances of her husband’s arrest forced her to become a politician. I met a woman who is a Uyghur from China, and who had come to live in Turkey. After several of her family members were arrested, she too was propelled into a political role. These kinds of experiences make people interested in democracy or political reform, even if they thought they didn’t care. I also think that the opposite is true: some people instinctively prefer homogeneity, order, hierarchy. They don’t like the confrontation of opinions or the noise of debate, and they lean towards a single leader or a unified regime. I think that most of modern history is shaped by the clash between those two different sides of human nature. JC: Which force do you find more powerful today? AA: I think they both have a lot of power and there’s no way of predicting who wins. Even in countries that seem very shut off or stuck in an authoritarian system can change. We’ve seen that happen. And vice versa, I think democracies can also begin to fail and slide into authoritarianism. So it’s very important not to be complacent in either direction. JC: I want to go into your history and your experiences. You’ve lived in Russia during a time of incredible change in the late 80s, and then you came back to do research in post-Soviet Russia. AA: I was a student in Russia just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I then traveled and worked there extensively in the 1990s, and I met people who really were full of hope. They hoped that Russia could become a democracy, or at least a place that guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press. These weren’t ideas that came from Washington. Although now the narrative in the Kremlin is different, I met many people who were working towards exactly that kind of transformation. A friend of mine ran a series of seminars – once a year, and then later several times a year, in cities all over Russia – designed to get people to discuss politics in new ways. She invited young politicians and journalists, as well as foreigners. I went to many of them, in Moscow as well as Volgograd and Novosibirsk. Over two decades, hundreds of people came to these seminars, and all of them wanted Russia to be different. I remain convinced that many Russians still want Russia to be different. It’s just that the old system, in the form of Putin, a representative of that system, returned. The KGB reimposed their power. And this wasn’t because of something to do with culture, this was to do with money and politics, and who was in charge. JC: You’ve partially answered my question... I wanted to ask whether that excitement of the 1990s was an exception from the Russian historical norm which has been rather authoritarian? AA: Of course, if you look at the history of Russia since the 18th century, there have always been liberal groups, reformers and revolutionaries. There were the Decembrists, in the early 19th century, and the rural populists later on, who tried to organize the peasantry. A significant group of liberal Russians appeared at the turn of the 20th century, people like the father of the writer Vladimir Nabokov, who was a Russian politician before the revolution. These groups were small in number, but sometimes had a broader significance. The Russian dissident movement in the 1950s and 1960s actually invented the modern human rights movement. It was their idea to hold the leaders of the Soviet Union accountable for the language they used, to remind them of the treaties they had signed and the promised they had made. They created the Helsinki group, for example, that held Soviet leadership to the language of the Helsinki Treaty, which formally ended the Second World War and which contained guarantees of human rights, at least on paper. That idea spread to Eastern Europe, and similar tactics were used here in Poland. (Benjamin Nathans recently wrote a great book about the Soviet dissidents, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause) JC: But seemingly, even if they do ever get power, they could never hold on to it. AA: We don’t know, because they have never really had power. But in any case, we also don’t know what will happen in the future. There is no reason to assume that Russia will forever be condemned to totalitarianism. Even during the first fifteen years of Putin’s regime there was some form of democratic politics. Only when the full-scale war began did he bring everything to an end: he shut down all remaining independent organizations and killed his most important opponent, Alexi Navalny. But does that mean he is popular, that he enjoys legitimacy? Even now, we don’t really know what Russians think about him, or about the war. There is no way of doing real polling in Russia because nobody will answer an independent pollster over the phone. JC: Do you think that the flock of young people, especially young men, who fled Russia after the start of the war represent a continuation of liberal movements that refuse to partake in the authoritarian state, or do you think they are moving for the sake of self-preservation – “I don’t want to go to the army, so I leave”? AA: I’m sure it’s both. I actually know many people who left Russia for political reasons either in the very last years before the war, or else just after the war began. JC: And do you see a change in the young generation versus the old one that have fled? AA: It’s hard for me to say because the people who I know were mostly already politicized. I do know some younger people who left, but most of them were already either active in the opposition, or working as journalists. Many of them very self-consciously think of themselves as maintaining Russian culture abroad, just as in the 20th century the Soviet dissidents or the anti-communist White Russians once thought of themselves as people who maintained the true Russian culture, outside of Bolshevik Russia. JC: Let’s move on to Poland. One of your first experiences with Poland was reporting on Margaret Thatcher’s first state visit, in the autumn of 1988. You followed her around the farmers’ market. AA: She was making a symbolic gesture. She wanted to welcome free markets, but the only one she could really visit was the farmers’ market at Hala Mirowska. JC: And I want to talk about this area because today you can look out of any window in that district, Mirów, and see rows and rows of skyscrapers. How does it feel to see a country built from the ground in such a short time, both politically and economically? AA: You know, when you’re living in a period of dramatic change, it’s always hard to know whether the change is positive or negative. The transformation in Poland created winners and losers, as well as new classes of people, new political movements of different kinds. At the time, it sometimes just felt like turbulence. Now, we can look back at the 1990s and early 2000s in Poland and see in retrospect that the country was headed in towards prosperity and European integration. In around 2009 or 2010, I remember speaking to a woman who worked cleaning government offices, and who asked me if her daughter should study in Amsterdam or in London. This seemed to me to be a real transformation, and it happened very fast: within a few years, Poles stopped feeling like second-class Europeans, and a generation of younger Poles appeared who had no qualms about crossing borders. JC: We again live in turbulent times. Do you think we’re heading towards positive outcomes? AA: I can’t make predictions, because everything that happens tomorrow depends on what people do today. Also, history doesn’t have a trajectory. It doesn’t move in a particular direction. You only think it does afterwards. As I said, you can look afterwards at Poland in the 1990s and you could say this was a period of great progress. But not everybody at the time saw that. Sometimes people are very wrong about a given country’s trajectory. I remember people writing about Ukraine in the 1990s, about how dangerous it was that Ukraine was independent, that this was going to be an anti-semitic state, that Ukrainian nationalism was going to come back... and although you can say many bad things about Ukraine, the country made many bad choices, actually it became a pretty tolerant state which now has a Jewish president and until recently a Muslim defense minister. JC: In the 1990s Poland’s and Ukraine’s GDP were roughly similar. Ukraine was even a bit richer. So the starting point was similar for both of these countries, but they’ve turned out very, very differently. Even if we stop in 2014. Why do you think Ukraine “chose East”? Was it external influence? AA: No, I think Ukraine was in a different position. First of all, central and eastern Ukraine had been part of the Soviet Union since the 1920s, and had therefore experienced a longer period of occupation, repression, Sovietization and even Russification. Ukraine did not have, as Poland did, an alternative elite: a large cadre of economists and politicians, who already had some experience in opposition politics and in independent thinking. In Poland, the transformative finance minister, Leszek Balcerowicz, had already thought about how an economy might be decentralized before he took office. We can argue about how successful he was, but at least he was prepared to try something new. In Ukraine, people weren’t prepared. For one, there hadn’t been much space even for an illegal opposition in the previous couple of decades. Ukraine was also in many ways still emerging from colonial occupation. For the previous couple of centuries, many of the most capable Ukrainians had moved to Russia, and the first generation of leaders in independent Ukraine tended to be former Soviet apparatchiks. They didn’t immediately seek to become closer to western Europe. Instead, they looked for some kind of economic and political “third way” and an accomodation with Russia. Ukraine became stuck in this position, half-in, half-out and became pretty profoundly corrupt. JC: The Polish alternative elite had a vision of where they wanted the country to go. I think the general perception now is that this vision ends with the next election, right? Is this a natural process of gaining power? AA: Their vision, and it was shared by the time by politicians who now call themselves both left and right, was that Poland should join the EU and NATO, as fast as possible. My husband (Radek Sikorski) was in the very first government that said it wanted to join NATO. At the time this was taken very badly in Washington: the demand for NATO membership absolutely came from Poland, not from the US. But even then, in the early 1990s, many Poles already understood that the Russian sphere of influence would grow once again, that it was important to become part of the transatlantic alliance and an integrated Europe as fast as possible: NATO, the EU, the Council of Europe, all of the trading