The 'demise' of plow-based farming is coming as farmers use healthier ways to grow food

Jesse Stubs plowing, prepares soil to plant corn on newly-terraced land in Flint River Farms, Ga.,
in May 1939. (Marion Post Wolcott, Library of Congress Prints &Photos via the Post)

The enduring match of farms and plows seems destined for a breakup as more farmers incorporate no-till farming practices. "The demise of the plow and other tools that turn the soil is a rare good-news story in these depressing times for Planet Earth," writes Dana Milbank in his Washington Post opinion. "Modern, mechanized tillage [is] an ecological disaster, killing all that was alive in the soil while worsening erosion and runoff."

Over the past five decades, farmers realized how much harm tilling was doing and began to step away from their plows. Milbank explains, "In 1973, 82.2% of U.S. cropland was managed by conventional tillage, and only 2% was managed by 'no-till' methods, with the remaining 15.8% using reduced tillage. Half a century later, only 27% of U.S. cropland uses conventional tillage, with 38% now using no-till and 35% using reduced tillage."

Part of the shift to no-till includes a change in farming culture. Milbank adds, "If Big Ag destroyed the soil with its heavy use of chemicals and monster tilling equipment, the new agriculture is about building soil health so that it can nurture as it once did." The no-till resurgence takes its lessons from "traditional farming methods that existed for centuries before chemical fertilizers and pesticides. . . . and newer technologies, such as drilling seeds into the soil to preserve the soil’s structure."

John Piotti, head of the American Farmland Trust, which has been working on regenerative practices with big and small farmers and food companies including Land O’Lakes and General Mills, told Milbank, "It’s a very good trend — an excellent trend . . . . It’s really about whether we’re going to have a planet we can live on.”

As egg prices continue to climb, one U.S. egg producer reports an 82% increase in revenues. What's going on?

Revenue increases at Cal-Maine has some lawmakers
and consumer advocates calling for an investigation.

Bird flu may not be the only reason U.S. egg prices are climbing. The massive profit increases at Cal-Maine, the country's biggest egg producer, suggest another reason for soaring egg costs. The company's snowballing revenue has some lawmakers and consumer advocates asking for an investigation into egg pricing practices.

"There is at least one winner in the current shortage," report Danielle Kaye and Julie Creswell of The New York Times. "Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about a fifth of the egg market reported that its revenues jumped to $954 million in the quarter that ended in late November from $523 million from the prior year — an increase of 82%."

Cal-Maine has quietly consolidated portions of the egg industry, which has helped increase its profits. "Cal-Maine has acquired more than two dozen companies since 1989. It and four other large producers control roughly half of the egg market in the United States," Kaye and Creswell explain. "The company’s net income surged more than 500% to $218 million, from year-earlier levels, thanks to higher prices, the lower cost of feed and acquisitions of other operators."

Meanwhile, U.S. consumers continue to pay more and more for a dozen eggs. "The concentration of egg production in fewer hands is raising concerns, stoked by previous findings," the Times reports. "Two years ago, the largest producers were found liable for inflating prices in the 2000s. Now, some lawmakers are calling for federal regulators to investigate the industry."

Alvaro M. Bedoya, a Democratic commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, told the Times, "I don’t know what’s happening in the egg industry, but it sure as hell seems we should be looking into it and see if there’s anticompetitive conduct that is hurting consumers." Kaye and Creswell add, "Similar pleas from advocacy groups and lawmakers were made to the F.T.C. under the Biden administration."

Read about the egg price-fixing case filed in 2011, which went to a jury, here.

In flood-torn Appalachia, building or rebuilding housing is a complex problem with a long history

Percentage of renters considered housing cost-burdened.
(The Conversation map, from U.S. Census 2023 data)

As parts of Appalachia are left ravaged by more than one “thousand-year flood," residents remain in their communities, but many people still can't find housing or rebuild, writes Kristina P. Brant for The Conversation. "The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems."

