Quick hits: The American baked potato; rural deputies get EMS training; 6 states ban lab-grown meat sales; building homes in small town Vermont

American-grown potatoes are still affordable and 
delicious. (Idaho Potato Commission photo)

In a time when going to the grocery store can be both expensive and discouraging, it's good for Americans to reignite their love for the humble, versatile and still affordable baked potato. "The baked potato has always been big and great," writes Eric Kim of The New York Times. "These days, a long Idaho tuber, split down the middle like a hot dog bun to reveal fluffy white starch, a pat of butter nestled into the left side, is still big and — more important — great, with its perfect creamy-crunchy-fresh combo of sour cream, chives, cheese and bacon." Find recipes here. 

A rural sheriff in Montana is working to help the region's emergency responders by using "some of his department’s budget to restart a first responder medical training and certification program for deputies to be able to supplement emergency medical providers and help provide care when they are first to the scene of an incident," reports Blair Miller of the Helena Independent Record. Often, when accidents occur in rural Montana, law enforcement arrives well before medical emergency teams. In his announcement, Sheriff Tom Grim said he believes that if deputies could provide medical assistance to victims before an ambulance arrives, their additional training could save lives. 

Six states have passed laws banning cultivated meat.
(Graphic by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

Where's the meat? According to several states, only animals are meat. "Livestock powerhouse Nebraska became the sixth state to preemptively ban the sale of cultivated meat," reports Jaclyn De Candio for Offrange. Nebraska joined the "beef with cultivated meat" by joining states that already ban the sale of lab-grown meat, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Montana and Indiana. "Florida was the first to pass such a law, and in several cases, companies like UPSIDE Foods already filed lawsuits challenging these restrictions on constitutional and commerce grounds. . . . While laboratory meat products are indeed made from real cattle cells, they give pause to many."

Power grids across the country need upgrades, and areas of the Midwest will get them. "The Department of Energy closed a $1.6 billion loan guarantee for transmission upgrades in the middle of the country — a move that comes as the Trump administration slashes funding for other grid improvements, including a separate transmission megaproject in the Midwest," reports Alexander C. Kaufman of Canary Media. The financing will enable a subsidiary of American Electric Power to "overhaul around 5,000 miles of power lines across Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia."

A bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken may be a game-day crowd-pleaser, but the chain has been struggling against competitors that offer on-the-go chicken. "Consumers eat 26% of their fast-food orders in their cars," reports Heather Haddon of The Wall Street Journal. To recapture its market share, the company is revamping its menu to compete with newcomers like Chick-fil-A and Canes. "KFC this month brought back its Original Honey BBQ sandwich, introduced in the late 1990s, at a discounted $3.99 price. The announcement swiped at Chick-fil-A while championing its own sandwich: 'bigger than Chick-fil-A’s AND available on Sundays.'"

Jonah Richard’s first development project was once home to a post office. It now consists of eight apartments and a coffee shop. (Photo by David Littlefield, Vermont Public Media)

Despite the daunting challenges of building affordable housing in New England, a homegrown Vermonter found a way to get it done. "Not so long ago, Jonah Richard spent his days working for a white-collar consulting firm in New York City. Now, he fills his time bopping between construction sites in the corner of Vermont where he grew up," reports Carly Berlin of vtdigger. "His philosophy of trying to squeeze more housing into any possible nook and cranny in a building, and in a town – guides all of the projects that Richard takes on through his small construction company and development business. . . . State officials want to clone Jonah Richard."

China hits U.S. farmers with 15% tariff. When farmers don't make money, it 'directly ripples across the rural economy.'

Tariffs could permanently hurt U.S. farm income.
(Adobe Stock photo)

In the escalating U.S.-China trade dispute, China has issued retaliatory tariffs targeting American farm goods. "Beijing imposed the levies in response to President Trump's extra 10% blanket tariff on Chinese goods," reports Megan Cerullo of CBS News. "Under China's retaliatory action, U.S. farmers now face levies of 15% on chicken, wheat and corn, and 10% on soybeans, pork, beef and fruit."