and security alliances. That consensus lasted through several different governments and over many years, even governments containing former communists. For twenty years, right, left and center disagreed about many things, but they all agreed on the direction that the country should go. In retrospect, that consensus created the basis for prosperity in Poland. JC: And regarding the Polish-Ukrainian relations. We know that antagonisms, e.g. the myth of Wołyń [a massacre of Poles that took place in what is now Western Ukraine, in 1943] are increasingly used in Polish political discourse today. In Ukraine, nationalist historians make heroes out of UPA, the Ukrainian revolutionary army, which is held responsible for this tragedy. Where do you see a start for burying the hatchet? Is the reconciliation of our nations possible? AA: So here’s a strange thing: For more than a decade after they both gained independence, Poland and Ukraine participated in a number of projects that were designed to solve exactly these kinds of Polish-Ukrainian differences. Books were published that were jointly written by Polish and Ukrainian historians, monuments were built. These projects were successful: If you’d asked me this question in 2010, I would have said that there are no real historical issues between Poland and Ukraine, that the two countries had mostly reconciled. For a number of reasons, this began to shift. In Poland, children and grandchildren of victims of the Wołyń massacre felt their tragedy hadn’t been fully recognized. In Ukraine, nationalist groups wanted the UPA partisans who had fought against the Soviet Union recognized for their heroism, despite the fact that some in this broad and not well-defined group were also linked to Wołyń. In both eastern Poland and western Ukraine, the memory of the ethnic cleansing that took place there in the late 1940s - Poles were moved West, Ukrainians East - to accomodate new borders has left feelings of displacement and bitterness. The wave of Ukrainian immigration, which started before the war, may have provoked some of this. But don’t underestimate the role played by Russia, which has always wanted to create discord between Poland and Ukraine, and pumps out propaganda to that effect in both countries. Vandalism on both sides of the border, damage done to cemeteries and monuments, is sometimes carried out by provacateurs working for Russia, just to create bad feelings. The Polish-Ukrainian conflict also hides a different reality: although there are real grievances and bad memories, the truth is that the biggest tragedies both nations experienced in the twentieth century were inflicted by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. That should unite these two countries, not divide them. JC: This week (19.04.2026 – Ed.) in Hungary we saw that using historical narratives to create grievance has no longer worked. Are you optimistic about the direction after Orban’s loss? AA: The Hungarian election was really important because it shows that people can actually resist powerful, dominant propaganda. The ruling party Fidesz controlled all of the TV, 90% of the newspapers, the constitutional court, the bureaucracy... and yet people had the nerve to vote against it and resist it. It’s also an important election because Hungary created a huge network of well-funded think tanks and foundations that were funding other far right groups and projects. So that loss is going to have a knock-on effect in other places too, maybe even in Poland. JC: What you’ve said about resisting propaganda reminds me of one of the interviews you did about talking to Russians in the post-Soviet era who claimed that people knew that the system was lying. Why do people choose to believe in these regimes anyway? AA: Because it’s useful. Stephen Kotkin, an American historian, once described how people would learn how to “speak Bolshevik”: It was just a language that you needed to use in order to get by in society. If you didn’t talk the way the regime wanted you to talk, then you might have problems, or lose your job, or your kids would not get into university. It was a way of getting along. Communist Poland was similar, at least in the early years. When I was writing a book about the Sovietization of Eastern Europe after World War II, I met a lot of people who wanted to talk a lot about the war, when many of them had done really heroic things. But almost nobody wanted to talk about the decade afterwards, between 1945 and 1956. This was when you had the short period of terror, violence and Polish Stalinism. To stay safe, people felt the need to just go along with what others were saying, or stay out of politics, or use communist jargon without necessarily believing it. I don’t judge them for it, and I wouldn’t describe all of those people as collaborators. It’s easy to feel moral certainty in retrospect, because we know that communism ended. But if you were living in 1949, it might not have been clear to you that communism was going to end. In very repressive societies, maybe about 10% of people who are really evil – collaborators, torturers. Maybe 10% of people are really brave and who find ways to resist. And then around 80% of people have kids, they have parents, they have to have jobs and they’ve had to get through it somehow. Strange though it may sound, I’ve found that the work I did on that book is now very useful in explaining some of what’s going on in the United States today. There are plenty of members of the Republican Party in Congress who know perfectly well that Donald Trump says many things that aren’t true. But they avoid criticizing him because it’s inconvenient, because they would get in trouble, because someone would attack them on the internet. So actually you don’t even need mass terror to get people to conform. JC: Is Gen Z reinventing agency? AA: We’ll see. In any generation you can find groups of people who want agency. If you live in a society that’s unfair, for example where a tiny number of people have captured most of the wealth, then at a certain point people rebel. This is always easier for younger people, who have you have less to lose. The question now is how the internet will affect the relationships between citizens and the state, and how it will change organizations. The “Twitter revolutions” people spoke about as early as 2008-9, mass protests organized online, have often proved to be very superficial. Although you can easily join something just by clicking, the work of creating a real movement requires physical participation. Successful mass movements of the past, for example the Civil Rights movement in the United States, were built by people who had spent many years together. They had participated in non-violent workshops together. They practiced and prepared. Just using the you can get everybody to show up at a certain moment, but then when the protest is broken up, nothing happens. It’s also true that the repressive regimes have more recently learned how to use the internet to undermine leaders and movements. Most of all, they now understand how to make people cynical. The form of propaganda that most modern authoritarians use - and I think the Russians really pioneered this - deploys sneering cynicism. Instead of praising the rulers, the regime propagandists mock the opposition movement leadership for being supposedly corrupt or sexually degenerate, with the goal of undermining any kind of idealism. JC: MAGA grew on the internet? AA: MAGA is a real grassroots movement. They had symbols, red hats, they showed up at rallies. But you’re right that the cynicism, the sarcasm and the distrust that the movement embodies came originally from the internet, and this is different. Fifty years ago, most European political parties had a social base in real organizations, in trade unions for Social Democrats, in church groups for Christian Democrats. As people stopped going to church and as the trade unions became smaller, the social base of these parties disappeared. Now people who wouldn’t have known one another in the past meet on the internet and create new movements, many of which don’t last. JC: Is history ending? Going in stale circles? AA: History never ends. In truth, human beings want contradictory things at the same time: order and freedom, stability and change. These things are never resolved, and when a society swings too far in one direction, people always push it the other way. But each time that happens, the result is different. Certainly it is true that we are now in a period when old philosophers and ideas from the 1930s are undergoing a revival. Carl Schmitt, who was a philosopher who was very influential on the Nazis, is back as an influence on both the far left and the far right, once again inspiring people to think that all politics has to be existential, that all politics is about defining and defeating enemies. In the US, some are also bringing back dominionism, the idea that we need a Christian and not a secular state. It’s also true that we are living through a more fundamental shift. The old left-right divide, which was mostly about the size of the state, is much less important now. Instead, we are arguing about more fundamental things: what are our rights, what protects our freedom. Or how much power do we want to give small elites, versus how much power to give ordinary people. In America a small group of very wealthy people now control information, because they control the social media platforms and AI, which means they determine what people will read and learn. Finding a way to preserve preserve zones of autonomy and independent thinking, this is going to be the main task for the next generation. JC: What is the one book that a person interested in Central Europe should read? AA: You could read my book “Iron Curtain: the Crushing of Eastern Europe” which tells the story of how the Soviet Union imposed its culture on the region. Or read Tim Snyder’s history of the region, “The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569-1999.” And everyone should read “The Captive Mind” by Czesław Miłosz, which describes exactly the phenomenon we were talking about: why do people collaborate? I joined Scott Galloway and the brilliant Fiona Hill in a discussion about the wars in Ukraine and Iran, the future of global power, and what these conflicts reveal about America's role in the world. Scott told us that this was the 400th edition of his podcast, which is quite a number: My friend Francesco Chiamulera runs a brilliant series of literary events, Una Colline di Libri, A Hill of Books, in the Prosecco Hills, a region of vineyards and elegant hill towns in the Veneto, north of Venice. We did an event in Vittorio Veneto and also drove and biked around the countryside. Buy Autocracy Inc Buy Iron Curtain Open Letters, from Anne Applebaum is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Subscribe