Persistent poverty, a lack of decent housing and a history of unequal land ownership leave many Appalachian residents with few options when faced with a natural disaster. Brant explains, "When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200-$300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home. Others lived in 'found housing' – often-distressed properties owned by family members."

Eastern Kentucky’s 2021 and 2022 floods "turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone," Brant writes. "With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in 'found housing' were not eligible for federal support for rebuilding."

Corporations own large tracts of Appalachian land that could be used for housing, but the property remains undeveloped. Other large parcels are "owned by families with deep roots in the region. People’s attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters," Brant adds. "But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves."

Even after major government funding was secured to rebuild on "higher ground" after the 2022 flood the extreme housing shortage continues. Brandt writes, "When I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go."

Its goal was to create a modern farm to feed the world, but despite $500 million in funding it just feeds part of an island

Due to a lack of farming expertise, Sensei spent millions building its greenhouses.

Larry Ellison wanted his techno-savvy farm, Sensei Ag, to feed millions -- even in hard-to-farm places like Africa. But eight years and more than half a billion dollars later, the venture has failed to grow its Hawaiian greenhouses into a model that would modernize agricultural practices, reports Tom Dotan of The Wall Street Journal.

The cutting-edge technology Sensei boasts is rarely used, and the company has been "beset by problems typical to tech startups, including executive changeovers, shifting goals, and bad Wi-Fi," Dotan explains. Sensei leadership's lack of agricultural expertise has been costly and caused delays. "Some of its top executives are tech veterans who have no commercial agricultural experience."

Ellison, who is co-founder of software giant Oracle, has "called the project, and the island more broadly, part of a grand experiment in sustainability," Dotan writes. "Far from feeding the world, its crops of lettuce and cherry tomatoes are only enough to supply the few groceries and restaurants on the island of Lanai and [other] spots around Hawaii."

Even though Sensei has plenty of funding and technology expertise, the concept struggled to gain momentum. "Employees said Ellison vacillated on which crops to grow," Dotan explains. "One early idea was to repair the land by growing crops with minerals that would fertilize the soil— for example, by growing cabbages and feeding them to goats to make fertilizer. That idea was abandoned for cost."

Sensei set lofty targets, but its leadership failed to consult Hawaiian farmers or agriculture experts, which cost the company millions of dollars and stalled development. "Ellison hired an Israeli firm to build the greenhouses, and although Israel is considered a leader in greenhouses, the structures were designed for that country’s desert climate and weren’t built to handle Lanai’s high humidity or gusts of up to 80 mile-per-hour winds," Dotan reports. "Ellison said the structures would cost $12 million, but they ended up costing closer to $50 million."

Given its lack of success, "Sensei has moved away from its original mission to feed the world," Dotan adds. The company has restructured its goal to support farming with state-of-the-art software.

Rural round-up: USDA plan to lower egg prices; cuts to rural education research; relief payments to farmers; USFS firings

Photo by J. Egger,
Unsplash

As egg prices keep pecking at American pocketbooks, Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has a 5-part plan to lower egg prices. Rollins writes, "Avian flu can still penetrate [almost any] facility; it is transmitted through wild birds that often enter through perimeter gaps that need to be fixed. . . . The USDA has developed a successful pilot program. . . to identify and implement more safety measures. . . . Second, we will make up to $400 million of increased financial relief available to farmers whose flocks are affected by avian flu, and we will assist them in receiving faster approval to begin safe operations again after an outbreak. . . ." Read all of Secretary Rollins' strategy here.

President Donald Trump's first campaign and term may have helped bring rural needs for investment and support to the forefront, but the current Trump administration "could bring that progress to a sudden halt," reports Nick Fouriezos for The Daily Yonder. "The first cuts were reportedly aimed at the Institute of Education Sciences, the Department of Education's independent research and evaluation arm, with at least 170 contracts shuttered. . . . The National Rural Higher Education Research Center just opened in September, after being awarded a 5-year, $10 million grant through the IES. . . . Led by MDRC, which conducts nonpartisan research to improve the lives of low-income Americans, the center is conducting eight major studies in rural areas across 10 states and 25 colleges."