In the immediate future, the tariffs will cost American farmers money from lost sales. In the long-term, the tariffs could do U.S. farm product sales greater harm because some vendors may decide to permanently purchase meat and fruit from other producers. Cerullo explains, "If prices of foreign-grown goods rise in China, locals will turn to less expensive alternatives either from China or other countries. American farmers that deal in chicken and more will likely lose market share as a result."

Alongside tariffs doled out by both countries, the inconsistent tariff announcements by the Trump administration have left farmers feeling like their livelihoods are on shifting sands. Virginia-based farmer John Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, told Cerullo, "You are really shaking at the root of all the major commodities that we produce in the U.S. because we are a market-driven industry."

Even though U.S. farmers may have "anticipated Trump would impose levies on key U.S. trade partners, there wasn't a whole lot the farmers could do to prepare," Cerullo adds. Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, told Cerullo, "This trade war and these tariffs adds to that very stressful time and does not help the farm economy. When farmers aren't making money, they are not spending money, and that directly ripples across the rural economy."

When a town's major employer closes, changes and uncertainty abound

Noel has been in the poultry business since the 1950s.
(Photo by Kaitlyn McConnell, The Daily Yonder)

When one business dominates a town's economy, its closing can create a domino effect of change. Noel, Missouri, pop. 2,100, became one of those towns. In August, Tyson Foods "announced that it was shuttering the town's poultry processing plant, and by October, it was closed – eliminating about 1,500 jobs," reports Kaitlyn McConnell for The Daily Yonder. "It leaves a question other communities have faced: What is the next chapter in a place that so heavily relied on one employer for the town's collective income?"

Unlike nearby Ozarkian towns, Noel boasted "cultural diversity, in contrast to the rest of the region, which is still largely white," McConnell writes. "In the 2020 Census, more than 1,450 residents of Noel – nearly 70% of the town's population – identified as Asian; Black or African American; Hispanic or Latino; or Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander."

McConnell writes, "I drove to Noel in late November, the first time I was in town since it became known that Tyson would shutter the plant. A handful of vehicles remained in the plant's parking lot as I drove by. Tyson's bright-red logos are gone, but discoloration remains." 

Just weeks after the plant closed, "many of the immigrants have already moved away," McConnell writes. "The Hispanic residents seem to be the ones most likely to stay. . . . Another change is at Community Baptist, which closed its doors in late November. The reasons for that are complex – there were ongoing issues tied to funding – but the proverbial straw broke the camel's back when all the ethnic congregants left."

The town's mayor, Terry Lance, told McConnell: "Losing that many jobs is going to naturally affect every other business in town, from the grocery stores to everyone. We really don't know just how much yet."

McConnell writes, "In a typical Ozarkian make-do-or-do-without attitude, Lance is looking for the silver lining. Maybe the former plant can simply be torn down, Lance says, and the town can revert to its deeper tourism roots."

Flora and fauna: Shoes for a chicken; cats can eat more than 2,000 species; the decline of snowbirds

Nubz in his reindeer slippers
(Photo by Meesh Davignon via WP)

A tiny chicken missing some toes inspired fans to send him over 60 pairs of chicken shoes. The chicken, lovingly named Nubz, began his shoe journey with "a tiny pair of dog slippers decorated with reindeer" intended for a Chihuahua, reports Cathy Free of The Washington Post. Nubz's owner, Meesh Davignon, created a TikTok page and posted a "video she'd taken of him learning to walk in his reindeer slippers. . . . People loved it, and some wanted to add to Nubz's shoe wardrobe and give him more variety."

As your kitty heads outdoors, they could be hunting any number of creatures to call dinner. "Now, researchers have documented the breadth of cats' global buffet. A study published in the journal Nature Communications found that free-ranging domestic cats (including feral ones) eat more than 2,000 species, raising renewed concerns about the ecological fallout," reports Catrin Einhorn of The New York Times. "It's not the cats' fault they're bad for wildlife. Cats are carnivores. Their talent for preying on rodents is a big reason their ancestors and ours started hanging around together in the first place."

