An Urban's Rural View

Give the Trump administration credit for Chinese concessions on U.S. ag products and especially for a more constructive than expected approach to NAFTA.

The president called the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement a "horrible deal," but so far he's done little to replace a pact that offered gains to American farmers and ranchers.

Thoughts on cultural differences and human similarities, inspired by a stay with a farm family far away.

President Donald Trump's promise to bring broadband to the countryside is great. But where's the plan?

In urban areas, public-private partnerships may make sense as a way to ramp up investment in infrastructure. In rural America not so much.

Preparing for a trip to Japan, wondering about the national mood there and how it might affect future trade negotiations.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a challenge to California's law mandating bigger cages for egg-laying hens. Another challenge is possible. Will the final verdict be rendered in a court of law or in the court of public opinion?

In which we imagine the Oval Office conversation as the president and his budget boss mulled huge cuts in farm programs.

The dollar is falling against a basket of currencies but rising against the Brazilian real. Here's why.

Keeping vast libraries of seeds stored away is worth taxpayer funding, even if farmers only use a small proportion of the theoretically possible seeds.

It's worth spending some time thinking about how to answer the criticisms of farm subsidies.

An economic historian at Cornell sees the Internet as the economic salvation of small-town America.