Without efforts to rebuild soil health, we could lose our ability to grow enough nutritious food to feed the planet’s population

The soil beneath our feet is something we take for granted – but we are running out.

Leafy salad greens grown under banks of LED lights, with mist or drips of water ...

Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world's top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said.

The Trump administration has weakened legal protections for farmers and eased off enforcing rules on powerful meat companies.

Construction of California's bullet train meant farmers lost land. Some had to pay out of pocket to adjust. The state hasn't been quick to compensate them.

James McCune, a farmer from Mineral, Illinois, was unable to plant 85% of his intended corn acres and wanted to commiserate with his fellow farmers by hosting the “Prevent Plant Party” at The Happy Spot. By Tom Polansek.

Local farmers are taking a big hit on their harvest from last month's heat wave. Huge losses in iceberg and romaine lettuce production have led to prices tripling. The heat allowed for the lettuce to wilt drastically, and it no longer fit a certain quality standard for some farmers. Shoppers are noticing the environmental impact.

Amid an epidemic of dairy closures around the country, some farmers are betting on the booming hemp market to balance out low milk prices.

How did hunger for the humble pod lead to greed, crime and riches? Wendell Steavenson travels to Madagascar to meet the new spice barons

Battling rain and cold, crumbling trade talks with China, and slumping commodity markets, northern Iowa farmer Brent Renner says it's a struggle to feel optimistic about the corn and soybeans he's planting. "It's a physical and mental challenge," said Renner, a 43-year-old who farms near Klemme, a town of about 500 people west of Clear Lake. "A lot of us think it can't get any worse, that it can only go up from here. But that's probably not a safe bet," he said.

Long before marijuana became big business, a group of farmers headed to Humboldt County in One Good Year, which profiles a complete growing season in the remote backwoods.

How is this man growing vegetables in the most northerly major human settlement on Earth.

Next fall, as you browse the produce section at your local grocery store, pay close attention to the apples. You might be witnessing American history. For the first time, some of the apples sold in the U.S. will be picked by a robot rather than human hands.

While 75 percent of US adults believe they usually buy 'humane products', only one percent of farmed animals are raised on non-factory farms

The No. 1 company on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for 2019 is Indigo Ag, a start-up that's out to feed the world and help farmers make a good living without harming the planet. The key to its growth is hidden in the stars.

A Vancouver company is bringing high-nutrient African farm foods to grocery store shelves, while aiming to improve the lives of female farmers and their families in Mali, West Africa. Food company Farafena works with about 1,000 women from nine different villages in Mali, paying them directly for the crops they grow.

Even modest warming leads to more drought and excessive heat for barley crops.

Don Lobb, a prominent soil advocate since the 1980s, argued agriculture needs a radical shift in focus to make soil health the top priority.

“It’s not just a dream that one day you’ll be able to farm without fossil fuels. It’s real. It’s here,” says Tony Neale.

As corporations rush in to make a buck, some farmers are pushing back — and fighting for the soul of organic food

Parliament must “seriously consider” levying a tax on meat to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help to render the farming industry carbon neutral, the Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, is urging. She will say on Friday that a meat tax in the UK could be offset for more sustainable meat producers, such as organic livestock farmers, through more money for sustainable agriculture schemes.

Costco is opening a chicken farming operation in eastern Nebraska so it can (partially) escape America's chicken monopoly.

$160 billion worth of produce in the US gets tossed every year. Misfits Markets wants you to eat ugly produce instead.

Successful farming societies — and there have been many of them throughout the history of agriculture — have never been driven by the profit motive, though profit has played a part in some societies, at least where farmers were free and markets significant. Instead, they have been governed by principles of resilience — by the effort, to put it simply, to survive and to do so well under uncertain conditions.

EU regulations outlaw killing of wolves unless people are in danger or there is ‘no satisfactory alternative’

For Maine dairy farmer Fred Stone, the discovery in 2016 that his cows were producing tainted milk has since brought financial ruin and threatened to shut down a century-old family business.

Some 12,000 years ago, the land was exceptionally fertile curving up from the Nile River basin across Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, down into the Tigris River Valley. The area’s earliest settlers grew wheat, barely and lentils. Some kept pigs and sheep. Farming soon replaced hunting and foraging as a way of life there. The region became known as the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of agriculture.

Picking strawberries takes speed, stamina, and skill. Can a robot do it?

In every region, farmers and scientists are trying to adapt an array of crops to warmer temperatures, invasive pests, erratic weather and earlier growing seasons.

Biggest market for quality food. Lets close that. It's ok though, we can subsidise via tariffs paid by the consumer on clothes...problem solved.

Egypt's Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation has recently announced its ambitious plan to plant 100 million olive trees by 2022 by offering many land plots to investors. Though Egypt is the world's second-largest exporter of table olives, the government is now fighting tooth and nail to boost the olive oil production, considering that Egypt is a major importer of olive oil.

Smarter Every Day 218

Solid Rain is a Mexican product, just introduced to the U.S., which bills itself as a miracle powder that could solve the world's drought problems. And it may be right.

Agriculture economists have long warned that farmers are getting old and staying on their land longer, delaying the turnover to a younger generation. But an Ohio State University professor argues that those fears are overstated and the United States likely will have little problem replacing aging farmers as long as business is good, as it has been for the past decade.