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The fourth installment of a five-part series, “Getting Grounded,” that examines the nation's conservation delivery system and the challenges facing farmers in getting the advice they need to select, plan and implement new practices. University efforts to craft classes and degree programs that appeal to a wider range of students may be making it harder for USDA to hire the soil conservationists needed to help farmers.

The Southern Farmers Financial Association is being established by the Biden administration to help small farmers in high-poverty areas of the South get access to capital.

Hurricane Milton caused widespread destruction to Florida’s nursery infrastructure and crops, including damaged poinsettia plants that could lead to holiday season shortages. 

Kenneth Bader, longtime head of the American Soybean Association, died Saturday in Chesterfield, Missouri. He was 90.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is rapidly staffing up to help farmers with their conservation challenges, and that brings with it the need to train the new employees. However, the agency is finding that many of these new conservationists didn’t grow up on a farm and need help understanding the different types of farming systems they will encounter.

With hundreds of new NRCS employees coming onboard, agency officials must now grapple with how to effectively train up and keep on a generation of younger workers while simultaneously rolling out billions of new farm conservation dollars.

More than 230,000 farms face a Jan. 1 deadline to file reports disclosing their ownership to the federal government.

Partnership staff are integral to the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s strategy to meet an expected surge in demand for conservation planning and design work after seeing a $19.5 billion infusion into conservation programs through the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating farm equipment giant John Deere over its repair practices, according to a civil investigative demand (CID) newly made public.

USDA estimates nearly 1.2 million households could be eligible for disaster SNAP benefits following Hurricane Helene.