Outdoor Recreation Roundtable photo

The wave of U.S. Forestry terminations put a precious rural resources at risk. "About 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees within their probationary period have been fired due to Trump’s reforming the federal workforce executive order," reports Ilana Newman of The Daily Yonder. "National forests are vital to rural economies. The outdoor recreation industry contributed 1.2 trillion dollars to the American economy in 2023. . . . A source revealed that seasonal firefighters may be in the next round of terminations."

Sections of Appalachia were doused with rain last week, leaving parts of Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee soaked and flooding -- again. The region's repeated natural disasters have caused heartbreak and extreme financial distress for many residents, but they have also helped Appalachian communities rely on one another. "Willa Johnson, a lifelong eastern Kentuckian, lived in McRoberts when the 2022 flood overturned her life," reports Katie Myers of Grist. "Johnson and others throughout the area feel their experience has prepared them to face future disasters with strength, and, when other rural communities go through the same experience, understand what they face and how best to help them."

In late December, Congress passed the American Relief Act, which earmarked $9.8 billion in agriculture relief payments to farmers, with a 90-day window for the Department of Agriculture to issue the checks, reports Tyne Morgan of Farm Journal. "With less than 30 days left before the deadline, farmers are asking one question: When will those payments be released? . . . .  On Thursday Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins confirmed payments will be released before the March 21 current deadline. She also outlined the timing of the $1 billion just announced to combat avian flu. Rollins is schedule to give another keynote talk today. To watch Farm Journal's most recent update interview with Rollins, click here.

Many rural residents drive almost an hour to get to a hospital for surgery, study finds

Rural Medicare patients 'typically drive 55 minutes
to a hospital.' (Adobe Stock photo)

When rural folks need surgery, long-distance drives come with the territory. "Forty-four percent of rural Medicare patients must drive an hour or more for surgery, a recent analysis finds," reports Erin Blakemore of The Washington Post. "The study shows that patients in rural areas typically drive 55 minutes to a hospital — far longer than their counterparts in more populous areas."

While rural Americans have historically struggled to have medical care access that's equal to urban residents, their plight has worsened since 2011. Blakemore explains, "The number of rural Medicare beneficiaries who traveled more than 60 minutes for their procedure rose from 36.8% in 2010 to 44.1% in 2020. . . . Among non-rural Medicare beneficiaries, travel times were lower, with a median of 20 minutes’ travel in 2010 vs. 23 minutes in 2020."

Rural hospital closures could be contributing to the problem, and "high-risk operations are increasingly centralized, the researchers note, which may have contributed to the rise in travel minutes for rural patients who must go farther for such procedures," Blakemore adds. "In a related study from the Annals of Surgery, researchers found that 98.7 million Americans — nearly 1 in 3 — lacked access to 'timely, high-quality, affordable surgical care' in 2020."

The U.S. is expected to face a nationwide surgeon shortage over the next decade, making the lack of local surgical care for rural residents an area of "growing concern," write Brittany A. Long and Michael J. Sweeney for The National Library of Medicine. "When considering the existing barriers to surgical healthcare in rural communities, there is a sense of urgency to identify innovative approaches that will promote a sustainable surgeon workforce."

Rash of federal firings will hurt rural communities' economic health and development possibilities

Map by Sarah Melotte, The Daily Yonder, from Bureau of Labor Statistics data

The Trump administration's federal employee purge has plunged several sectors into chaos and disarray. Some firings include rural workers employed by public land agencies. "In a radical move to stave off perceived bureaucratic bloat, the administration has laid off thousands of federal employees," reports Sarah Melotte of The Daily Yonder. "Over a quarter million federal employees are stationed in rural counties across the country."