Jun 13 • 4:15 AM EDT • Politics • anneapplebaum.substack.com

Farm stress program warns funding gaps can disrupt mental health services for farmers

An extension educator says consistent funding would provide better mental health resources for farmers. Remington Rice with Michigan State University Extension’s Managing Farm Stress Program recently testified during a Michigan House subcommittee hearing about increasing demand for the program. “If we want a strong agricultural system, we have to support the people who make that system work,” […]

Jun 11 • 2:17 PM EDT • Health • brownfieldagnews.com

Hiltzik: The Diabetes Association crosses a line

The tally from Trumpian attacks on science now includes billions of dollars in damage to farmers and ranchers and assaults on scientists' freedom of speech.

Jun 11 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • latimes.com

How science is securing Michigan's pork future

Seventy-five percent of state's pigs are now covered by an SPS on-farm biosecurity plan, strengthening the responses farmers will have to an FAD.

Jun 10 • 11:35 AM EDT • Science • nationalhogfarmer.com

Unique Nebraska business offers retail storefront for farmers

Rural residents near O’Neill banded together to open a store where they could market their home-raised meat and other farm products.

Jun 9 • 3:00 AM EDT • Business • farmprogress.com

Trump Greets Farmers in Wisconsin, but Says He Could Be Home Watching TV

President Trump was in Wisconsin to reassure farmers who have been stung by his tariff policies and rising fuel prices from the war in Iran.

Jun 5 • 10:22 PM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

In a visit to farm country, Trump extols ‘beautiful fountains’ back in Washington

As President Donald Trump took his seat Friday for a roundtable conversation on agriculture, speaking beneath a green sign with a giant slogan, “Fighting for American Farmers,” he quickly moved on to other matters on his mind.

Jun 5 • 7:20 PM EDT • Politics • cnn.com

Trump visits Wisconsin in bid to reassure farmers squeezed by surging costs

Besides higher fertilizer and fuel prices, the president also talked at length about D.C.’s fountains and his border policies.

Jun 5 • 7:03 PM EDT • Politics • washingtonpost.com

President Trump touts support for Wisconsin farmers

The president visited Custer Farms near Chippewa Falls, Wis. to highlight how his administration has supported farmers through new trade markets and less red tape.

Jun 5 • 6:50 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumnews1.com

WATCH LIVE: Trump holds roundtable with farmers in Wisconsin

Jun 5 • 3:13 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Farmers turn social media videos into revenue stream to support business

Farmers Zoe Kent and Nick Welker explain how they’ve leveraged social media to generate significant income on ‘The Bottom Line.’

Jun 4 • 7:24 PM EDT • Business • foxbusiness.com

Rural health network aims to strengthen independent hospitals

The North Shore Health Board received a presentation from Cibolo Rural Health Network on the benefits of the Headwaters Network, a high-value network made up of Minnesota’s rural independent health care providers. “I would say a relevant correlator to the high-value network is that of a farmers’ co-op,” Brittany Sachdeva, chief operating officer for Cibolo,...

