Flora & Fauna: Sentinel gardens; bats do good work; beavers saving ecosystems; firefly delights; seashore reporting

Sentinel gardens help save North American trees.
(Photo by Sophia Simoes, Unsplash)

Planting "sentinel gardens" in different places around the globe helps scientists protect native North American trees. "Scientists have planted American trees in China, Korea and elsewhere to attract hungry insects, reports Sachi Kitajima Mulkey of The New York Times. "These gardens are plots of foreign trees that researchers closely monitor to figure out what local bugs and diseases can damage them. The goal is to learn as much as possible about these potential threats before they cross the ocean and become a problem at home."

For the many Americans who consider bats an animal oddity that flies like a bird but kind of looks like a mouse, they are selling the furry echolocation-using creatures short. Bats do tremendous work, helping U.S. farmers and the economy. "Bats pollinate plants, including many important food crops, when they stop by flowers to drink nectar," write Dale Manning, Anya Nakhmurina and Eli Fenichel for The Conversation. "Their guano is mined from caves for fertilizer. And they eat a lot of bugs – the kinds that bother people (think mosquitoes) and others that destroy crops that humans depend on for food." Read about the impacts of bat population decline on economic markets and how humans are trying to address bat health here.

Beavers to the rescue.
(Drawing by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

In Utah, beavers that trappers would have killed for their fur are being spared and relocated from areas where they are a nuisance to locations where they help local ecosystems recover. "To maximize on their potential to restore ecosystems, the Beaver Ecology & Relocation Collaborative (BERC) at Utah State University started offering trappers a $100 surrender fee to catch beavers alive to transport them to private lands in need of hydrological TLC," reports Karen Fischer for Offrange. "The success of the project could be replicated elsewhere, with sweeping ramifications throughout the American West."

They light up forest floors and the air with their bioluminescence beauty, casting sparkle and wonder all around. Fireflies are among nature's most delightful creatures, and some campers are fascinated. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is not only America’s most-visited national park, but it is also "home to 19 firefly species," reports Jacob Passy of The Wall Street Journal. "Photinus carolinus, also known as the Smokies synchronous firefly, produces dazzlingly coordinated displays that rival even the most extravagant Christmas light installation. . . .Their annual emergence in the Great Smoky Mountains has become so popular that campsites sell out months in advance."

A polluted farm in the United Kingdom "let nature back in," providing a stunning example of how nature can heal itself, reports Jasmin Sykes of CNN. The Knepp Estate is a place where turtle doves "seem to be bouncing back. A recently published, two-decade review of wildlife on the estate found that the number of singing males rose from just two in 2008, to 22 in 2024. Isabella Tree, who owns the 3,500-acre estate in West Sussex, told CNN, “We never thought that in 20 years we could have gone from being this depleted, polluted, dysfunctional post-industrial farmland, to being one of the most significant biodiversity hotspots in Britain."

The famous Assateague wild ponies offer great photos and stories that feature the 
wonders found on our national seashores. (Photo by Sara Cottle, Unsplash)

For reporters who live anywhere near the seashore, there's an ocean of stories to uncover and discuss. "If national parks are 'America’s best idea,' then our national seashores may be America’s best-kept secret," writes Joseph A. Davis for the Society of Environmental Journalists. "For summer getaways, they are a treasure. . . . For example, Assateague Island National Seashore, established in 1965, is a beautiful barrier island running between Ocean City, Maryland, and Chincoteague, Virginia. You can swim or surf or splash in clean waves. You can study how land is built by dune ecosystems. You can see the famous wild ponies. You can go into town and eat oysters." Davis provides a list of national seashores to visit along with story ideas here. 

Many farmers have a second job, and some have cashed in by sharing farm life across social media channels

                 Zoe Kent posts her farm life films on medial platforms like Instagram and YouTube.

As farm income has dipped over the last two decades, some farmers have built a second income by posting about their "life and times" on the farm, reports Amira McKee of The Wall Street Journal.

When the Welker family from Montana was facing some lean years, Nick Welker, his brother Scott, and their father, Bob, decided to share their ag adventures through short films and reels posted to social media. 

The three men started their online careers with "viral videos in the mid-2010s, followed by the restoration of a Big Bud tractor — a hulking machine with a cult following among tractor enthusiasts," McKee writes. The three Welkers have joined "a growing class of 'aginfluencers' monetizing farm life."

