Articles by Fran Howard

Internet service providers will soon be competing to provide high-speed, broadband internet service to the most remote and hard-to-reach areas in the country.

USDA is launching the largest new nutrition assistance program in decades this year, an effort to ensure low-income children have enough to eat when they’re not in school during the summer, but 15 states have opted out of the program.

USDA issued its first approvals for cell-cultured production last year, but so far, this fledging industry has failed to take flight, while sales of plant-based meats have been falling.

As Congress prepares to write a new farm bill, animal welfare advocates are preparing to safeguard California’s Proposition 12 and similar laws regulating agricultural practices while also pushing to tighten standards for dog breeders, ban the export of horses for slaughter, and eliminate the last vestiges of animal fighting and dog racing in the United States.

Reducing food waste can shrink agriculture’s environmental footprint while helping to feed the hungry and conserve resources, but since food waste occurs across all sectors of the food chain, reducing it will require coordination and funding.

In a period when inflation has raised the cost of everything from fertilizers to shipping, groups representing agricultural producers and processors are calling for increased funding for two proven and longstanding export programs.

The American poultry sector is awaiting a spring spike in detections of highly pathogenic avian influenza, leading industry and government officials to wonder if the disease has pivoted from an occasional concern to a permanent part of raising birds in the United States.