Jun 4 • 6:20 AM EDT • Health • wtip.org

Biggest diesel shock since 2022 deals another blow to farmers

In Illinois, the top US soybean-producing state, farm diesel averaged a record $5.41 a gallon at the start of May, nearly double the price a year earlier.

Jun 3 • 2:43 PM EDT • Business • chicagobusiness.com

This week in Santa Cruz County business: Planning commission weighs next steps for Front & Laurel project; apple farmers face shift as Martinelli’s cancels contracts

This week in local business, Jessica M. Pasko has the latest on a proposed mixed-use development in downtown Santa Cruz, a seismic development for South County apple growers and names, numbers and dates to know.

Jun 3 • 3:15 AM EDT • Business • lookout.co

President Trump to visit Wisconsin on Friday to support farmers

As Dairy Month kicks off, he’ll visit Chippewa County.

Jun 1 • 6:38 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumnews1.com

Business News June 2026

• The Cornell School celebrates 10th anniversary! • “School’s Out for Summer “ market at Bethany Village • Cedar Mill Farmers Market • End of School Block Party • Speech & Debate summer camp • BodElite Introduces Emsella for pelvic health • Buying a Home? What to Know Before You Remodel • How CWS sets rates for your community • Sunset Credit Union news • New Bottle Drop at Target store

Jun 1 • 3:02 PM EDT • Business • cedarmillnews.com

Crow Wing SWCD to host free soil health events

The events will include soil health demonstrations led by soil health educators and field tours led by local farmers who are implementing soil health practices on their farms.

May 31 • 10:00 AM EDT • Health • brainerddispatch.com

A state grant to boost soil health is in high demand among Minnesota farmers

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture awarded $4.7 million in grants this year. The funds are intended to share the cost of purchasing equipment needed for improved conservation practices.

May 27 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • mprnews.org

Here’s the 2026 South Shore Farmers Market entertainment lineup

Enjoy free, family-friendly performances at the Bay View park every Saturday from June 6 through September 26.

May 26 • 9:17 AM EDT • Entertainment • milwaukeerecord.com

Farmers, business owners, customers feel the impact of beef prices surging

The cost of beef is surging across the U.S.That surge in price is impacting the entire supply chain from farmers, business owners, to customers.Americans are ea

May 19 • 5:11 PM EDT • Business • wsbt.com

Climate, food and health challenges call for one conversation, not separate solutions

In New Orleans, food is the language people use to speak to one another. It is how neighbors greet each other, the center of every gathering and one of the main characters in the city’s own story. So when farmers across Louisiana faced a sudden and severe drought in the summer of 2023, they reached … Continue reading Climate, food and health challenges call for one conversation, not separate solutions

May 19 • 10:00 AM EDT • Health • kresge.org

How farmers reap benefits of historic meat science discoveries

Nebraska’s meat science department is celebrating its 100th birthday, and the impact of the program runs deep in the livestock industry.

May 18 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • farmprogress.com

Q-Mart business owner avoids jail for conduct with underage employees

The owner of Poppy's Peanuts in the Quakertown Farmers Market was sentenced to probation for inappropriate conduct toward teen employees.

May 17 • 5:08 AM EDT • Business • phillyburbs.com

Pasta business brings new flavor to Falls Park Farmers Market

A new business offering homemade pasta is among this season's new vendors at the Falls Park Farmers Market.

May 15 • 9:42 AM EDT • Business • siouxfalls.business

Idaho farmers can band together to buy cheaper health insurance through Farm Bureau deal

As Idaho farmers struggle to find affordable health insurance, a new deal lets them buy cheaper plans through the Idaho Farm Bureau.

May 15 • 6:30 AM EDT • Health • idahocapitalsun.com

Scientists and Virginia aquaculture industry unite to prepare for ocean acidification

Research by William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS is bringing together scientists, shellfish farmers and community planners to prepare for environmental challenges related to ocean and coastal acidification in the Chesapeake Bay.

May 13 • 9:51 AM EDT • Science • eurekalert.org

May 14 Vallejo-Vacaville Arts/Entertainment Source: Activities

May 14: Benicia Farmers Market, 4 p.m., Downtown Benicia at First Street. May 14: Greg Rahn, 5:30 p.m., Empress Marquee Club, 324 Virginia St., Vallejo. May 15: Vietnam Wall Half-size Replica Dedication with Capt. Edmond Landers,…

May 11 • 6:55 PM EDT • Entertainment • timesheraldonline.com

Farm Bill aims to help Wisconsin mink farmers

It would give them access to federal dollars they’ve been excluded from for three decades.

May 11 • 2:26 PM EDT • Politics • spectrumnews1.com

Alden Farmers Market & Car Cruise announces entertainment lineup

The Alden Farmers Market & Car Cruise will return to Alden Town Park on W Main Street every Monday from 4 to 7:30 p.m. beginning June 1 through Sept. 28,

May 11 • 10:46 AM EDT • Entertainment • beenews.com

Antitrust suit seeks better prices for farmers

A stack of papers is keeping eastern Colorado and western Kansas farmers out of the lucrative west-coast market and bringing a group together to levy an antitrust suit against the railroads. Stefan Soloviev was an unlikely farmer with his full-sleeve tattoos, big-city upbringing, and a last name that looked very different from the primarily German surnames […]

May 11 • 7:00 AM EDT • Politics • coloradopolitics.com

Bayer Crop Science and bp partner to expand camelina market for biofuels

A new partnership between Bayer Crop Science and bp could increase access to the biofuels market for farmers. Chad Bilby, biofuel crops innovation and commercial lead at Bayer, says the collaboration will commercialize camelina to produce biodiesel, renewable diesel, and sustainable aviation fuel. “It has a lot of great properties that allow it to be […]

May 8 • 4:10 PM EDT • Science • brownfieldagnews.com

The delicious science of honey: Kitchen Table Talk

On this month’s edition of Kitchen Table Talk, hosts John Lehndorff and Dan Asher were joined by Boulder Valley Honey head beekeeper Chris Borke to discuss the chemistry of honey and taste different honeys from around the world. You can find Boulder Valley Honey at the Boulder Farmers Market ...

May 7 • 12:23 PM EDT • Science • kgnu.org

Weekly Entertainment Report, May 7-10: Music and lively arts in Southern NH » Nashua Ink Link

Local live music and lively arts are the stuff of life - go out and get your fill this weekend.