By cutting federal payrolls, the Trump administration hopes to fund part of its "proposed $4.5 trillion in tax cuts," Melotte explains. "The firings will hurt many rural communities that rely on the federal government for a large share of their economic base."

The loss of government jobs is particularly harmful to rural communities because federal positions generally pay better and will be more difficult for individuals to replace. Melotte reports, "In 2023, wages in rural private sector jobs were $50,600 per job, on average, compared to $79,300 per job in the federal government. . . . Federal jobs only make up 1.6% of the total rural workforce, but in many rural communities, they are one of the largest employers.

Explaining the domino effect federal firings could have on rural communities, Megan Lawson, from Headwaters Economics, told Melotte, "Especially in the West, where many federal layoffs are affecting public land agencies, these employees will not be able to manage our natural resources and serve the public. Our gateway communities whose economies depend on natural resources or recreation on federal land will feel the ripple effects when the resources and their visitors aren't being managed well. It's unclear how quickly these effects will be felt."

Nationwide, the tally of federal wages paid to rural employees is substantial. "Federal wages accounted for $21 billion in non-metropolitan, or rural, counties in 2023," Melotte adds. So far, the Trump administration fired more than 1,000 Department of Veteran Affairs employees and cut 3,400 Forest Service jobs.

Opinion: People are getting married less often and having more children outside of marriage -- especially in rural areas

Rates for unmarried women and children out of
marriage are increasing. (photo by Thiago Cerqueira)

In an effort to prioritize "spending and infrastructure for communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average,” new guidelines from the Transportation Department have been issued by the Trump administration, according to a Washington Post opinion piece by Shelley Clark, a professor of sociology at McGill University, and Matthew Brooks, an assistant professor of sociology at Florida State University. 

Clark and Brooks said that the new guidelines would seem to be aimed toward Trump supporters in rural areas including “large traditional families.” However, their research shows that the appeal of having a large traditional family is not as popular as it once was. 

“Between 1988 and 2018, the proportion of rural women who were married fell from 55% to 33%… By 2018, rural women were more likely than urban women to be in an unmarried, cohabiting partnership (19% vs. 14%),” according to Clark and Brooks. They also said that the rates for women who have never been married has increased for both rural and urban women.

With the number of unmarried and divorced women rising, Clark and Brooks have tracked that the number of children born outside of marriage has also been on the rise. That is occurring at a time when the overall average number of children being born per woman has declined; and the number of rural children living with married parents has declined at twice the rate of urban children.

While Clark and Brooks said that rural transportation would be very beneficial due to the need to “travel greater distances to access necessities,” their research indicated “that using marriage and family size as the criteria for transportation funding is likely to disadvantage rural regions.”

“These rapid transformations in both marriage and non-marital childbearing help explain why many rural residents and politicians are inclined to think the traditional family is under threat,” according to Clark and Brooks. They also suggested that policies should be based on data about needs rather than “stereotypes about small-town family life.”

A new proposal to cut down on medical research costs could lead to less medical research

Less funding could lead to less
medical research. (CDC photo)

The Trump Administration proposed to reduce the size of medical research grants conducted by institutions, including hospitals and state universities.

If it goes through, indirect medical research funds would be reduced to a set 15%. However, the proposal has been “put on hold by a federal court,” according to an article by Emily Badger, Aatish Bhatia, Irineo Cabreros, Eli Murray, Francesca Paris, Margot Sanger-Katz and Ethan Singer at The New York Times.

The Times reported that in 2024, $32 billion was spent on medical research, with $23 billion having gone toward direct costs and the remaining $9 billion toward indirect costs. These indirect costs include laboratory upkeep, access to hazardous materials disposal, utility bills and administrative staff. The term itself isn’t very descriptive, but recipients say the costs are necessary for research operations.

