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Dairy farmer Megan McAllister works in the milking parlor on her farm, Monday, July 24, 2023, in New Vienna, Iowa. More intense summer heat resulting from emissions-driven climate change means animal heat stress that can result in billions of dollars in lost revenue for farmers and ranchers if not properly managed. The McAllister family installed new fans above the beds where their cows lie. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

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Pig cooling pads and weather forecasts for cows are high-tech ways to make meat in a warming world
By MELINA WALLING - Associated Press
Sun,07/30/23-3:54AM , 174 Reads
CHICAGO (AP) — More than a third of the heat-trapping gases cooking the planet come from growing and raising food, but millions of cattle, pigs and other animals get to stay cool in the United States and other parts of the developed world.
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Shalamar Armstrong, associate professor of agronomy at Purdue University, holds a shovel full of soil, Thursday, July 13, 2023, in Fowler, Ind. Cover crops help with maintaining the structure of the soil and storing carbon in the soil, noted by the soil's darker color. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

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Farm fields don't just feed us. They store carbon. But a big question is how much
By MELINA WALLING - Associated Press
Sun,07/16/23-12:01AM , 153 Reads
DYSART, Iowa (AP) — When Al Schafbuch cut back on plowing his Iowa fields decades ago and later began growing cover crops, he was out to save money on fertilizer and reduce erosion. He got those benefits and saw his soil change for the better, too: dark, chunky, richly organic matter that he said feels like “chocolate cake."
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Camilo Martin picks blueberries at the Coopertiva Tierra y Libertad farm Friday, July 7, 2023, in Everson, Wash. Farms and workers must adapt to changing climate conditions. As Earth this week set and then repeatedly broke unofficial records for average global heat, it served as a reminder of a danger that climate change is making steadily worse for farmworkers and others who labor outside.(AP Photo/John Froschauer)

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Climate change ratchets up the stress on farmworkers on the front lines of a warming Earth
By MELINA WALLING - Associated Press
Fri,07/07/23-11:57PM , 199 Reads
Mily Trevino-Sauceda was 9 when her mother fell as she worked to move irrigation pipes along rows of potato and alfalfa on an Idaho farm. Mily's 10-year-old brother splashed water over their mother's face and body while her children looked on, scared and crying.
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Entomology researcher Eric Burkness checked raspberry plants growing in a hoop house for signs of spotted wing drosophila Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017, in Rosemont, Minn. New research from North Carolina State University offers some hope to fruit growers who have struggled with a damaging fruit fly and describes how the researchers manipulated the insects' DNA so that female offspring would be sterile. (Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune via AP)

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To fight berry-busting fruit flies, researchers focus on sterilizing the bugs
By MELINA WALLING - Associated Press
Tue,06/13/23-11:41PM , 123 Reads
Paul Nelson is used to doing battle with an invasive fruit fly called the spotted wing drosophila, a pest that one year ruined more than half the berries on the Minnesota farm he and his team run.
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