farmers

Illinois farmers are getting nervous that the long, cold and wet spring will delay the planting season.

Ten agriculture-related projects that are looking for way to expand the availability of fresh, locally-grown produce in Illinois will be sharing $550,000.

Eighteen western Illinois farmers pitched in to help harvest beans and corn belonging to a farmer who recently fell from his grain trailer and broke two vertebrae.

The owner of a poultry business operating in the heart of central Illinois' corn and soybean country says he hopes future farmers will also consider specialty farming.

This spring, John Deere has been showing off next year's new product lines, which include a new, S-700 combine series. This morning at the Harvester Works in East Moline, company employees hosted dozens of reporters from all over the country for Deere Media Day.

Lawmakers in Springfield have been considering a bill that would allow Illinois farmers to grow industrial hemp. Democratic state Sen. Toi Hutchinson of Olympia Fields is sponsoring the legislation. It passed the state Senate this month and is headed to the House. 

The state of Illinois is urging farmers and others who use or produce pesticides and other agrichemicals to save the containers to be recycled.  The Department of Agriculture says it plans to collect the containers in July and August. They will be recycled to make products such as fence posts, shipping pallets and plastic lumber. 

A group of Illinois legislators are pushing an agenda intended to help farmers who sell at local markets.

Earnings fell but sales and revenue rose for Deere and Company during its first quarter. 

NAMULONGE, Uganda — Before rows of tall, green bushes, Jude Aleu picks a cassava tuber off the ground and cracks it in half.

That shouldn’t be so easy. Healthy cassava tubers — a staple food crop in the region — can grow as thick as your upper arm. But the root in Aleu’s hands is stunted and gnarled because of a plant virus called brown streak disease. When he breaks it open, the flesh is streaked with brown and yellow, a necrosis that will render the harvest inedible.

“It’s corky,” said Aleu, a cassava safety manager for Uganda’s National Crops Resources Research Institute. “This root you cannot eat. Even animals cannot eat it.” 

Owners of John Deere farm equipment will have greater access to "digital agriculture." It announced an agreement today with a San Francisco-based software company, The Climate Corporation.  The Climate Corporation is a subsidiary of Monsanto. 

If the state budget impasse continues, farmers and land-owners in Illinois could lose a key agricultural program. 

The Illinois Farm Bureau is boosting a year old program to involve Veterans in agriculture. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects Illinois farmers to plant fewer acres of corn in 2015 as a nationwide price slump continues.

A top staffer with the Illinois Farm Bureau says the President's decision to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba should create a significant bump in u.s. exports very soon. Adam Nielsen is the Farm Bureau's Director of National Legislation and Policy Development.

After several tough years, the nation's Christmas tree growers are happy to see higher prices, but customers shouldn't worry too much. Any price increase shouldn't be enough to dampen their holiday cheer.

Illinois farmers will be trained how to properly apply fertilizer and other chemicals as a way to help prevent agricultural runoff. 

Agriculture is one of the issues being discussed in the waning days of the campaign for Illinois Treasurer. The Treasurer’s office maintains state funds and acts as the state’s bank.

The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture is calling on lawmakers to approve comprehensive immigration reform when they return to Washington next month. Tom Vilsack says doing nothing could negatively impact the agriculture sector, its workforce, and rural communities.