Juncos thrive in the cold.
(Photo by P. Trail via WTR)

National bird populations have declined; snowbirds such as the chill-loving junco are no exception. "Juncos are among the West's most familiar birds, reliable companions on summer hikes and winter days, writes Pepper Trail for Writer on the Range. "Juncos are also in sharp decline. According to the Breeding Bird Survey, a decades-long monitoring study of the nation's birds, junco populations are down by 42% since the surveys began in the late 1960s. . . . But here is the peculiar part: There is no obvious reason for this loss of millions of birds. What seems to be killing juncos is simply . . . everything."

"Have you ever wanted a strawberry so shiny and red that your field looks like it's full of Christmas lights? OK, maybe you haven't thought about it in those terms, but a new, shiny strawberry variety promises to kick off your season with traits growers want," reports Philip Gruber of Lancaster Farming. Kim Lewers, a strawberry research plant geneticist at the USDA's Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, told Gruber, "It was like the Holy Grail was a big, early, sweet strawberry, right? So now I finally have one." Meet the "Lumina" strawberry.

Judging by appearances, it doesn't look like oysters are extraordinarily talented, but looks can be deceiving. "Oysters stabilize shorelines, trap carbon-rich sediment, and help marshes grow," reports Emily Jones for Grist. "And researchers are now studying how creating new oyster reefs could help fight climate change by sequestering carbon."

Blue pigment adds an icy hue to a poplar branch's cellular
structure. (Photo by Robert Berdan, National Geographic)

What do plants look like from the inside? Photographer Robert Berdan aimed to find out: "With his camera-mounted microscope, Berdan zooms in to the cellular level to capture the hidden beauty of poplars, pine cones, and dandelions," reports Annie Roth of National Geographic. "His technique, known as photomicrography, involves photographing dyed specimens under a microscope fitted with a DSLR camera."

Data on chicken production might save companies and consumers money; critics say it helps corporate collusion

Chicken data is at the heart of the anti-trust suit.
(Graphic by Emil Lendof, The Wall Street Journal)

Versatile, affordable and packed with lean protein, chicken is a popular American meal. And while "winner, winner, chicken dinner" may delight families, a battle is being fought over the meat's data

"When Brian Snyder looks at a bag of chicken nuggets, he doesn't see dinosaurs. He sees numbers — data detailing the nutrition and quantity of the feed the birds ate, and how much it cost for workers to slice each pound, reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. "Snyder runs a company that has become a critical player in the meat industry. . ..The company, Agri Stats, gathers and synthesizes reams of data to help meatpackers make decisions based on spreadsheets versus managers' gut instincts.

"The firm's data has been described as the 'Moneyball' of the meat industry, referencing the Michael Lewis bestseller and Oscar-nominated film about data analysis revolutionizing baseball," Thomas explains. "Agri Stats and poultry industry executives say its numbers-crunching service boosts efficiency and helps keep prices low for consumers."

Not everyone believes that Agri Stats exists to benefit consumers. "Others say Agri Stats does the opposite, serving as a vehicle that has allowed meat and poultry companies to coordinate operations and push up prices," Thomas reports. "The Justice Department alleged in a federal antitrust suit filed this fall that meat-industry executives use Agri Stats to glean details about rivals' supplies illicitly and scale back production to keep profits high."

Agri Stats is fighting the suit. "Its executives say its reports don't show clients how much chicken their competitors produce, or prices a company plans to charge," Thomas writes. "Plaintiffs argue that Agri Stats data, such as the number of egg-laying hens a company is placing on its farms, enables savvy readers to gauge rivals' future production, and that companies don't use Agri Stats reports to lower prices."

"The government investigated Agri Stats a decade ago but filed no charges, and Agri Stats executives say its reports haven't changed since then," Thomas reports. "In a separate lawsuit filed by food distributors, supermarkets and consumers accusing chicken companies of conspiring to fix prices, a judge this past summer removed Agri Stats as a defendant. . . . Agri Stats client list has at times included 97% of the roughly $60 billion U.S. chicken industry and 80% of pork processors."

Flora and fauna: Bird turned artist; land auctions; a fruit's 'ugly duckling phase;' animal days; can you 'migrate' trees?

