Articles

Showdown for ethanol

Powerful new lobbies are fighting over the future of the controversial industry. Who are they appealing to? You.

Read More

Dow AgroSciences and the Holy Grail

Dow AgroSciences could boost its market share in genetically altered corn almost overnight by inventing a perennial corn.
But investors might not have the patience.

Read More

Return to horse slaughterhouses?

Paul Dieterlen is the unusual veterinarian who doesnâ??t have a pet. But Dieterlen, who retired recently from
overseeing the meat-inspection division within the State Board of Animal Health, says that if he had one,
it would be a horse.

So it…

Read More

Integrity of organic foods

The organic food industry is in an uproar over concerns that organic fertilizer may have been spiked with
synthetic versions.

Last month, FBI and federal agriculture officials searched a California organic fertilizer factory, but wouldnâ??t
disclose their motive. The…

Read More

Farm and suburban polluters

Drive through areas hit by the deluge of rain in the past few days and youâ??ll see mind-boggling soil
erosion.

At the base of myriad fields lie deltas of sediment washed downhill from elsewhere in their respective watersheds.
Not only was…

Read More

Farm bill stranglehold

It isn’t easy providing tomatoes to the nation. Consider the ongoing struggle at Red Gold Inc. The state’s largest food processor, which is headquartered north of Anderson in Orestes, was all but locked out of buying tomatoes from Indiana growers under…

Read More

Ex-food chief: Crops for fuel is OK

In his five years as executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, Jim Morris saw global
hunger from an uncomfortably close vantage point.

So, one might expect him to criticize the idea of turning corn and soybeans into alternative…

Read More

Energy and farmland values

You probably arenâ??t begrudging farmers and others for the record farmland prices theyâ??re enjoying.

But those prices wouldnâ??t be so high if the ethanol plants popping up across Indiana and elsewhere in the
Midwest werenâ??t using so much corn.

Now weâ??re…

Read More