farming

The dead zone encompasses thousands of acres in the Gulf each summer and results in a significant impact to marine life.

A Weston, Missouri, cattle farm sells cuts of meat from a vending machine outside Front Range Coffee and Provisions in Waldo.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reinforced oversight on organic certification and enforcement to prevent mislabeled products, in what advocates are calling the biggest update in decades.

A new study from Kansas State University researchers is the first to measure how a changing climate is hurting wheat production in the Great Plains. And it points to a future with more extreme heat, drought and wind.

Shayla Curts was pregnant with her third child when she was shot and killed in December. Her family says this might not have happened if Jackson County's child welfare system had worked like it was supposed to. Plus: The plan to conserve water in western Kansas and save the region from drying up altogether.

After decades of irrigation, the aquifer that makes life possible in dry western Kansas is reaching a critical point. Several counties have already lost more than half of their underground water. But a new plan could save more of what’s left.

High prices for products like eggs and grain are expected to lead to a record windfall for farmers this year, overcoming drought, bird flu and costly inputs. But the profit margin is thinner for small producers and those hit hard by dry conditions.

Missouri legislators on both sides of the aisle are filing bills that would take steps to restrict ownership of the state's farmland by foreign corporations.

For the first time, the state board voted Wednesday to say that Kansas shouldn’t pump the Ogallala aquifer dry to support crop irrigation. The underground water source has seen dramatic declines in recent decades.

Kansas and Missouri — along with most of the U.S. — are plagued with a stubborn drought that the state’s two governors have declared to be an emergency. Most of southern Kansas is in extreme or exceptional drought.

Farm implement manufacturers, including giant John Deere, are well on their way to deploying autonomous tractors. Prototypes are in the field now, and they could be widely available by the end of the decade.

Farmers are dealing with more and heavier rainfall events throughout the Upper Midwest. Some farmers install drainage tiles and trenches to handle the water, but that can lead to soil erosion and flooding downstream.