For the Welker family, their "social-media business now provides a six-figure annual income stream, generating about $5 for every $1 invested in equipment, cameras, and a video editor," McKee writes.

“It blows my mind how much they eat it up," Nick Welker told the Journal. "They just really like seeing us work.”

The group has amassed over a million social media followers, and their YouTube channel produces ad revenue, as does their equipment sponsorships. McKee adds, "Tractor brands like Case IH pay handsomely to have their machinery featured on the Welkers’ channel."

Zoe Kent is another successful aginfluencer. After she took over her family's farm in 2021, she began posting online about her life as an Ohio soy and corn farmer. McKee adds, "Last year, her social-media income was five times higher than her farm profits."

The Journal reports, "Eighty-six percent of family farms earned a majority of their household income from off-farm sources in 2024, according to the most recent U.S. Agriculture Department data."

Opinion: Congress needs to remember 'who they are working for.' A tractor ride with a farmer might help.

Allison Lynch

American farmers have been hard-pressed to be excited about heading out to the fields this spring: "Margins are tight. Profits are thin. Morale is low. It’s time for legislators to ride around in the tractor to remember who they’re working for," writes Allison Lynch in her opinion piece for Farm Progress.

Bob Bishop, a farmer from Leesburg, Ind., gave a candid answer when Lynch asked him about this year's planting season. He told her, "Input costs are driving this farm and agriculture in general. It’s tough right now, It’s tough. The expenses, the input costs, the machinery repairs, the property taxes — everything seems to be going higher, but our revenue generated from grain sales doesn’t seem to be keeping up.”

Still, there are solutions to many farming woes, but they aren't in farmers' hands. Lynch adds, "Industries have to shift, wars have to end, and global trade has to resume. … Hey, Congress. It’s your turn."

What about the soaring fertilizer costs? That started before the war with Iran. Lynch writes, "The Trump administration has recently started sniffing into fertilizer giants, pursuing an antitrust case. Hopefully, this can get the ball rolling on their end. We want to see results back here on the farm."

Many Americans may think that farmers are always getting handouts, but on the farm, that's not how it plays out. Lynch adds, "The farmers can’t win. They’re stuck between corporations that exploit their labor and a population that doesn’t understand them."

Farm is more than "crops and the land and politics," Lynch writes. "It’s about family and legacy." Legislators need to see that point of view. "Call yours. Offer them a ride. Give them the view from the tractor cab."

Rye is the little grain that could, and it's helping to protect land and increase cash for farmers

While San Luis Valley makes up only a tiny percentage of Colorado's population, the region
contributes roughly 39% of the state's total agricultural economy. (Rye Resurgence Project image)

For farmers grappling with water scarcity in southwestern Colorado, growing rye offers multiple benefits, reports Ilana Newman of The Daily Yonder. "Rye is having something of a renaissance in the San Luis Valley, thanks to its remarkable drought-tolerance, and two women behind the Rye Resurgence Project."

Growing and promoting rye as an aquifer-saving initiative for the San Luis Valley began with Sarah Jones, Heather Dutton and a major dust storm that hit the Valley in 2023, Newman explains. Both women had already started using rye as a cover crop to protect the soil over the winter months, but traditionally, many farms left their soil bare.

After the 2023 duststorm ripped precious topsoil from farmland across the Valley, farmers began looking for ways to save their topsoil. Jones and Dutton offered growing rye as a viable solution, and the Rye Resurgence Project began to take shape.

While rye is a hearty cereal grain similar to wheat and barley, it requires "significantly less water than other common rotational winter crops," Newman explains. For instance, barley requires 18-20 inches of water per acre, while rye requires a mere 10-12 inches. "That’s a huge water savings when multiplied across a standard 120-acre field."

But to get more farmers to plant rye as a cash and cover crop, Dutton and Jones needed businesses to purchase it, which meant overcoming rye's reputation as a strong-flavored grain. "To that end, Jones said they had to do some 'rye reputation rehabilitation,'" Newman reports. 

In fact, rye's flavor is fairly mild, and it "works well in most baked goods, from brownies to pizza to bread," Newman reports. "It also has lower gluten and higher fiber content than wheat."

To date, the project has realized tangible successes. "Heather Dutton said that farmers are now growing 3,000-5,000 acres of rye a year," Newman writes. "And the project has helped them sell 771,409 pounds of rye at an average rate of $0.62 per pound, more than they were aiming for initially." 