May 6 • 11:21 PM EDT • Entertainment • nashua.inklink.news

Corteva's seed business to be named Vylor following planned 2026 separation

Corteva has renamed its seed and genetics business Vylor. In a statement, the company says the new division will further strengthen gene editing and disease resistance, while also helping farmers explore new row crop opportunities. Corteva says the overall restructuring is designed to capitalize on investments in biological and differentiated crop protection products, while also […]

May 4 • 2:03 PM EDT • Business • brownfieldagnews.com

Grass Lake vs Columbia Central | HS Girls Soccer Highlights

Grand River Farmers Market Ribbon Cutting, 05-02-2026 | Photo Gallery. By Kelly Evans, JTV Grand River Farmers Market Ribbon Cutting, 05-02-2026 | Photo Gallery. By Kelly Evans, JTV Latest GalleriesCity of Jackson Mother-Daughter Tea Event, 5-3-26 | Photo GalleryGrand River Farmers Market Ribbon Cutting, 05-02-2026 | Photo GalleryMLK CIA Community Cleanup, 05-02-2026 | Photo GalleryBaseball Jackson…

May 4 • 11:46 AM EDT • Sports • jtv.tv

Why Competitive Politics Can Pull Development Finance Away from Need

By Keyi Tang As development finance tightens, the most important question may not be who is lending, but how domestic politics shapes where the money goes. When a foreign-financed road is opened, the picture is clear that this project will connect farmers to markets, lower transport costs and bring neglected communities closer to opportunity. But […]

May 4 • 10:25 AM EDT • Politics • bu.edu

Despite Its Claims, the Trump Administration Isn’t Helping Farmers at All

A group of Iowa soybean farmers who voted for the president are undergoing a very rude awakening.

May 1 • 2:13 PM EDT • Politics • esquire.com

This spring event offers a sneak peek at yet-to-open Mashpee Farmers Market

Mashpee Commons will kick off National Small Business week with a spring celebration on May 2. These are some of the vendors.

Apr 30 • 5:02 AM EDT • Business • capecodtimes.com

Beck’s and MFA make moves to grow business in Missouri

Major investments have been announced in seed processing, grain storage and fertilizer distribution for Missouri farmers.

Apr 29 • 3:00 AM EDT • Business • farmprogress.com

Farm Business In 2026: Relationship First, Digital Convenience Second

New data shows that winning in 2026 requires a 'digital handshake'—using technology to remove friction while keeping the relationship front and center.

Apr 28 • 1:48 PM EDT • Business • thedailyscoop.com

Lawton Underground supports Black-owned business at farmers market

A Lawton Facebook group is using the farmers market to boost Black-owned businesses, showing up once a month to flood a vendor with support.

Apr 26 • 4:42 PM EDT • Business • kswo.com

Gouldsboro aquaculture business selected for blue technology accelerator

Springtide has trained hundreds of seaweed farmers in the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia. It supplies seaweed seed to industry and research institutions throughout the U.S.

Apr 24 • 8:28 AM EDT • Business • mainebiz.biz

Lincoln Public School students practice running a business at student farmers market

One of the 3rd grade teachers said its all about giving the kids an understanding of what it’s like to be producers and consumers and seeing where their money actually goes.

Apr 23 • 11:35 PM EDT • Business • 1011now.com

Guest article: Physical AI isn't replacing farmers. It's critical for keeping them in business

Dealer networks are at the center of physical AI's reach into farming, and key to restoring American agriculture and rural communities.

Apr 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Business • agfundernews.com

Amherst Sustainability Festival: A Day of Family Fun, Education, and Entertainment

Mark your calendars for the 14th Annual Amherst Sustainability Festival, taking place on Saturday, April 25 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the Amherst Town Common. Coinciding with the regularly scheduled Amherst Farmer’s Market, this free and family friendly event brings together local farmers, environmental vendors, advocacy groups, live entertainment, hands-on demonstrations, sustainable crafts, and much more. “The Amherst Sustainability Festival has become a beloved event

Apr 17 • 8:47 PM EDT • Entertainment • amherstindy.org

Hotline for Pennsylvania farmers sees major drop in calls, texts amid mental health crisis

This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service...

Apr 17 • 4:00 AM EDT • Health • post-gazette.com

Already under financial pressure, Midwest soybean farmers are squeezed further by tariffs, Iran war

Midwest soybean farmers are facing an array of compounding issues | WBEN

Apr 13 • 12:21 AM EDT • Business • audacy.com

Seniors: Dennis Ouellette, 80

Ontario Orchards owner not slowing down as he grows his farm market By Stefan Yablonski The seeds for Dennis Ouellette’s career path were sown when he was 6 years old — and he isn’t slowing down. “Since age 6, I grew up an agriculturalist. That is 72 years. Started out with a 37-acre farm when I bought it from my parents and built it up to almost 300 acres. Brought it back down to around 200 acres now,” he said. The location of his business was just a barn, a horse barn, he said. “In 1967, it officially became Ontario Orchards Farm Market. My wife [June] and I graduated [high school] in 1964 and three years later we became Ontario Orchards. We have been here more than 60 years,” he explained. “It is the same location. We have expanded over the years as the customers mentioned different things; we have expanded to bring in different products. “What keeps me going is I totally enjoy what I am doing. I enjoy the people that I work with. The customers are wonderful. Mostly, more important than anything, is my family — my wife, my daughters, grandchildren, son-in-law — we are still very much a family business I’m not going to retire just yet.” He also enjoys the changing seasons. “Ontario Orchards is a four-season business. There is always something new; more energy, more interest. Not only for the business but for my staff, the people that work here. Things keep changing, changing. We are always looking forward to something new and exciting,” he said. They work with quite a number of local farmers within the area and throughout the state, throughout the country and from around the world.” “We do have things from different countries around the world. But specifically, we are very excited about the local. We have an over 200-acre farm. We sell just about everything we raise on that farm right here at the farm market. For example, we press cider year-round. We make baked goods every day, year-round. We sell our apples 12 months a year.” “Today, there are so many products in Ontario Orchards that we never would have thought of in 1967,” he continued. “I attribute a lot of that to my daughters. I like the young blood and new energy. That is very crucial to a business, it keeps it vibrant.” What’s his favorite part of the job? “I don’t have a favorite part. I enjoy it all. I have a lot of intertest in other things,” he said. “I have staff that knows so much. I can go to the staff and say, ‘I don’t know what this is, you tell me what this is.’ They are so knowledgeable. It is impossible for one person to know everything in this place. In the summer, staff is about 60; in the winter about 20, 25.” He added that he plans on being around for several more years.

