The index aims to take the pulse of the agricultural economy. Its based on a survey of 500 producers picked at random to reflect the demographic makeup of the 2007 USDA Ag Census. The survey is conducted three times a yearbefore planting, before harvest, and at years end.

China has imposed anti-subsidy duties for five years on imports of U.S. chicken products after concluding producers received improper support, the Commerce Ministry said last Wednesday amid a string of trade spats with Washington.

Even before the $1-pergallon biodiesel blenders credit expired at the end of 2009, U.S. biodiesel producers were in a tight economic spot.

U.S. farm exports are forecast to increase to $113 billion in fiscal year 2011, the second-largest total on record, amid reduced competition from Russia and neighboring countries hit by drought, the Agriculture Department said last Tuesday..

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week released a draft clean water strategy that outlines plans for new rules and other initiatives the agency says will prevent water quality from degrading, bet- ter manage pollution from animal...

When lottery players hit the jackpot, theyre usually set for life. Not so for Shane and Kristi Daniels.

The temperature was nearly 100 degrees as 17-year-old Maria Vasquez Jimenez pruned grapes for nine hours at a vineyard near Stockton in Californias Central Valley.

When Loren Greenfields family built Hilltop Dairy in 2002, they had a lot of early labor help from the surrounding community. High school and college students came to help milk at first, but local workers quickly disappeared.

Monsanto Co. said last week they will nearly double their investments into an already established joint venture to develop biotech crops, expanding their efforts to include a focus on wheat, a key food crop that as yet has no commercialized biotech variety.

When Loren Greenfields family built Hilltop Dairy in 2002, they had a lot of early labor help from the surrounding community. High school and college students came to help milk at first, but local workers quickly disappeared.