Dutton and Jones are working to develop partnerships with bakeries, distilleries, and millers who will purchase rye or use rye flour, Newman reports. They are also sharing the story of how planting or purchasing rye can help the entire state support water conservation and its farming communities. To see a snip of their in-production documentary, click here. 

How the war in Iran is altering planting plans for American farmers

Urea is a one of the most popular nitrogen fertilizers for 
corn crops in the U.S. (DTN graph)

For farmers, the war in Iran has meant changing crop rotations, using less fertilizer, investing in what is profitable, and praying costs go back down by 2027, reports Patrick Thomas of The Wall Street Journal. For his report, Thomas profiled three farmers who are responding to the challenges. 

In Iowa, farmer Dave Walton has opted to plant more soybeans than corn to avoid soaring fertilizer costs resulting from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Thomas explains, "Soybeans require less fertilizer to grow than corn. . . . Walton typically splits his land for half to grow corn and half for soybeans. This year, he is shifting to a 60/40 split." Walton still plans to plant all of his 1,000 acres, but he figures his costs so far in 2026 are up 20%.

Timothy Jones also raises cattle.
(T. Jones photo via WSJ)

Timothy Jones typically grows corn and beans, alongside raising beef cattle on his Kentucky farm. "This year, he is planning to put about 20% of his corn crop into producing hay to help feed his growing cattle herd, which is making money, and an extra 15% into more soybeans to cut fertilizer costs," Thomas adds. Since corn needs far more urea fertilizer to provide nitrogen than soybeans, that switch will save Jones money. "Urea was about $520 a ton in January, he said; now it is more than $850 a ton."

Greg Amundson, a row-crop farmer with 3,000 acres in North Dakota, isn't changing his crop choices, but he does plan to use far less fertilizer. Thomas writes, "Because of rising crop-seed costs, he is cutting back on the number of seeds he plants per acre. He is hoping that improvements in how the seeds perform when planted will compensate for using less of them."

A USDA miscount of 4.5 million acres of corn is adding to a loss of trust among farmers in federal data

For profit-parched farmers, USDA data report errors can be costly. Farmers already face losses, and many fear they can no longer rely on USDA predictions. (Graph by Lori Hayes, Farm Journal)

After one of its worst corn-harvest predictions "in recent memory," the U.S. Department of Agriculture blamed a lack of farmer survey responses for its miscount. But the steep decline in the number of farmers who returned surveys points to farming communities that may no longer trust the USDA, reports Kevin Draper of The New York Times. "Corn estimates were off by 4.5 million acres last year. A lack of survey responses, not job cuts, led to the miss, the Agriculture Department said."

While a 5% undercount may not seem like much, it may have affected commodity purchases and farm incomes. Draper explains, "Estimates of crop size are some of the most closely read [USDA] reports." Traders use those reports to decide on commodity purchases, which influences the prices farmers receive for their crops. Farmers use the information to decide when to sell their crops for the best price.

But amid deep staffing cuts at the USDA, many farmers worry that its reports are no longer reliable. "The corn miss prompted Farm Journal, an agricultural publication, to ask respondents to its monthly survey whether they remained confident in department data," Draper writes. "Most of the farmers, ranchers and economists polled responded 'no.'"

Because farmers compete in commodity trading markets, the accuracy of USDA data helped them gain a leg up over traders who use sophisticated algorithms to manage their purchases. Shay Foulk, who farms 1,500 acres and runs a seed business near Peoria, Ill., told Draper, "People trade the reports whether the reports are true or not. . . .The farmer just feels they are at a disadvantage if those numbers are inaccurate."

Among the USDA sections where Department of Government Efficiency cut thousands of jobs, the "National Agricultural Statistics Service, which produces crop reports, was one of the hardest-hit divisions; it lost 34% of its staff," Draper reports. NASS used to employ roughly 800 employees. It now has about 500.

A 10-year solar project in California aims to 'harvest the sun'

The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan delivers economic value to growers, 
local governments and residents. (Map by Binh Nguyen, Canary Media )

Directors of the largest agricultural water agency in the U.S. are creating a plan to save California farmland from a decades-long water crisis, reports Jeff St. John for Canary Media.

The Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan will transform 136,000 acres of farmland that's no longer irrigable into 21 gigawatts of battery-back solar power, enough to power nine million houses, St. John explains.

The planned build will be the largest project not just in California or the U.S., but in the world, said Jeff Fortune, a third-generation farmer and the board president of the Westlands Water District.

The plans were approved in December, and the project may take 10 years or more, St. John reports. 

"The way we look at it is a new crop," a fifth-generation farmer and another director of the district, Jeremy Hughes, told St. John. "We're harvesting the sun and producing electricity."

In the next 20 years, the state will require four to five times as much new clean energy as the project will provide, according to another director, Ross Franson. 

Many chicken farmers want out, but the off-ramp isn't an easy path

Poultry farmers often end up feeling like indentured
servants. (Graphic by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

Fueled by the industry's long-held "contract system," many poultry farmers end up shouldering mountains of debt and endless workloads. Farmers looking to exit the profession, despite dire financials, can get help from a "growing network of advocates," reports Lela Nargi for Offrange.

In the contract system, the poultry company pays producers for most start-up costs and animal care by providing chicks and covering additional costs, such as feed and medicine. They also dictate contract terms. Farmers provide the barns, land and labor.

While it sounds like a reasonable arrangement, farmers often take on big debts to build the required chicken houses, and they have to work as many hours as their flocks require. Many farmers end up feeling like indentured servants, which is why the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project developed the Contract Grower Transition Program, Nargi reports. The program helps cash-strapped chicken farmers forge a path to "break free" financially, including a plan that repurposes expensive chicken houses.

Through media and major farming events like Farm Aid, the Transfarmation Project, which helps industrial livestock farmers switch to specialty crops, uses stories from former chicken farmers to support and educate poultry farmers looking for a way out, as well as those considering the profession. Nargi writes, "Transfarmation has been documenting every transition they’ve worked on, in order to provide detailed models farmers can replicate on their own."

Despite efforts to help poultry farmers develop an off-ramp, not all farmers feel financially able to leave the profession. "Some advocates hope legislation passed under the Biden administration, updating 1921’s Packers and Stockyards Act in three phases, would create a more equitable playing field," Nargi adds. However, the USDA "is seeking to delay implementation of the third update from July 2026 to December 2027 . . . ."

U.S. turf researchers and sod farmers deliver the goods for World Cup 2026

World Cup fields must meet 'FIFA’s exacting standards for ball roll, shock absorption, consistency, player safety and broadcast appearance.' (Graphic by Adam Dixon, Offrange)

While Americans may be feeling gloomy about many things, there's still plenty to be proud of and look forward to, including this summer when the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, aka FIFA, "will stage its largest-ever World Cup on North American soil," writes Donavyn Coffey for Offrange.

Among the 16 stadiums where 28 national teams will play, the U.S. gets to showcase its turf scientists and rarely sung sporting heroes—sod farmers. Coffey writes, "Since 2019, FIFA has invested more than $5 million in a partnership with turf scientists at Michigan State University and the University of Tennessee, tasking them to solve a foundational challenge of the tournament: the fields."

What's so great about American farm scientists and sod farmers? They make the turf beautiful, playable, absorption-capable, replaceable and removable. Coffey explains, "All this while remaining as uniform as possible across all 16 sites, indoors and outdoors, from desert heat to northern cold." Cool.

"FIFA’s investment was a windfall for an industry that typically sees far fewer funding opportunities than other branches of agriculture," Coffey adds. Trey Rogers, turf scientist at Michigan State University, told her, "The technology has always been there. . . .We were thrilled to get to put our theories to the test.”

American turf researchers quickly zeroed in on creating "curated resilient grass combinations, grow-light recipes to keep the grass healthy over the 45-day tournament, and a way to build a game-ready grass pitch in under 24 hours," Coffey explains. Their sod-on-plastic-turf has the potential to replace AstroTurf on American football fields and other sod blends blanketing U.S. golf courses.

Sod growers have sometimes faced opposition because opponents feel that using good farmland to grow grass for sporting events rather than food isn't a responsible use of the land. With sod-on-plastics, good farmland isn't needed. 

Rogers told Offrange, "I’ve always said this could be done in the parking lot of an abandoned mall.”

Trump traveled to Iowa to show farmers his support and to tout $12 billion federal aid package

Trump poses for photos with younger
"fans" during his Iowa visit.