Apr 11 • 4:39 PM EDT • Business • oswegocountybusiness.com

Rural Mental Health Hub Offers Tools, Training, and Support

A new program from Rural Minds gives farmers tools to recognize mental health struggles, start conversations, and offer support.

Apr 10 • 8:00 PM EDT • Health • agriculture.com

Inside Ag: Nampa business bridges the gap between small vanilla farmers and the U.S. market

Apr 9 • 8:41 PM EDT • Business • ktvb.com

Open for business: Locals flock to Mount Pleasant Farmers Market

The April 7 opening day at the Mount Pleasant Farmers Market near Moultrie Middle School brought out a strong showing of residents and visitors. The weekly market featured locally-grown farm

Apr 9 • 6:45 PM EDT • Business • postandcourier.com

What farmers can learn from other family business owners

Family farm businesses can adopt strategies learned from enterprises of all sizes to strengthen governance, leadership and succession planning.

Apr 6 • 4:00 AM EDT • Business • farmprogress.com

On plant health and embracing new plant-breeding techniques in South Africa

The major challenge currently confronting South Africa’s agriculture is the spread of foot-and-mouth disease. For many farmers across the country, the most urgent tasks are both securing sufficient vaccines and rolling them out quickly in the coming months, particularly as the beef and dairy industries continue to suffer big losses. There is also pressure on sheep, goats, and other livestock to prevent the disease from spreading. As efforts to get the country through this monumental challenge continue, I believe it is important to sharpen our focus on the broader task at hand: strengthening biosecurity. This covers both animal and plant health. In recent years, we haven’t focused much on plant health, except a few times, such as when we had a goss’s wilt scare in the maize industry, a few cases of citrus black spot, or cases of sclerotinia in sunflower seeds. But the fact that South Africa managed to control the outbreaks of these particular diseases when they occurred a few years ago was due to organized agricultural and government scientific capabilities, and, most importantly, the availability of crop protection or agrochemicals necessary to address some of them. Therefore, as the animal health division in the Department of Agriculture focuses on the pressing challenge of the day, the foot-and-mouth disease, there is an opportunity for the plant health division to assess if they have all the requirements to tackle any outbreak that may occur on fruits, vegetables or crops in future. The challenge with crop diseases is that they can spread quickly and cause much more rapid damage in the field than we typically see with livestock. Therefore, speed is everything in ensuring the appropriate controls are available. I raise this as an important area, particularly given the drastic climate variation we observe across the country. The production conditions in some areas have changed noticeably over time, which may introduce new risks. The other essential part is ensuring that South Africa has access to the best crop protection technology available in the market. Many technology developers worldwide have operations in South Africa. Therefore, the Department of Agriculture, along with the Agricultural Research Council, must continuously interact with technology developers to assess the various crop protection technologies they are releasing globally and determine their suitability and need in South Africa. This will require a proactive approach from the government, unlike the current approach, in which technology developers typically approach regulators with new technologies. The government, recognising the food security risks, must take a proactive approach to ensure that South African farmers have access to the latest crop protection technologies, thereby safeguarding the country’s food security. Beyond crop protection, we must never forget that South Africa’s agriculture is key to ensuring that the country is the most food-secure country at the national level in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa is also the only African country in the top-40 global agricultural exporters, having more than doubled since 1994 on the back of the adoption of high-yielding seed cultivars. South Africa has been the only African country to adopt a bold approach to embracing science and adopting genetically engineered seeds for grains and oilseeds in the early 2000s. Since then, we have seen crop yields improve noticeably, contributing to the gains we mentioned above. But ensuring that South Africa improves further is not a given. The key lies in South African regulators’ attitudes towards new technologies. We have to maintain a progressive approach and not give in to the politics of non-food and non-scientific voices that shout on the sidelines. Food security is national security, and the government must ensure we progress, leaning on science. Therefore, the registration of high-yielding new genomic techniques is required. South Africa cannot afford to fall behind the EU, the USA, South America, and many of its competitors in global agriculture. The Department of Agriculture’s crop science division must adopt a progress-and-science-embracing approach for the good of the country. Thanks for reading AgriView! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Subscribe Share

Apr 6 • 12:02 AM EDT • Health • wandile.substack.com

Previously Unknown Human Lineage Discovered In Northern East Asia Survived And Adapted After The Ice Age Ended

The results suggest these hunter-gatherers persisted and adapted to a warming world, rather than being quickly replaced by farmers.

Apr 4 • 6:30 AM EDT • Science • iflscience.com

Trump gives rare praise to persistent GOP foe after White House ballroom vote

Trump gives a special shout out to Sen. Rand Paul after the fiscal hawk votes yes on plans for the estimated $400 million White House ballroom project.

Apr 3 • 3:47 PM EDT • Politics • foxnews.com

Branching out: Farmers and scientists team up to see how trees can reshape the future

Nate Lawrence is an ecosystem scientist at the Savanna Institute. “If we can robustly quantify how trees are improving something – let's say maybe improving water quality – then there's probably a way that we can plant more trees as a result of that finding,” he explained.

Apr 2 • 10:40 AM EDT • Science • pbswisconsin.org

Off-farm income supports 30% to 40% of agricultural producers

Many farmers rely on outside income for cash flow, benefits and business growth, but time management and sustainability planning remain critical.

Mar 30 • 4:00 AM EDT • Business • farmprogress.com

California farmers were already struggling. Then came the Iran war

The war's disruption of exports and rise in fertilizer prices are hurting California farmers.

Mar 29 • 6:00 AM EDT • Business • latimes.com

Bock Fest helping small businesses, farmers facing tough economic times

The ninth annual Bock Fest brought hundreds of people to NuLu, where small businesses have financial strains due to recent construction.

Mar 28 • 10:33 PM EDT • Entertainment • wave3.com

Bock Fest helping small businesses, farmers facing tough economic times

The ninth annual Bock Fest brought hundreds of people to NuLu, where small businesses have financial strains due to recent construction.