Ferrisburgh with his first painting. (Courtesy photo 
 by Anna Morris via The Washington Post)

It's hard to keep a good bird down, and in the case of Ferrisburgh, an American kestrel with an injured wing, you also can't keep him from his dream of being an artist. "Ferrisburgh is headlining art classes in Vermont and drawing crowds with his talented talons," reports Cathy Free of The Washington Post. "A couple of his paintings are now being auctioned at a fundraiser online, and the raptor recently showed off his skills at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science."

Farmland sales hit their peak in the fall and even with today's high interest rates, business is brisk. Jim Rothermich from Iowa Appraisal is "keeping a close eye on this month's land auctions because, as he says, November is the busiest month for land auctions," reports Margy Eckelkamp of Farm Journal. Rothermich told Eckelkamp, "We're getting strong results. High interest rates and sub-$5 per bushel corn is not affecting land market conditions." Read two examples of recent Iowa land sales here. Read about big land auction sales in South Dakota here.

Even ripe quince is rock-hard and must be cooked to
be enjoyed. (Photo by Ralph Walden, The Seattle Times)

Neither apple nor pear, the quince is an exquisite fruit that takes patience and an open mind. "The bewitchingly fragrant fruit. . . does go through an ugly duckling phase, Orchardist Edith Walden acknowledges. The fruits are misshapen and fuzzy," reports Rebekah Dunn for The Seattle Times. "But at the last minute, the color matures to yellow. The fuzz retreats." Walden adds, "And then they start emitting this fragrance; people walk along the road, and they just want to know what that smell is. It's just entrancing."

What do free-range chickens munch on throughout winter? While there are few bugs, "they do like to scratch under a light snow and pick up seeds, and nibble on refuse from the fall garden," reports Jodi Henke of Successful Farming. Here are tips for keeping your chickens fed and safe during cold weather.

When things don't work out in one place -- be it a job, a school, or a region -- humans often move, but what about trees? Specifically, giant sequoias only grow in groves with unique climates and that climate is changing. "The largest trees on the planet can't easily 'migrate' — but in a warming world, some humans are helping them try to find new homes," reports Moises Velasquez-Manoff of The New York Times. "Millions of years ago, redwoods — or their close relatives — grew across the Pacific Northwest. By moving them, [tree ambassador] Philip Stielstra reasoned, he was helping the magnificent trees regain lost territory."

Days dedicated to animals are peppered throughout the year. This illustration features animals with their
own days. Can you find the sea monkey? (Illustration by Armando Veve, National Geographic)

If you love hedgehogs, bears or badgers (oh, my!), you're in luck because there's a day to celebrate almost any creature. Go online and "pick a random day, week, or month, and you'll find an almost disturbing number of observances. . .days referencing animals specifically are plentiful, even crowded," reports Oliver Whang of National Geographic. "The observances' intents are a mixture: altruistic, commercial, historical, fantastical, serious, funny. . . . National Sea Monkey Day exists to celebrate 'the tiny brine shrimp that swim around mail-order aquariums' -- and from little more than that, the holiday not only went viral, it appeared in Newsweek."

Friday Fauna: World's oldest chicken; island for cows; dog escapes to nursing home; giraffe with no spots?

Peanut eats blueberry yogurt, grapes, bananas and vegetables.

(Photo via Smithsonian)

Meet "Peanut," the world's oldest chicken. She's sassy and just celebrated her 21st birthday, reports Sarah Kuta of Smithsonian magazine. Peanut loves her morning blueberry yogurt, muttering in the garden, possibly doing Chicken Little re-writes. The bantam hen is a "character" with a "ragtag group of chicken friends," reports Bridge Michigan. In addition to not being afraid to peck at cats, Peanut just earned another distinction: Guinness World Records has named her the world's oldest living chicken.

Chirikof Island sits in the Gulf of Alaska, a verdant home to over 2,000 feral bulls and cows, reports Jude Isabella of Hakai magazine. The remote island, affectionately known as the "Republic of Cows," has been a bovine home for 200 years, perhaps more.

