Chris Clayton

Commodity prices are up, but farmers in the Texas Panhandle will struggle to produce a crop under current drought conditions. As irrigation declines, they are also finding ways to adapt to more dryland crop production.

Farmers of both commodity crops and specialty crops will receive a first tranche of disaster aid payments. To determine losses, USDA will use its existing crop insurance or Noninsured Crop...

Crop damage may have been minimal so early in the planting season, but farms saw significant damage to buildings and equipment from a storm Thursday. South Dakota and Minnesota officials each reported one fatality in their states.

Calling farmers "the breadbasket of democracy," President Joe Biden toured an Illinois farm to tout the need for greater crop production in the face of adverse growing conditions globally, as well as the impact of lost crop...

Responding to concerns about higher food prices, higher costs for farmers and the need to boost global food production, the White House laid out three initiatives meant to encourage farmers to plant more and ideally lower input...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack testified before a Senate Ag Appropriations Subcommittee for USDA fiscal-year 2023 spending plans. Vilsack told senators disaster aid is coming soon, but a plan to boost double cropping by U.S...

A small cattle producer in Michigan was told he can't sell his beef or cattle because his farm was contaminated with PFAS chemicals that were in the waste-water sewage sludge that was applied to his fields. A Maine lawmaker warns...

Most of the 2 million acres offered contracts under the latest CRP General signup were already in the program. More than 1.6 million acres were already under an existing CRP contract. USDA stated fewer than 400,000 new acres are...

USDA isn't making any statements about provisions in the White House aid package to Ukraine sent to Congress late last week. Commodity groups also are still examining the package, which would boost loan rates for certain...

The chairwoman and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee held a field hearing on the next farm bill Friday on the campus of Michigan State University. The hearing included 17 people who testified about a broad...

President Joe Biden put forward a $33 billion package of aid for Ukraine. The package, which the White House pitched for Congress to pass, also includes provisions to help with global food security, which includes aid for U.S...

In a repeat of hearings Congress has held about cattle markets during the past year, arguments continued Tuesday in the Senate Agriculture Committee about the role of government oversight of cattle markets in a highly...

An executive order signed by President Joe Biden on Friday includes provisions for federal departments such as USDA to examine the impacts of deforestation from agricultural commodity imports from countries that are turning a...

In rolling out the Rural Partners Network, the Biden administration indicated it would help rural towns, counties and tribes access funds available from federal programs in laws such as the American Rescue Plan and the...

While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott may have loosened up truck inspections at one key port of entry into the U.S., the cross-border gridlock continued Thursday. A produce trade association in Texas estimated at least $114 million in...

Egg prices, adjusted for inflation, are nearly 15% higher than they were the same period in 2015 during the last major HPAI outbreak. According to USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service, there were 38% more eggs available in the...

President Joe Biden announced his administration would grant an emergency waiver to allow the continuation of E15 sales through the upcoming summer months, during a speech on Tuesday at a Poet ethanol plant in Menlo, Iowa.

President Joe Biden will travel to Menlo, Iowa, later this afternoon to make his announcement allowing year-round E15 sales to return during a visit to a 150-million-gallon Poet ethanol plant. Poet is the world's largest producer of...

President Joe Biden will travel to Des Moines, then to Menlo, Iowa, a small town about 45 minutes west of Des Moines with a POET Bioprocessing plant that has capacity for 150 million gallons of ethanol. Biofuel groups will watch closely...

The FBI this week spotlighted the work of investigators involving a $40 million crop insurance fraud case that dates to a 2014 tip to the USDA Office of Inspector General hotline alleging fraud by a tobacco barn in Mount Sterling...

Haitao Xiang is a Chinese national indicted in November 2019, more than two years after he had been arrested trying to leave the U.S. for China. Xiang was caught in June 2017 boarding a plane with technology from then-Monsanto...

The decision to retract the small-refinery exemptions (SREs), which is a final order from EPA, comes with a caveat that EPA is going to allow 31 of the refineries to meet their 2018 RFS obligations "without purchasing or redeeming...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has written the president and CEO of the National Grain and Feed Association saying he shares concerns about the Ukraine war and impact on grain production and exports, but USDA sees only...

USDA announced Tuesday that the United States and Mexico have concluded all necessary plant health protocols for fresh table potatoes to gain access to the entire Mexican market. Still, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said...

A Minnesota farmer was sentenced to 12 months in prison and required to pay back more than $435,700 for selling grain under a CCC loan and pledging equipment as collateral for farm loans.

With the challenges in food security and stability globally, the U.S. could use some top people in the Biden administration focused on agricultural exports. A key trade nominee withdrew last month, and the White House has not...

Four dams on the lower Snake River in southeastern Washington state provide clean energy and river transportation for wheat. But the dams have been a constant source of debate about conditions for salmon and steelhead fish...