Mar 28 • 10:33 PM EDT • Business • wave3.com

Trump tells farmers that tractor companies should lower prices

President Donald Trump announced new measures on Friday to support U.S. farmers who are reeling from the administration's trade policies and the Iran war and suggested farm equipment makers cut

Mar 27 • 1:11 PM EDT • Business • unionleader.com

WATCH LIVE: Trump expected to offer support to U.S. farmers during Iran war

Mar 27 • 10:19 AM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Trump to pitch new relief for farmers battered by tariffs, Iran war

Trump is looking to bolster support for the agriculture industry at a time when farmers are struggling with the impact of tariffs and the Iran war.

Mar 27 • 3:02 AM EDT • Politics • usatoday.com

Glyphosate: A story of science, risk, and nuance

In the summer of 2014, a California groundskeeper named Dewayne Johnson started noticing patches of raw, weeping skin spreading across his body. He had spent years applying Roundup, Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide, for a school district, sometimes drenched in it when equipment malfunctioned. By 2014, he had a diagnosis: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In 2018, a jury awarded him $289 million in damages, later reduced on appeal. Tens of thousands of lawsuits followed. The story hasn’t quieted down. It’s all over the internet, swinging between “this will kill you, buy organic” and “relax, you’re fear-mongering.” Some of that recent chatter stems from an Executive Order protecting glyphosate and its production, which set off intense infighting within the MAHA movement. Some of it reflects a deeper truth: Americans genuinely care about harmful chemicals in their environment (see poll below). And the conversation isn’t going anywhere, with a Supreme Court case involving Monsanto set for this April. Glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) is one of the most widely used herbicides in the world. But does glyphosate cause cancer? And how much exposure is actually risky? With so much mistrust in institutions and corporations (and some genuine conflicts of interest), making sense of the actual scientific evidence is genuinely hard. Here is a translation of what the scientific evidence actually says. Does glyphosate cause harm? Glyphosate is an herbicide that kills most plants it contacts rather than targeting specific species. It works by blocking an enzyme pathway (EPSPS) that plants and many microorganisms need to produce essential amino acids. Without those amino acids, the plant can’t grow and dies. Glyphosate was first developed by Monsanto in the 1970s and became ubiquitous after the company introduced “Roundup Ready” crops in the 1990s. In 2024, Bayer removed glyphosate from residential Roundup-branded products due to litigation pressure. But today it is still the most widely used herbicide in the world. Farmers also discovered they could spray it directly on crops like oats, lentils, beans, and peas just before harvest to dry them out faster and make harvesting easier. Because of its widespread use, it’s obviously really important to understand if it’s harmful to humans. The key principle: The dose makes the poison The most important concept in toxicology is that “the dose makes the poison.” Sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus articulated what remains the foundational principle of toxicology: sola dosis facit venenum. Water will kill you if you drink enough of it. Aspirin saves lives at 81 milligrams and causes internal bleeding at higher chronic doses. So, at what dose is glyphosate poisonous? The LD50 in rats (the dose that kills half the test animals) is around 5,600 mg/kg body weight. Table salt is roughly 3,000 mg/kg. By that classic measure, glyphosate is less acutely toxic than salt. But some people are exposed to a lot of glyphosate through their work. And among the general public, there are many questions about low-dose, cumulative exposure from multiple sources over long periods. Does glyphosate cause health problems? Cancer Correlation maps are striking, with one analysis finding that 60% of counties that spray the most glyphosate have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma rates above the national average. But correlation alone doesn’t establish cause, which is why animal and human studies matter. In animals: Rat studies are typically what most fear is rooted in, but most people don’t know the study details on the dosage given to rats. A pooled analysis of the 13 most rigorous rat studies found evidence that very high doses, around 55,000 times greater than typical food residue exposure, can cause certain cancers. In humans: One of the strongest studies followed 55,000 herbicide users over 20 years and found no overall increased cancer risk. There was one signal: among those with the highest use, rates of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) appeared elevated. A broader meta-analysis of 18 human studies also found no overall cancer risk, though a separate meta-analysis focused specifically on non-Hodgkin lymphoma found that people with high cumulative glyphosate exposure faced a 41% higher relative risk compared to those with low or no exposure. These human studies are observational studies (randomized controlled trials would be unethical), and meta-analyses are only as reliable as the studies they pool. But the story seems consistent: at very high exposure levels, there may be some cancer risk. But that’s about as far as the science currently takes us. Emerging research: gut and reproductive health Gut: Because glyphosate targets a pathway that exists in some gut bacteria, scientists have questioned whether it could affect the microbiome. In mice, a 2023 University of Iowa study found that glyphosate altered gut bacterial composition and raised markers of intestinal inflammation. A 2024 systematic review found similar patterns: disrupted gut bacteria and problems with the mucus layer that protects the intestinal wall in mice. Whether this translates to humans is an open question. The human gut is highly variable and resistant, and we don't yet have strong studies confirming the same effects in people. Reproductive health: Animal studies have found that glyphosate-based herbicides can interfere with reproductive hormones, including disrupting egg cell development in mice and reducing the number of eggs available in sheep’s ovaries. However, the doses used in these experiments were high, so it’s not yet clear whether the same effects would occur in humans. On the human side, a 2021 pilot study led by Mount Sinai researchers tested urine samples from pregnant women across the U.S. and found glyphosate in 95% of them. The study also found a possible connection between higher glyphosate exposure during pregnancy and a subtle physical difference measured in female newborns. That said, some connections weren’t statistically reliable and this was a small study. The researchers themselves said more and larger studies are needed before drawing firm conclusions. What do regulators say about glyphosate safety? In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as "probably carcinogenic to humans" (Group 2A). The classification is worth taking seriously. But, there’s an important distinction: IARC classifies hazard, meaning the potential to cause harm under some conditions. It does not assess risk, which accounts for actual exposure levels and the real-world probability of harm. The U.S. EPA, the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada, and regulatory agencies in Australia and Japan have all concluded that glyphosate is “unlikely to be carcinogenic to humans” at realistic exposure levels. They’re asking a different question: given how much of this people actually encounter, what is the probability of harm? Your actual exposure is what determines your actual risk. What does glyphosate mean for your daily life? At the grocery store: Food residues are small. The EPA’s acceptable daily intake is 1.75 mg/kg of body weight per day. To hit that threshold from oatmeal alone, a 150-pound adult would need to eat roughly 50 pounds of oats every day. But this calculation addresses only one pathway (food), and we don’t yet have robust tools to measure people’s actual total exposure. If reducing exposure matters to you, organic certification prohibits synthetic herbicides, and organic oat products generally test at lower or undetectable levels. Either way, a diet rich in whole grains, conventional or organic, is far better for your health than one that omits them out of fear of residues. On the farm: Occupational exposure is orders of magnitude higher than consumer exposure. Farmers and farm workers who mix, load, and apply glyphosate-based herbicides, especially without protective equipment, face meaningfully different risk profiles. Proper PPE isn’t optional. Integrated weed management strategies that rotate chemical modes of action are also worth taking seriously, both for health and for long-term effectiveness. If you live near a farm: Spray drift is real. Concentrations near field edges can spike during and after application, particularly on windy days. This is an area where I think public health could really step up and empower rural communities with buffer zones, rather than placing the onus on individuals. But for now, knowing your local agricultural calendar and keeping windows closed during application are the first steps. Bottom line Dewayne Johnson was exposed to glyphosate at levels most people will never encounter, and a jury decided he deserved compensation. That outcome is not evidence that the oatmeal in your pantry is dangerous. But it is a reminder that the dose, the context, and the person doing the exposing all matter enormously. Glyphosate is a chemical tool with benefits, trade-offs, and genuine open scientific questions. Learning to hold that complexity without collapsing into panic or dismissal is, honestly, one of the most useful and hardest things to do in navigating modern health science. Love, YLE Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. Hannah Totte, MPH, is an epidemiologist and YLE Community Manager. YLE reaches more than 425,000 people in over 132 countries with one goal: “Translate” the ever-evolving public health science so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members. To support the effort, subscribe or upgrade below: Subscribe