This dog's first nursing home break-in was back in 2017. "He leaped over two fences and crossed a highway, then sauntered into the nursing home lobby through an automatic revolving door and parked himself on a brown-colored couch," reports Sydney Page of The Washington Post. Find out what happened next.

The spotless giraffe is ​the first one seen in 50 years.
(AP photo via National Geographic)

Spots, stripes, glow in the dark--nature has relentless creature fashion, but sometimes, less is more. This baby giraffe was born without blocked spots. It's a phenomenon that "hasn't been observed in any giraffe for more than 50 years," reports Dina Fine Maron of National Geographic. "She was born last month at Brights Zoo, a family-owned facility in Limestone, Tennessee. A spotless giraffe was last reported at a Tokyo zoo in 1972."

Well, meow--think you know everything about cats? This article thinks maybe you don't. "What makes cats even more interesting is that there are so many things we don't know about them despite their popularity. So, here are some of the most intriguing facts about cats that even their biggest fans don't know," writes Nancy Truman of Last Night On. "Your cat thinks you're bad at hunting . . ."

In 2021, Brood emerged throughout the Eastern U.S. in the trillions.
(Photo by Rebecca Hale, Nat Geo Image Collection)

If you thought there were more cicadas this year, you're right. "Some Americans are getting a preview of summer 2024, when two periodical cicada broods will emerge simultaneously for the first time in 221 years—an event rarer than Halley's comet," reports Kiley Price of National Geographic. Find out what's in store for 2024 here.

There are reasons to scout for whitetail deer year round. The animal needs hunters to keep its numbers in check and people need the food. There's even an app to aid in the scouting.

Flora/fauna: The grizzly bear may return to the Cascades; revelations in 'chicken-speak,' how to repel mosquitoes . . .

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service map via National Geographic shows
current grizzly range in dark brown, historic range in light brown.

Grizzly bears may return to the Pacific Northwest. "Across 6.3 million acres of forest home to the nation’s most imperiled grizzly-bear population, there has not been a confirmed sighting of Ursus arctos horribilis since 1996," reports Craig Welch of National Geographic. "So the Biden administration is working on a last-ditch effort to bring grizzlies back. Much as federal agencies reintroduced wolves to Yellowstone National Park, scientists hope in coming years to pluck grizzlies from healthy populations in Canada or Montana and transplant them to the Pacific Northwest. . . . The government has a plan to bring these animals back to an ecosystem that needs them." The bears are top predators, but 90 percent of their diet is plants.

Image courtesy of Agate Surrey

"Chill Phyllis" was a backyard chicken who moaned and muttered a lot -- in chicken-speak, of course. . . . People said Chill Phyllis was simply exhausted from laying eggs, but they really weren't sure. . . . Now there's a book that might share some clues about such fowl. "Clucking, trilling, grumbling: The language of chickens was just one of the revelations that struck Tove Danovich as she raised three chicks in her Portland yard," Rebekah Denn writes for The Seattle Times. Danovich's book, Under The Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them began as a "quest for eggs," but the project hatched into research and a resource with "with notes on hatchery ethics, therapy chickens, and rescued battery hens."

Why do mosquitoes buzz in people's ears? Because they're obnoxious (unless you're a bird; then they're dinner). Here are some nature-friendly tips on plants such as rosemary and lavender that can keep the buzzing, biting and disease-carrying party crashers at bay.

Wool can be a magical material for warmth, dryness and the general coziness, but in some places it needs a little more recognition. "There isn’t a great market for much of the wool produced in the Upper Midwest. The price per pound of raw (greasy) wool is unlikely to cover the cost of raising and shearing the animal. . . . Some farms just compost or burn their clip," reports Donna Kallner of The Daily Yonder. "The Fibershed movement is working to change that. The non-profit organization’s mission is to transform regional fiber systems through climate-beneficial agriculture, rebuilding regional manufacturing, and reconnecting end-users with the source of their fiber."