President Donald Trump returned to Iowa this week to reassure farmers of his support and to tout his administration’s recent $12 billion farming aid package. 

But as farmers face economic headwinds, "some are growing frustrated with how his policies, including his far-reaching tariffs, have hurt the agricultural economy," report Patrick Thomas and Ken Thomas of The Wall Street Journal.

Trump told an audience of diners at the Machine Shed restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa, that he "'gave farmers $12 billion . . . because they were treated unfairly by foreign countries," the Journal reports. The crowd applauded.

Despite the rousing crowd support the president received, some U.S. farms are hurting. Thomas writes, "In the first nine months of 2025, nearly 300 farms filed for bankruptcy, up almost 40% from 2024, according to U.S. court data."

Mark Mueller, who is president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, told the Journal, "We’re getting a lot of lip service. He’s saying that he’s going to do all these things to make things wonderful. We’ll have a new golden era of agriculture. No, that’s not been the case.”

Last month, Trump angered cattle producers by taking to social media and demanding that they lower beef prices. American livestock owners, who have made abysmal profits for years, are just now realizing steady profits.

Other farmers have been "irked by a lack of ag-friendly policy victories in Washington, such as expanding the blending of corn into gasoline and soybeans into diesel," the Journal reports. Farming advocacy groups have pushed for "increasing the use of gasoline with 15% ethanol, known as E15, [that] would increase demand for U.S.-grown corn and push up prices."

Meanwhile, the state will have some intensely competitive midterm elections where Democrats are working to gain traction. Steve Scheffler, who leads the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, "recalled that former President Barack Obama carried the state in the 2008 and 2012 elections," Thomas adds. "He warned that Democrats would try to make inroads in this year’s midterms — without Trump’s name on the ballot."

Trump announces $12 billion in farm aid, but many farmers don't think bailout checks address bigger challenges

American farmers need more markets. (USDA photo)

The Trump administration announced a $12 billion aid package for U.S. farmers hurt by the president's “long-reaching tariffs,” report Brian Schwartz, Natalie Andrews and Patrick Thomas for The Wall Street Journal. “Much of the aid —$11 billion— will be in the form of one-time payments through the Farmer Bridge Assistance program.” 

International tariff wars, particularly those between the U.S. and China, have contributed to a financially challenging year for American farmers, with soybean farmers bearing the largest losses. “Crop prices have remained low, especially after harvesting the largest crop on record this fall,” Schwartz explains. “Through the first nine months of 2025, farm bankruptcies rose by nearly 50% compared with the same period in 2024.”

Although many farmers need the additional funds to pay down debt and invest in next year’s planting, many see them as a short-term solution. Erin Ailworth, Ilena Peng and Michael Hirtzer of Bloomberg News report, “Growers who have struggled with low crop prices, rising costs, and lost markets, [have called] Trump’s farm aid a temporary fix for deeper economic challenges.”

Missouri farmer Marty Richardson told Bloomberg, “This is kind of a Band-Aid — we need more markets more than we need aid.”

While U.S. soybean farmers suffered from a summer and fall without sales to China, presumably due to Trump’s tariffs, many know the country has been working for years to reduce its dependence on American soybeans. Bloomberg reports, “Trump’s first trade war resulted in China accelerating a diversion of its supply chain away from the U.S. to places like South America. U.S. farmers have lost crucial market share to competitors, particularly Brazil.”

Some American growers don’t think 2026 will be any better than this year. Sam Taylor, a farm inputs analyst, told Bloomberg, “This time next year, we’re going to be having much the same conversation about margins for growers, about the potential need for economic support.”

Farmers can start applying for the aid package next month. WSJ reports, "Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that the money will start going out at the end of February." 

U.S. sugar farmers take a beating as price per ton tanks

A truck unloads sugar beets. (Red River Valley Sugarbeet 
Growers Association photo)

U.S. soybean and corn farmers aren't the only ones taking a beating in this year's agriculture market. Sugar beet farmers will also see abysmal payments for their record 2025 crop, report Jenny Schlecht and Kjersti Maday of AgWeek.

American Crystal Sugar announced it will pay farmers $43.85 per ton for its record 2025 crop, a "far cry from the $78 it paid last year or the $83.18 it paid for the 2023 crop," Schlecht writes.

