Ed Maixner

While the novel coronavirus looms over producers and farmworkers coast to coast, farmers and agribusinesses are employing a full array of practices and resources to beat it back.

With some shots of rain and snow still arriving, and reservoirs at near average levels, the state still remains far short in total rain and snow statewide as it heads toward fire season.

California’s ag extension ranks have been thinned for three decades, but farm groups are fighting to restore funding and staff positions.

California wine grape growers are out pulling up acres of grapevines this winter after years of liberal plantings and a flattening U.S. wine demand pushed growers and vintners into an economic purgatory.

Most of the top Democratic presidential candidates pitch a broad, generous public option for health care and other paths to cheaper, affordable care against Trump’s efforts to repeal Obamacare.

Mike Bloomberg is pouring money into advertising and moving up in the polls after skipping the Iowa caucus that traditionally forces many candidates to take positions on farm policy.

Some small-farm backers and animal welfare advocates are pushing for tighter policing of checkoffs, but the self-help commodity promotion programs are popular with most farmers, so don't hold your breath expecting new mandates from Congress.

All of the leading Democratic presidential candidates are calling for major increases in spending for roads, bridges, rural broadband and other infrastructure needs, but the plans differ sharply in scope as well as in how the candidates plan to pay for them. 

U.S. dairy farms welcome a jump in milk prices, but market joy is clouded by a battering of feed crops, long-term economic stress for many, and probable disappearance of USDA payments.

The Surface Transportation Broad's fresh quorum is advancing a bevy of initiatives that ag shippers hope will spell more fairness in rail rates and fees.