"Massive," "font of life" and "wild ox" are all names for the bison. "The American bison stands at the crossroads of the animal, plant, and human worlds. It is part of an integrated ecosystem that includes people as much as it does bobcats, finches, and sunflowers," reports Nathan Beacom for Plough magazine. "In the Great Plains, scientists and small farmers bring back a mythic beast and a lost ecosystem. . . . Finding the right way to relate to this, our national mammal, might show the way to a healthy relationship with the natural world of the American West."

Photo by Matthew Modoono,
Northeastern University

Parrots are fun, social pets but also intelligent and need social interactions. These parrots participated in video chats with fellow feathered friends. For many, it turns out "Polly does want to video chat. . . . a lot," reports Emily Athens of The New York Times. "They mirrored each other's behavior grooming together . . . and singing together. . . . Some of the birds quickly made favorite friends."

Not all cats hate water. This story recalls "The forgotten history of cats in the navy. . . . Sailors embraced their feline colleagues, giving them tiny uniforms and their very own hammocks," reports Scot Christenson of National Geographic. "But cats are natural outlaws—so it couldn’t last forever."

Winner, winner, winner, accidental chicken for dinner: How a minor error started America's large-scale poultry industry

Ike Long, a farmer; Cecile Steele’s children, and Cecile Steele.
(Photo from National Archives and Records Administration)

The Popsicle, chocolate-chip cookies and raising chickens for meat all started with accidents. In the case of chicken, a shipping error launched a 30-billion dollar industry, writes Kenny Torrella for Vox. "The story begins in 1923, with homemaker and farmer Cecile Steele of Ocean View, Delaware. Steele kept a small flock of chickens that she raised for eggs and waited to slaughter them for meat once their productivity waned. . . . But one day by accident the local chick hatchery delivered 500 birds. . . . Returns weren’t really an option, so she kept them anyway in a barn the size of a studio apartment — 256 square feet — that was heated by a coal stove.  . . . She still made a sizable profit off the 2-pound survivors — almost $11 per pound in today’s dollars — and began to ramp up her operations."

Steele's success allowed "her husband to quit his job to help Cecile expand, and within three years, they were raising 10,000 chickens. Word of the Steele family’s success spread, and by 1928 there were hundreds of farmers in the area raising chickens primarily for their meat," Torrella writes. "And the hatchery accident occurred during the Roaring ’20s, a decade of immense economic growth in the United States. . . . The Delmarva Peninsula, where Steele’s farm was located, was also the perfect place for large-scale chicken farming to take off. There was cheap, abundant land a relatively short distance from the hungry consumers of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City."

Torrella continues: "Steele’s accident set off the chicken revolution as we know it. In the first half of the 20th century, chicken accounted for well under 20 percent of meat consumption in the U.S. Today, it’s about 44 percent. . . . Today grocery stores charge $4 to $10 a pound for beef and pork, while chicken can cost as little as $1.80 a pound. Bacon and steak may take center stage for meat lovers, but when it comes to what’s for dinner, the answer is more often poultry."

The industry's beginnings were a serendipitous "mix of coincidence and ambition. Steele set off a race to put chicken at the center of the American plate, changing the face of agriculture forever," Torrella writes. But for all its popularity, not all the results have been positive. Torella adds, "In the process, we bent the chicken to our will, pushing the species to its biological limits, polluting waterways and our lungs along the way, all to supply a growing population with cheap protein."

Flora and fauna: Bear under a deck, ants to smell cancer, a vaccine for bees, a mini-horse for joy, Huron microbes . . .

L: Appearing to sport a headdress, a Polish rooster stands tall for his portrait. R: Show chickens like this Polish hen, are bred for external attributes, such as color patterns and feather shapes. (Photos: Alex Ten Napel for National Geographic)

A "totally unfazed" black bear dozes underneath a
comfy deck. (Photo by Vinny Dashukewich)

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the catwalk. Eggsperts agree, chickens have it all; and the photographers say the models are much more agreeable to work with than their fussy human counterparts.

When you find a black bear hibernating under your deck, what do you do? A family in Plainville, Connecticut, decided to let the bear snooze on.

Thundersnow is mysterious and rare. It's also being studied as a reliable indicator that a windfall of snow is coming.

What's better than a horse? A mini horse! This 33-inch mini Appaloosa brings joy to children with life-threatening illnesses from rural York County, Pennsylvania, to "anywhere people need a lift."