The Minnesota-based sugar cooperative explained the lower prices, saying "net sugarbeet payments per ton for 2025 will be far less than payments in recent years due to low sugar prices blamed on sugar dumping by companies that heavily subsidize their sugar crops," AgWeek reports.

Sugar beets are white-rooted.
 (Merriam-Webster drawing)

Sugar beet growers, like other American farmers, have faced high input costs for labor, fertilizer and machinery. They are also grappling with less demand. Demand is down about 4% from a high several years ago, according to the article. Inflation, shifts in the American and even changes in SNAP allowances can all be contributors to less demand.

But Tom Astrup, the president and CEO of American Crystal Sugar, said price worries are the "greatest threat to the sugar industry since Mexican sugar dumping more than a decade ago," Schlecht explains. "The industry has been 'hammered' by the imports of world sugar, which Astrup said the Department of Agriculture has lost control of. That, he said, has led to the highest stocks of sugar in the U.S. in 25 years."

Opinion: Virtual cattle fencing offers a multiple-benefit solution for ranchers and helps migrating wildlife

Ranchers can easily move herd grazing lands with an app. 
(NoFence photo)

Western ranches in the United States include thousands of miles of barbed wire fencing, which has both positive and negative effects. GPS fencing could help ranchers strike a healthier balance while cutting business costs, writes Bruce M. Beehler in his opinion for The Washington Post.

Rangeland fencing is "an important tool for managing herds, rotating grazing areas, protecting environmentally sensitive wetlands and stream corridors, and keeping cows off highways," Beehler points out. "But it’s also harmful to wildlife populations, including deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep and elk, as well as game birds such as the greater sage-grouse."

The idea behind GPS-based virtual fences is similar to "Invisible Fence," which uses buried wire to keep dogs in their yards. Similarly, virtual cattle fencing "uses GPS, cellular technology and a mapping app that allows ranchers to draw cow-proof fence lines on their computer or tablet," Beehler explains.

While the new system requires an initial investment in collars and cell service to install, Beehler believes it offers ranchers enough benefits to justify the initial price tag. For one, they won't have to repair nearly as much fencing, which is time-consuming and expensive for farmers and tax payers. 

For wildlife, removing barbed wire fencing from migration corridors will prevent animal suffering and death. Beehler adds, "One study in Montana found that, on average, one wild ungulate got tangled in fencing every 2.5 miles of fencing per year."

While the system is designed to keep herds within designated grazing lands, it offers a huge secondary benefit. Beehler writes, "With a glimpse at the mapping app, ranchers can see the exact location of every one of their cows in real time."

Virtual fencing collars could be replaced with ear tags.
(Photo by Chad Boyd via USDA)

Virtual fencing won't replace all physical fencing, "especially along highways and to keep bulls from wandering into a neighboring herd," Beehler explains. 

But for every mile of barbed wire that virtual fencing replaces "costs will decline. . . and as a result the annual cost of maintaining a herd will fall, increasing profit margins," Beehler adds.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture offers more insight on virtual fencing benefits for farmers, the environment and wildlife here. 

$12 billion aid package for farmers is ready and waiting for federal government shutdown to end

Economic headwinds have left U.S. farmers struggling 
to plan 2026 crops. (Photo by Luke Thornton, Unsplash)

The Trump administration is preparing a $12 billion initial bailout package to help U.S. farmers "harmed by the president’s tariff policies," report Grace Yarrow and Meredith Lee Hill of Politico. 

The federal government shutdown is the one thing holding back the current farmer aid package. Politico reports, "Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters that a Market Facilitation Program — similar to the $28 billion farmer bailout Trump issued during his first-term trade wars — is 'all teed up and good to go.'"

The announced aid comes on the heels of the declared tariff truce between the U.S. and China. According to the article, "Trump secured new commitments from China to purchase U.S. soybeans, sorghum and wood, and to drop retaliatory tariffs on other agricultural products like meat, wheat and dairy."

American farmers have been trying to make a living despite tariff limitations, high labor and machinery costs and low commodity prices. Added economic stressors have made it difficult for farmers to plan 2026 crops.

Iowa's water is polluted with farming nitrates and pesticides, but a potential solution challenges the 'status quo'

Crop and animal farm runoff has polluted at least
four Iowa rivers. (Adobe Stock photo)

In agriculturally dominated Iowa, what's good for corn producers gets top billing while residents face a deluge of polluted water. "In Iowa, which by some measures has the most polluted water in the U.S., people who advocate for the environment are widely scorned as enemies of farming," reports Peter Waldman of Bloomberg.