A set 15% for the indirect costs would reduce overall funding by $4 billion to $5 billion a year according to the Times. The Times reports, “The White House said the savings would be reinvested in more research, but the rate cuts would open up sizable budget holes in most projects at research institutions.”

Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy at the Association of American Medical Colleges, told the Times, “‘A slash this drastic in total research funding slows research’… And slower scientific progress, she said, would affect anyone who depends on the development of new treatments, medical interventions and diagnostic tools.”

The battle over a chicken vaccination puts egg and poultry industries at odds

Chicken vaxing could help egg producers but harm
poultry industries. (Adobe Stock photo)

American poultry and egg businesses can't agree on a strategy to contain bird flu while protecting incomes. "The chicken and egg industries are at odds. The argument isn’t over which came first but about bird flu vaccinations," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "Egg companies are calling for a stronger government response to the bird flu outbreak. . . . They are also petitioning regulators to greenlight a vaccine that could be administered on farms, a sharp reversal from their position a few years ago."

Chicken companies, such as Purdue and Tyson, are not on board with a large-scale flock vaccination because it would put their $5 billion chicken export revenue at risk. Thomas explains, "Countries that import chicken products would cut off purchases of American poultry. Each country would need to sign off on the U.S.’s vaccination strategy before accepting imports again."

Despite the debate, the Department of Agriculture issued a "conditional approval to animal-health company Zoetis for its bird flu vaccine for poultry," Thomas reports. "The next step in the process would be getting commercial approval. Even if that happens, it will still take time to sort out trade ramifications, ramp up production and develop a distribution. For now, the vaccine "is not authorized for use on farms, and poultry producers can’t buy it."

In the coming week, the USDA is expected to "roll out a comprehensive strategy to combat bird flu, the agency representative said, adding that the administration is committed to safeguarding poultry farms and keeping egg prices affordable for families," Thomas adds. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Fox News, "This is going to take a little while to bring these prices back down."

Although a chicken vaccine would help the egg industry, delayed chicken exports would produce a chain of costly international and domestic trade problems. Thomas explains, "A backup in exports could lead to production cuts from major chicken companies, resulting in fewer grain and soybean purchases for livestock feed from farmers."

Opinion: AI doesn't make writing better. 'Letting a robot structure your argument. . .is dangerous.'

Photo by Robert Rieger, Connected Archives
via The New York Times

Nobody ever asks me about language. They ask the DeLillos and the Updikes and the Styrons, but they don’t ask popular novelists. Yet many of us proles also care about the language, in our humble way, and care passionately about the art and craft of telling stories on paper.
-- From On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Now ask yourself: Could artificial intelligence ever make that observation? What does a robot know about language? Very little, and yet, no matter who is writing, a robot is reworking words and removing human originality from the page. In her opinion essay for The New York Times, Margaret Renkl eschews AI as a better way to write. Edited portions of her essay are shared below.

"Letting a robot structure your argument, or flatten your style by removing the quirky elements, is dangerous. It’s a streamlined way to flatten the human mind, to homogenize human thought. We know who we are, at least in part, by finding the words — messy, imprecise, unexpected — to tell others, and ourselves, how we see the world. The world which no one else sees in exactly that way.

"Sure, there’s a difference between writing a poem and cleaning up a garbled email, between writing a love letter and a Google ad. For some tasks, employing an A.I. assistant might save time without levying a commensurate cost in humanity. Maybe. . . .I’m still not sure."

Sometimes the need for a perfect word can send a writer on a deep dive for the exact word a phrase or verse needs. Renkl shares, "I was outside. . . sitting with my thesis director, the poet James Dickey. I remember that particular meeting because of one ill-chosen word. In a poem that was otherwise finished, a single adjective was clearly wrong. We batted alternatives back and forth across the desk, but none was right.