Gas exploration, cruise ships, and military operations have all made the ocean a lot louder for dolphins. Researches look at how dolphins attempt "shout" to communicate, but it doesn't always work out.

Researcher Rosa Vásquez Espinoza deep dives into oligotrophic Lake Huron to understand how life on Earth evolved through studying microscopic life. She believes this data "is the missing key to better conservation of Earth."

Sea lion, seals and Washington's endangered salmon: What can be done to help salmon return to its once robust numbers?

One day ants may able to replace expensive testing to sniff out cancer tumors. This new study puts the keen-nosed ant to the test with some surprising results.

American honey bee pollination supports more than $18 billion in U.S. crops each year, but bee hives have been struggling. In a bit of good news, a vaccine aimed at protecting honeybees from American foulbrood is being developed.

Advocacy group claims that record egg prices are the result of illegal collusion among vertically integrated companies

Eggs for sale in Glenview, Ill., Jan. 10 (Associated Press photo by Nam Y. Huh)

Why are eggs more expensive than ever? It's not inflation or bird flu, "as claimed by egg companies, but by price collusion among the nation’s top egg producers," an advocacy organization claims in a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Claire Carlson of The Daily Yonder reports.

Farm Action's letter said, “The real culprit behind this 138% hike in the price of a carton of eggs appears to be a collusive scheme among industry leaders to turn inflationary conditions and an avian flu outbreak into an opportunity to extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40%.”

Carlson notes, "Egg production has become a more vertically integrated industry over the past 45 years, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, a USDA-funded program based at Iowa State University. . . . The largest egg producer in the United States, Cal-Maine Foods, has come to dominate the egg industry through the acquisition of other egg farms across the country, according to their website. . . . Cal-Maine’s gross profit jumped 10-fold from one 26-week period in 2021 to the same period in 2022, according to the company’s most recent quarterly financial statement."

The outbreak of avian flu was the second in seven years. The one in 2015 "was deadlier but did not produce price spikes as high as those seen in 2022," Carlson reports.

Sarah Carden, senior policy advocate at Farm Action, told Carlson, “We see big agriculture controlling this narrative about avian flu and supply chain issues, but when you block out all that noise and just look at the numbers… there’s not a substantial decrease in supply.” The American Egg Board told Carlson, “Eggs are bought and sold on the commodity market, where farmers don’t set the price of eggs – the market does.”

Want to keep those fresh eggs coming during cold weather? More light and attention to diet can help hens produce

(Photo via Successful Farming)

For chicken owners who love their fresh eggs, winter can pose a challenge: "Many hens stop or slow down egg production during the fall and winter. The lack of daylight and cooler temperatures tell their bodies to rest," notes Successful Farming. "If you keep the chickens comfy with light and warmth, they'll reward you with more eggs."

Extension Poultry Specialist Jesse Lyons of the University of Missouri told Successful Farming: "It takes about 12 hours of day length to get the birds stimulated to where they start laying. Up to about 16 to 17 hours or so, somewhere in there, is probably the maximum day length that will stimulate the birds."

To add heat and light to a hen house, Lyons said, "Many poultry houses use the relatively inexpensive incandescent light. One light bulb would keep 15 or 20 chickens happy to where they can see, and walk around and eat, and be stimulated by the light . . . You can also use an infrared heat lamp for a couple of hours to warm them up. . . . You can use some of the fluorescent lights, but in cold environments, some of these lights will not come on."

A balanced feed plan can also help, Successful Farming advises: "Provide a diet that is balanced for protein and calcium. More feed may be required to give them the extra energy they need for maintaining body heat and egg laying."

David Frame, an extension poultry specialist at Utah State University, told Jodi Henke of Successful Farming that free-range chickens find plenty to eat other times of the year, but you have to help them with their diet during the winter: "Offer them some table scraps from your salads, or as you trim them. Save those carrot peels and save the ends of the lettuce and the spinach, and things like that. Throw out there, let them peck around at them, and get some greenery. Another idea that works pretty well is to cut a pumpkin or a squash open and just let them peck around at that. Those squash-type plants are very rich in vitamin-A, plus it gives them something to do."