In a state where farmers spread copious amounts of pesticides, nitrogen fertilizers and nitrogen-rich manure, towns like Remsen, which is surrounded by Iowa corn country, are "saturated with pollution," Waldman writes. "Researchers have linked trace exposures to nitrate in drinking water to cancers, birth defects and thyroid disease. Iowa has the second-highest cancer rate in the U.S., after Kentucky."

Although concerned citizens, including many farmers, have pushed for fewer pesticides and nitrates, most efforts failed. "The state government has crushed almost every effort to hold farmers and agribusinesses accountable for their increasingly dirty footprint," Waldman explains. Last year, the EPA ordered Iowa to "add parts of four rivers to the state’s list of impaired waters needing cleanup, including the drinking supply for about a fifth of Iowa’s population."

Even with some of the state's drinking water in question, the state complained about the EPA's sanction, which the Trump administration lifted. Waldman reports, "Now even the feds defer to Big Ag, led in Iowa by the industry’s undisputed champion in the state, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation."

Remsen is located in eastern Plymouth County, 
in the heart of Iowa's corn belt. (Adobe Stock photo)

Without support, Remsen's water continued to be polluted. Despite investigations, area wells were allowed to fill with possibly toxic nitrates. "From 2016 to 2020, Remsen’s five-year rate of colorectal cancer, one of the cancers associated with nitrate exposure, was 19% higher than Iowa’s," Waldman adds. "By 2017, the shallow wells that supplied Remsen’s drinking water were so loaded with nitrates they had to be shut down."

Farming without so many nitrates and pesticides is possible. Matt Liebman, a retired agronomy professor at Iowa State, told Waldman, "What it takes to grow food with less pollution isn’t a mystery. . . .But the solution threatens the status quo. You can’t sell as much fertilizer, hybrid seeds or animal feed. For those companies, the solution is the problem.”

Surrounded by crops sprayed with pesticides, Missouri's Bootheel residents report high rates of cancer

Small farming communities dot the Bootheel counties of Missouri, where agriculture is king, and residents live alongside crops regularly treated with pesticides. "The counties with the highest use of pesticides per square mile are all located in Missouri’s Bootheel," report Alex Cox, Adeleine Halsey, Kyla Pehr and Savvy Sleevar of Investigate Midwest. "Many of these counties have some of the state’s highest cancer rates, and their health care options are dwindling."

Dunklin County, Missouri, sits along the western border of the Bootheel and boasts the state's biggest cotton harvest. It also ranks among the state's "top 10 counties with the highest rates of colon cancer," Investigate Midwest reports.

Dunklin County resident Bobby Bibbs is a living example. "She discovered she had cancer in her colon in December 2023, which then metastasized to her liver, making it a stage four diagnosis," Cox writes. Bibbs told reporters, "There are so many (cases) where we are from. It’s got to be coming from somewhere.”

Like her neighbors, Bibbs lives surrounded by crops sprayed with pesticides. Cox writes, "Multiple scientific studies have explored a connection between pesticide use and cancer, pointing to a silent public health crisis hitting rural communities particularly hard."

For tightly-knit rural communities, a cancer diagnosis is shared along the grapevine, as are concerns that the area's only hospital closed in 2018. Investigate Midwest reports, "For cancer care, folks from Dunklin County often travel an hour to Jonesboro, Arkansas, or an hour-and-a-half to Cape Girardeau in Missouri."

Bootheel residents are often hemmed into farming to make a living. "As manufacturing jobs moved out of many places in the Bootheel, [towns] felt the economic sting," the article explains. "One industry that remains is agriculture."

While many area farmers see using agricultural chemicals as a way to protect their livelihoods, most are aware of the potential dangers. Jan McElwrath who has lived in Dunklin County most of her life, told Investigate Midwest, "We’re surrounded by agriculture. We recognize (chemicals) as a risk, but our economy here is very dependent on agriculture.”

Opinion: As the Trump administration puts the brakes on clean energy support, many rural farmers will feel the loss

Solar panels can help cut energy costs for farm operations like dairies. 
(Photo by S. Patrick, Portland Herald, Getty via The Conversation CC)

Wind and solar power add grid support and help farmers maintain steady incomes when weather, bugs or market upheavals make farming less profitable. Particularly for rural communities, taxes generated by renewable energy help local budgets pay for schools, roads and health care. "But some of that opportunity is now at risk as the Trump administration cuts federal support for renewable energy," writes Paul Mwebaze in his opinion for The Conversation.

