#agriculture

#agriculture

The Bloc Quebecois has a new point person for agriculture. Sébastien Lemire, MP for the western Quebec riding of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, was named the party's critic for agriculture, agri-food, and supply management this week. He replaces Yves Perron, who has served as the party's ag critic and an active member of the House of Commons' agriculture committee going back to 2020.

In the slanting, late-afternoon summer sun, the fields around the small Australian town of Ouyen almost 450km north-west of Melbourne turn the colour of honey. The edges shimmer with silver, that old cruel trick of feigning water where it hasn't rained for weeks. Summer is always hot out here in the sparse, flat Mallee, but this year is shaping up to be particularly harsh.

There are two types of grants that U.S.-based organizations can apply for: Accelerator Grants for those who are already leveraging our AI glasses to scale their impact, and Catalyst Grants for organizations proposing new, high-impact applications using our Device Access Toolkit. We will award 15 Accelerator Grants of $25,000 and 10 of $50,000 USD, depending on the scale of the project. We'll also award five Catalyst Grants of $200,000. In total, we'll grant nearly $2 million to more than 30 organizations and developers.

Fine Gael TD says protections are in place to counter any major disruption to beef prices

The European Commission, which concluded negotiations a year ago, and countries such as Germany and Spain argue it is a vital part of an EU push to unlock new markets to offset business lost from U.S. tariffs and to reduce reliance on China by securing access to critical minerals. Opponents led by France, the European Union's largest agricultural producer, say the agreement will jack up imports of cheap food products, including beef, poultry and sugar, undercutting domestic farmers.

January brings torrential rain to south-east Asia more than 250mm fell in just two days in Singapore last year. This is because of the monsoon, a pattern of wind and rainfall, the name of which stems from the Arabic word for season. The monsoon is sometimes described in terms of a sea breeze, in which the wind reverses direction in the morning and evening as the relative temperature of land and sea change, blowing out to sea at first and then inland as the land cools.

Particularly after COVID, companies weren't hiring and prices were rising,

All strategies mix good days and bumper years with bad days and market-lagging returns. For commodities traders in 2025, it was more of the latter. Conflict in the Middle East caused volatility in oil prices. President Donald Trump's tariff policies, and their uneven implementation, led to fluctuations in the prices of crops, such as soybeans. The growing use of data centers by artificial intelligence giants has changed the outlook for electricity demand so drastically that even top investors in the space are unsure what the future holds.

The Trump administration is pressuring Mexico with more tariffs to force its southern neighbor to settle its water debt of nearly one billion cubic meters, of which Mexico has committed to delivering 249 million before the end of January. Meanwhile, the high demand for water from the agricultural sector is forcing President Claudia Sheinbaum to perform a balancing act to avoid jeopardizing access to water for irrigation systems in the north of the country.

The sign outside Tom Hermes's farmyard in Perkins Township in Ohio, a short drive south of the shores of Lake Erie, proudly claims that his family have farmed the land here since 1900. Today, he raises 130 head of cattle and grows corn, wheat, grass and soybeans on 1,200 acres of land. For his family, his animals and wider business, water is life.

They said these "dirt-cheap" prices cost taxpayers, add to the strains on scarce water, and discourage conservation - even as the Colorado River's depleted reservoirs continue to decline. "Federal taxpayers have been subsidizing effectively free water for a very, very long time," said Noah Garrison, a researcher at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. "We can't address the growing water scarcity in the West while we continue to give that water away for free or close to it."

Most posture gadgets target office workers hunched over laptops, buzzing when your shoulders curl forward, or your neck drifts too far from neutral. Meanwhile, people doing physically demanding jobs, like young farmers, quietly rack up back pain and joint strain from long hours of bending, squatting, and lifting in fields. That strain is often treated as just part of the job until it becomes a serious problem threatening long-term health and livelihood.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for a 'Farm First' scheme to train graduates for careers in farming, aiming to prevent what they describe as a "lost generation" in the sector. The scheme would be similar to Teach First, a charity which trains graduates as teachers and places them in schools. The party estimates their proposal would cost 60m per year, funding two-year training placements for 1,000 trainees.

Leah Anderson, a senior executive at Land O'Lakes, has learned to make high-stakes calls even when the data is incomplete. It's a discipline that's become foundational to her leadership, especially as AI and digital tools accelerate the speed at which farmers and retailers must act. She says the biggest risk for decision-makers in this space isn't making the wrong call-it's getting stuck.

Cecafé, Brazil's coffee exporters council, called the tariff hike "a complete loss of competitiveness." "The tariff reversal comes after months of intense work representing the interests of Brazilian coffee. It is a historic victory for the entire coffee agribusiness production chain," the council said in a statement. Brazil has long been a key supplier of beef and coffee to the United States.

Working on the farm taught me patience and responsibility. We had more than 150 employees, so I learned quickly that leadership is about people. You need to listen, guide, and set an example. It wasn't glamorous work, but it gave me the foundation I still use today.

Anyone visiting farmer Henning Voigt's operation near Germany's Baltic Sea coast stands a good chance of getting their feet wet. About 25 years ago, his father began rewetting a once-drained peatland. "We've been an organic farm since 1996 and currently manage 350 hectares (864 acres) of grassland. Most of it is very wet," Voigt says. Speaking with DW, Voigt explains that the hay they harvest from these wet fields is burned in a power plant to produce district heating.

Authorities are scrambling to provide drinking water across Iran, particularly in the capital, Tehran, as Iranians grapple with the effects of multiple ongoing crises. If there is no rain by next month, water will have to be rationed in Tehran; in fact, the city of 10 million may even have to be evacuated, President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a speech on Friday. While experts say evacuating the city is a last resort that will likely not come to pass, the president's stark warning is indicative of the mammoth burden facing the country of more than 90 million, its ailing economy reeling under sanctions.

When life gets stressful, one of the oldest tried and true remedies comes from the calming scent of flowers. Lavender is at the top of that list, and when it's an entire field of lavender it can waft our troubles away with both the sight and aroma. Petaluma residents can see and enjoy such a visage on Chapman Lane where the Lavender Bee Farm has been enchanting locals and international guests for many years.

Flanked by farmland and nestled among the deep valleys of central Spain, few in Villamalea, a town of 4,200 people, expected to find their tranquil home splashed across Spanish media this summer. I've never been contacted by so many media outlets in my life, said Jose Nunez Perez, the conservative mayor of Villamalea. With a laugh, he added: It made me question, just what have we done here?

From a young age, Yushu Xia was keenly aware of the importance of environmental health-a passion sparked by her grandfather, a geology professor and author of popular science books who inspired her love for science and education. Today, Xia combines these interests as an assistant research professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School. Xia's niche: the intersection of soil and agricultural science with modeling and data science, all of which are essential in "truly understand[ing] how soils function," she says.

Climate change could push humanity into a dystopian nightmare of fires, biblical-scale floods and food shortages. But those lucky enough to survive the chaos could end up living amid a global economic meltdown. Scientists at the University of Cambridge warn that global warming could make the average person 24 per cent poorer by 2100. Life in Britain could resemble conditions in less developed countries, according to researchers - with higher unemployment, lower wages, closed businesses, and an even lower standard of living.

He saved a portion of that and used it to sow 3 acres (1.2 hectares) of paddy. He placed his bet on the high-yielding pearl variety of aromatic Basmati rice. A good sale would have given him an earning of nearly 1 million rupees per acre ($11,400 per 0.4 hectares). But now, Singh's pearl paddy grains lie submerged in floodwater, buried under layers of soil and sediment.