North Carolina is the biggest chicken state, but at what cost to the environment? Veils of secrecy make it hard to say

The Charlotte Observer located and mapped almost 4,700 chicken farms in North Carolina.

"North Carolina’s poultry industry has taken flight. Farms now stand near the mountains, the coast and the state’s largest cities," the Charlotte Observer reports. Don’t know much about it? That’s no surprise, even to residents of the Tar Heel State, which cloaks Big Poultry in secrecy, But the newspaper says it "mapped 4,679 farms in 79 counties across the state," in a major revelation.

"Environmental regulators almost never inspect the state’s 4,600-plus poultry farms. They can’t monitor where all the waste goes. They don’t even know where most of the farms are. Neighbors complain about the stench and other nuisances," Gavin Off, Adam Wagner, and Ames Alexander report. "But state laws leave courts and local governments nearly powerless to help.. . . So-called dry-litter farms produce billions of pounds of waste with no requirement that they obtain environmental permits or get inspected. The manure isn’t treated. It’s stored in piles, often in sheds, until it’s spread on fields as fertilizer. A tiny fraction fuels power plants. Some washes into North Carolina’s public waterways, evidence shows."

The costs are more than environmental, they write: "Multi-billion dollar companies, critics say, shift financial risk to contract farmers . . . who sometimes live with massive debt and little income. All of that is by design. But what’s the cost?"

Johnny “Van” Garris wonders. He sees how the industry has grown "every time he leaves his driveway," the reporters write. "No matter which way he turns, Garris drives by some of the roughly 50 massive poultry barns that have sprung up within a mile of his Anson County home. He says, “If I didn’t already live here, I wouldn’t buy a piece of land to build a house here — not in the middle of all this.”

"Nearly all the barns were built since 2015 as farmers rushed to join a $4.7 billion North Carolina industry that state officials have allowed to grow with no local control and minimal state regulation," the Observer reports. "With chickens and turkey production increasing by 33% in the past two decades — more than half of that growth coming in the past five years — poultry is North Carolina’s No. 1 agriculture business. By one measure, pounds of meat produced, North Carolina is the nation’s top chicken state."

The state "does not require that neighbors be notified if a poultry farm is planned near their homes. In fact, the state shields the locations of poultry farms. Only state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services staff know the addresses of dry-litter farms, which are nearly all of this state’s large poultry operations. Secrecy here not only blocks the public’s view of what occurs on individual farms, it prevents regulators and researchers from assessing the industry’s collective impact on people and the environment. Reporters polled 10 states, including six among the nation’s top 10 poultry producers, and found all disclosed more information or regulated poultry farming more rigorously than North Carolina."

Justice Department probing chicken-farmer payment system

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. is the country's second-largest U.S. poultry processor by sales volume. On Thursday, the company disclosed in a securities filing that its chicken-grower contracts and payment practices are under civil investigation by the Department of Justice. 

"The probe into poultry farmers’ pay comes as the Biden administration has pushed to curb the power of large agriculture companies, accusing them of using their size to raise costs for consumers while underpaying farmers," reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal.

Most chicken farmers are paid through the "tournament system," Thomas explains: "About two dozen farmers in a given region are typically compared against one another to determine their payment rates, using a sliding scale analyzing their chicken production."

The sheer number of variables involved in chicken farming have led chicken producers to complain that it is "too difficult under the tournament system to gauge how much income they’ll be bringing in from flock to flock," Thomas notes. "Chicken companies have pushed back on the criticism, calling the system a performance-based structure that keeps prices down at supermarkets, incentivizes farmers to maximize efficiency and safeguards chickens’ health."

The tournament system has come into question by the Agriculture Department, which proposed new rules in May. In July, the Justice Department required the third-largest U.S. chicken processor, Wayne-Sanderson Farms, to "stop using the system as part of an antitrust settlement that the companies said was needed to complete the merger that formed it," Thomas reports. "Wayne-Sanderson now offers bonuses to farmers who perform well and include a base pay."