In areas with wind turbines, farmers lease their land in return for payments. "Those historically were around $3,000 to $5,000 per turbine per year, with some modern agreements $5,000 to $10,000 annually, secured through 20- to 30-year contracts," Mwebaze explains. Roughly a third of the $3.5 billion paid out on wind turbine leases goes to rural landowners.

Solar energy adds to a farmer's bottom line by providing cheaper electricity throughout an agricultural operation. "Farmers use rooftop panels on barns and ground-mounted systems to power irrigation pumps, grain dryers and cold storage facilities, cutting their power costs," Mwebaze writes. 

In some rural communities, renewable energy is the "largest new source of economic activity, helping stabilize local economies otherwise reliant on agriculture’s unpredictable income streams," Mwebaze adds. The Iowa turbine blade factory, TPI Composites, serves as an example of how clean energy stimulates rural manufacturing. TPI "just reopened its plant in Newton, Iowa. Tax benefits in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act helped boost [the industry] and the jobs and local tax revenue they bring in."

The Trump administration has "rolled back many clean energy incentives. It phased down tax credits for distributed solar projects, particularly those under 1 megawatt, which include many farm‑scale installations, and sunsets them entirely by 2028," Mwebaze explains. "It also eliminates bonus credits that previously supported rural and low‑income areas."

Renewable energy is one way the federal government could continue to invest in rural America, providing energy for communities and generating a reliable income source for farmers and smaller municipal budgets. "I believe homegrown renewable energy offers a practical path forward," Mwebaze writes. "Wind and solar aren’t just fueling the grid; they’re helping keep farms and rural towns alive."

The U.S. isn't ready for another pandemic, but it could happen anyway. As bird flu spreads, the threat grows.

Bird flu, or H5N1, kills between 90% and 100% of infected
chickens, normally within 48 hours. (Adobe Stock photo)

Whether it's high egg prices or the fear of another pandemic, many Americans want bird flu, also known as avian flu, contained and a long-term answer found. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., however, "recently mused about a novel way to contain bird flu, which is to let it 'run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it,'" reports Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic. "This could involve millions of birds dying slower, more horrible deaths."

While studying birds -- not necessarily chickens -- that are immune to bird flu is important work that could help breed more resilient flocks, many scientists would not recommend letting bird flu "run through" flocks "because it would only give the H5N1 virus that causes bird flu more opportunities to evolve, which it’s already doing at what experts see as an alarming rate," Rosin explains. "So far, the outbreak has caused one human death in the United States and several others overseas."

Looking back, the U.S. government had a brief window to act and contain the virus in the spring of 2024, when bird flu surfaced in a small number of dairy cows. Science reporter Dr. Katie Wu explained to Rosin how the virus spread: "Instead, they let business proceed as usual and dairy cattle move all over the place throughout their lifetime. They gave the virus more opportunities to spread. That should have been a five-alarm-fire level of: We need to ratchet up this response and make sure that the virus does not move any further than it already has. And that did not happen."

Will the virus reach a tipping point from a growing concern to a full-blown epidemic? That point is uncertain and perhaps there are more important concerns. Wu told Rosin, "I think the right question to be asking is: How prepared would we be if this truly escalated to that point? And the answer is: not at all. Like, not even a little bit. It’s impossible to say with any kind of certainty, Oh, there’s exactly, you know, a 14.7 percent chance this is going to turn into a pandemic. . . .We can’t know those things. A lot of this is about randomness, about how we continue to respond, about just vagaries of the virus that people don’t fully understand yet."

Covid-19 and Americans' response to it still has many citizens weary from years of mask debates and misinformation wars. Wu told Rosin, "The public is still really fatigued from having to respond to all of that — there was a lot of trust in public health and science eroded during that time —and I think because of the nature of the slow burn of all this, just slowly percolating through animals, affecting certain farm animals, maybe sort of affecting some aspects of the food supply."

To read more about how bird flu could mutate into something much more harmful for humans, read Rosin's full transcript here or listen to the podcast. To explore a more complete snapshot of bird flu's effect on the the U.S. economy, click here.