Ranchers who have approved applications through USDA's Livestock Forage Disaster Program for forage losses will receive payments for higher supplemental feed cost under the Emergency Livestock Relief Program. The aid is...

The number of egg layers was already lower before highly pathogenic avian influenza cases began to hit commercial flocks during the past two months. USDA and states have been forced to depopulate at least 11.6 million hens since...

Under a revised cash cattle bill, USDA would two years to set up mandatory minimum cash market trade for five to seven regions of the country. USDA would create a library of market contracts between packers and producers. And...

The White House proposes a $5.8 trillion budget for fiscal year 2023 with USDA's total budget outlays at $261 billion, about the same cost as 2022. The budget contains several tax changes that failed to move in the U.S. Senate last...

Highly pathogenic avian influenza is sweeping through major commercial operations as the number of states and infected flocks continues to grow. USDA is now depopulating more than 14.5 million birds, making this year's outbreak the...

Beth Hoffman's book "Bet the Farm" details the story of her and her husband moving from San Francisco in 2019 to take over her husband's family farm in southeast Iowa. Beth and John were both 50 when they became essentially...

In the magazine "The Atlantic," staff writer David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, wrote "The U.S. Subsidy That Empowers Putin." In Frum's essay he makes the case that "the ethanol program" has helped...

A group of more than 80 members of Congress called on the International Trade Commission to roll back the duties placed on phosphate from Morocco and also to stop consideration of possible tariffs on urea ammonium from Trinidad...

Nutrien Ltd. announced Wednesday that the company will increase potash production capability by nearly 1 million metric tons to approximately 15 million metric tons in 2022. The U.S. relies heavily on potash from other countries...

GOP members of the House Agriculture Committee stressed Wednesday that the farmers they represent are not talking about climate change, but instead fertilizer prices and global food risks due to the invasion of Ukraine by...

In the magazine "The Atlantic," staff writer David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, wrote "The U.S. Subsidy That Empowers Putin." In Frum's essay he makes the case that "the ethanol program" has helped...

NASA leaders attended Commodity Classic in New Orleans last week to talk about agriculture's information needs on water management, planting decisions and market knowledge. NASA has several crop modeling tools derived from its...

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has sought to tamp down speculation or concerns about the wide-ranging impacts of Ukraine being taken out of the global agricultural markets. Still, the...

Robert Bonnie, USDA's undersecretary for farm production and conservation, said in an interview with DTN that CRP has been one of the major topics brought up by producers, the department doesn't have any plans to revisit CRP.

More than 7,000 farmers and agribusiness people are meeting this week for Commodity Classic in New Orleans with a lot of focus on input prices, the spike in commodity prices and debate about energy all intermixed in the side...

High food prices sparked the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee to ask USDA to delay the CRP sign-up deadline so farmers could consider planting a crop on CRP acreage instead.

New outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) have been reported in Iowa, Missouri, Maryland and South Dakota. The new confirmed cases mean USDA, state officials and farmers have had to depopulate nearly 1.9 million...

An economist tossed out the idea on Twitter that USDA should open up Conservation Reserve Program acres to planting this year. Within a day, reporters were asking Farm Service Agency administrators if USDA is looking at that...

At the National Farmers Union annual meeting this week in Denver, an executive for the world's largest ethanol producer, POET, highlighted biofuels as an immediate solution for both climate change and helping U.S. consumers avoid...

A positive case of avian influenza in Iowa, even though it's in a backyard flock, heightens the risk to other, larger commercial operations. Cases of the latest bird flu have been found in 15 counties since early February and USDA...

With talk of Ukraine and domestic challenges, President Joe Biden talked briefly about agriculture as he advocated ways to bring down inflation and lower costs.

On separate calls with reporters Tuesday, food and grain market analysts discussed the risks to global markets for wheat, barley and vegetable oils if war continues and causes extensive disruption to Ukrainian agricultural...

Farm Service Agency Administrator Zach Ducheneaux addressed an array of topics during a speech Monday to members of the National Farmers Union in Denver and an interview with DTN on farm programs and office staffing.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., a farmer, told members of the National Farmers Union on Sunday about a series of bills he is championing to tackle corporate consolidation. Tester said Senate leaders have promised to debate at least a...

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack indicated his biggest initial concerns related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and agriculture right now would be possible price spikes for inputs such as fertilizer. Throughout the day, the...

USDA released the Grains and Oilseeds Outlook as the department opens its USDA Outlook Form online on Thursday. The report offers the first look at how USDA sees the 2022-23 crop marketing year playing out. USDA sees record...

Lowering carbon's footprint was the biggest area of discussion throughout the National Ethanol Conference this week in New Orleans. Whether it is competing with electric vehicles or producing aviation fuel, there's a push to lower...

An EPA official speaking at the National Ethanol Conference in New Orleans didn't say when the agency would complete its rules for 2020, 2021 and 2022 blend volumes, but she said the agency is committed to putting biofuels blend...