"Hours later, the right word came to me, popping up out of the depths while my mind was occupied with something else. It was so apt. . . I opened the phone book, and looked up Mr. Dickey’s number. When he answered, I said, ‘Pale.’ The word is ‘pale.’. . .Mr. Dickey was overjoyed about that word, every bit as jubilant as I was. If only for a moment, the world made a kind of sense it hadn’t made before."

''No robot may harm a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm' reads Isaac Asimov’s first law of robotics. But what if the existence of robots itself is what robs us of our humanity? Is that not a way of bringing humans to harm?"

Quick hits: A 'new' Robert Frost poem; the penny's top advocate; the little farmer from the Super Bowl ad

The newly discovered poem by Robert Frost was written
in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1918. (Adobe Stock photo)

Laced with nature, deep and succinct -- Robert Frost's poems are a rich read. And it so happens, there's a previously unpublished poem by Frost to enjoy, reports Jay Parini for The New Yorker. "I opened “Nothing New” and saw at once that it was indeed something new. It was originally inscribed inside a copy of Frost’s second collection. . . that was found in a retired educator’s home library. . . It’s a good poem, short and aphoristic, from a period when Frost, writing at the height of his powers, had a special affection for poems of this kind: brief, rueful, tight, focused."

Taking truckloads of books to rural hither and thither after Hurricane Helene became this traveling librarian's mission. "In the 1930s, women employed by the Works Progress Administration rode pack horses through the mountains of eastern Kentucky, bringing books to rural residents in hard-to-reach places," reports Anya Petrone Slepyan of The Daily Yonder. "Nearly a century later, Kirsten Crawford Turner is carrying on that tradition, with the help of a truck and a U-Haul rather than a horse and saddle bags." Turner told Slepyan, "It started with one box of books on my porch. Now I have thousands." 

Weller would like to give every American
a penny for their thoughts. (A.S. photo)

 

Almost everyone despises pennies. "Except this guy," writes Joseph Pisani of The Wall Street Journal. "Mark Weller has been on a roll for three decades, arguing for the one-cent coin’s existence every chance he gets. When the penny is slighted in newspapers, it’s Weller who writes letters to the editor." Weller runs a pro-penny group and he keeps Congress abreast of all the benefits the penny affords. "He’s been to Capitol Hill countless times to convince Congress to keep the penny, which the U.S. Mint has been producing since 1793."

Fake meat is made of plants, which people are encouraged to eat. But it's also an ultra-processed food, which people should avoid. What's the low-down? Alice Callahan of The New York Times reports, "Here’s what we do — and don’t — know. . . . While it’s clear that eating red meat and processed meat is associated with health risks like heart disease, some types of cancer and earlier death, we really don’t yet know how fake-meat alternatives might affect our health in the long term."

Else M. Rike still uses a calculator
to do taxes. (Adobe Stock photo)

Even if you love your job, would you do it if you lived to be 100? Probably not. But that's not true for everyone. "Else M. Rike will be 101 years old on March 24 but doesn’t expect to take a day off to celebrate. She will be too busy preparing tax returns," reports James R. Hagerty for The Wall Street Journal. "Active tax professionals over 90 years old are rare but can be found here and there. . . .William D. Brew, who lives in Henderson, Nev., and will be 102 in March, continues to prepare taxes for a handful of clients. . . Wes Cobb, 94, a retired IRS agent in Keene, N.H., invites clients to spread out their tax materials on his kitchen table."

She's the Little Potato Farmer who could. She's also a little famous after a Super Bowl ad spotlighted her family's potato farm, which grows potatoes for Lay's potato chips. Her father, Jeremy Pavelski, is a fifth-generation farmer from Hancock, Wisconsin, reports Tyne Morgan of Farm Journal. "The Super Bowl commercial . . . was inspired by Pavelski’s story, after he hosted a farm tour for Frito Lay one day." Morgan adds, "The group was especially touched by Pavelski’s 7-year-old daughter, who is passionate about the potatoes her family produces."