Mar 25 • 10:25 AM EDT • Science • yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Hawaii launches emergency relief program for farmers, businesses

The Hawaii Department of Agriculture and Biosecurity today opened up applications for an emergency farm relief program for those impacted by the recent Kona low storms.

Mar 24 • 7:33 PM EDT • Business • staradvertiser.com

Fertilizer prices bring more pain for American farmers amid war in Iran

The war in Iran is pushing up prices for already-strained farmers, with higher costs for fertilizer and energy on top of last year’s tariffs. And the increasing pressure on American agriculture could lead to even bigger price tags at the grocery store.

Mar 23 • 5:00 AM EDT • Business • cnn.com

Farmers and rural community members can access free mental health resources

KGAN CBS 2 and KFXA Fox 28 provide local news, weather forecasts, notices of events and items of interest in the community, sports and entertainment programming for Cedar Rapids and nearby towns and communities in the Corridor and throughout eastern Iowa, including Iowa City, Waterloo, Dubuque, North Liberty, Coralville, Marion, Morengo, Williamsburg, Washington, Tiffin, Tipton, Solon, Mount Vernon, Lisbon, Central City, Urbana, Independence, Manchester, Dyersville, Oelwein, Cedar Falls, Waverly, Evansdale, Guttenberg, West Union, New Hampton, Decorah, Waukon, Maquoketa, Sigourney, Fairfield, Grundy Center, La Porte City, Dysart, Fayette, Elkader, Strawberry Point and Belle Plaine.

Mar 21 • 12:14 PM EDT • Health • cbs2iowa.com

Ancient DNA reveals a farming shift that pushed a society to the brink

A new study reveals that farming in Argentina’s Uspallata Valley was adopted by local hunter-gatherers rather than introduced by outside populations. Centuries later, a stressed group of maize-heavy farmers migrated into the region, facing climate instability, disease, and declining numbers. Despite these pressures, there’s no sign of violence—instead, families stayed connected across generations, using kinship networks to survive. The research shows how cooperation, not conflict, helped communities navigate crisis.

Mar 21 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com

Brooklyn businesses, consumers feeling the pinch from soaring oil prices

The soaring crude oil prices continue to push up the price at the pump, but it's also impacting everything from airfare to farmers, and products you buy at the store.

Mar 19 • 5:49 PM EDT • Business • abc7ny.com

FNC acquires McPherson-based farm management business

Farmers National Company has acquired a Kansas-based farm management division to help provide sustainability for ag operations. FNC says the purchase from Peoples Bank and Trust in McPherson, Kansas, will give producers access to specialized management, local knowledge, and resources to help maintain profitability for producers. Grant Fitzgerald, Senior Vice President of Farm and […]

Mar 18 • 1:52 PM EDT • Business • brownfieldagnews.com

Amid funding cuts, here's a reminder of why farmers need science

Agriculturists on both sides of the political aisle benefit from expert-driven research.

Mar 16 • 3:00 AM EDT • Science • farmprogress.com

Trump Administration Turns to Migrant Workers to Help Farm Labor Shortage

As the president’s immigration policies squeeze an already tight supply of farm labor, the Trump administration is making it cheaper to hire foreign farmworkers.

Mar 15 • 5:00 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

WATCH: Rollins says U.S. working on solutions to keep fertilizer costs down for farmers amid Iran war

Mar 13 • 4:50 PM EDT • Politics • pbs.org

Iran war deprives US farmers of affordable fertilizer as spring planting looms

Farmers in the U.S. and Canada, who were already worried about prospects for another year ​of low profits or losses, now could have spring planting disrupted as they struggle to find fertilizer, and prices ‌for any available supplies have spiked more than a third since the war in Iran paralyzed global trade.

Mar 13 • 2:18 PM EDT • Business • reuters.com

US farmers rush to sell crops as Iran war fuels rally

U.S. grain prices have surged since the Iran war began, triggering a flurry of corn and soybean sales by farmers who squirreled away last year's harvests due to weak prices.

Mar 13 • 6:03 AM EDT • Business • reuters.com

Meet the farmer who helped Mayo strengthen its understanding of rural health care

One farmer who rose through the ranks at Mayo Clinic is helping the prestigious hospital connect the dots to better serve farmers in southeastern Minnesota.

Mar 13 • 5:00 AM EDT • Health • mprnews.org

At China’s Big Political Meeting, a Rare Debate About Inequality

China’s plan to raise pensions for farmers by less than $3 a month prompted rare criticism from lawmakers about the country’s threadbare social safety net.

Mar 12 • 2:38 AM EDT • Politics • nytimes.com

On the Farm, the Hidden Climate Cost of America’s Broken Health Care System

American farmers are drowning in health insurance costs, while their German counterparts never worry about medical bills. The difference may help determine which country's small farms are better prepared for a changing climate.

Mar 6 • 4:55 AM EST • Health • insideclimatenews.org

Business of Farming Conference aims to support local farmers

The year 2025 was tough for farms in the region recovering from Helene damage.The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) held its annual Business of

Feb 28 • 6:39 PM EST • Business • wlos.com