Agriculture is a business that is changing rapidly and offers a variety of rich stories. Perry Beeman, senior environmental and agriculture, reporter at The Des Moines Register, explains the beat's basics.
Maybe this column should be called “quirky tips” instead of “quick tips,” because I can’t resist sharing some of the interesting and offbeat jottings from my notebook. Hopefully you can embrace the oddities and spin an idea or two into a colorful summertime business feature. First off, my ears perked up the other day when [...]
Already 2014 is about half over and the Fourth of July holiday is speeding toward us like a runaway locomotive. It’s the make-it or break-it bellwether for many summer tourism businesses and particularly interesting this year because the Fourth falls on a Friday, making for an automatic three-day-weekend for many workers. According to Orbitz, many [...]
Well, it’s rather a downer for the industry-led National Hamburger Month that there have been a couple of major ground beef fiascos in the past few days, including the news that meat tainted with the e. coli bacteria may be linked to illnesses in four states, as the Los Angeles Times reported. When 1.8 [...]
Only a few weeks remain until the kick-off of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil – and the much-watched football (or soccer, to those of us in the United States) tournament will bring all eyes to South America’s largest economy. FIFA, by the way, stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association and the league, [...]
Consumers may want to savor their Cinco de Mayo margaritas and guacamole a bit more than usual this year, because reports of pending food price hikes and shortages include the avocado and lime along with other fruits and vegetables. A platter of fajitas might strain the budget more, too, with beef prices at the highest [...]
Not all of the grass enjoyed this coming weekend will be that bright green stuff cushioning dyed hard-boiled eggs. In an interesting confluence of events, Easter Sunday shares April 20 with what’s come to be known as National Weed Day, when marijuana is smoked and publicly celebrated in parks and plazas nationwide; Wikipedia calls it [...]
March 20 marks what might just be the most eagerly anticipated first full day of spring in memory, as the majority of consumers nationwide look forward to the end of a very rough winter. So in a nod to the season of fresh starts, you might want to find some facet of the lawn and [...]
News that a staggering 9 million pounds of beef are being recalled by Northern California processing plant, apparently due to incomplete inspection, is the sort of stomach-churning headline that catches readers’ eyes. It follows last month’s tainted-chicken problem, also in California, that eventually sickened prison inmates in Tennessee, according to CorrectionsOne.com, a site with news [...]
It’ll take something pretty amazing to compete for headlines with the extreme weather outbreak ongoing this week across much of the United States. When people are trying to make it through the daily commute and other activities despite zero-degree temperatures, another half-foot of snow and other manifestations of Mother Nature, they won’t be in the [...]
