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.
Plain cheese sandwiches, celery sticks and other bland fare are sounding pretty good these days as the steady hoofbeat — er, drumbeat — of European horse meat stories strikes ever closer to home. And your audience may be hearing snippets and wondering “Can that happen here?” Along with the impending sequester’s possible effect on meat inspection, [...]
With East Coast regions expecting as much as three feet of snow shortly, courtesy of what the Weather Channel has named Winter Storm Nemo, the financial effects already have begun to ripple nationwide. Even if you’re in one of the balmier markets nationwide, businesses in your area likely will be experiencing either a boost or [...]
During his regular check of area dailies and shoppers, Mark Steil of Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul noted a trend: an increasing number of ads from farmers looking for farmland. Mark says several ads identified land seekers as “young farmers.” As I listened and read the transcript, I wondered why, after this summer’s drought, [...]
The pending reform of the nation’s immigration laws, with proposals by a bi-partisan Senate team and by President Obama already up for discussion, leads naturally to follow-up stories from the business angles. As controversial state laws in recent years, and election rhetoric last year, have shown, this is an emotionally- and politically-charged issue. It’s also a [...]
This week’s blog posts have taken on the inadvertent theme of food, food and more food — but the many facets of production and consumption are a massive part of the United States economy and take a fairly large bit out of household budgets, so it’s a topic worth spending time on. And with the [...]
I’ve blogged about a few logging stories recently. The pieces noted the struggling industry as paper demand dwindles. But John Schmid of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel takes readers to China to show how the country’s growing market share has affected Wisconsin’s paper industry. “Putting global context on any story is the only approach you can [...]
The Kansas City Star gives readers an inside look at the beef industry, including rare images from inside meat processing plants. The paper’s online package makes it easy for readers to navigate through the three-day series called “Beef’s Raw Edges.” Mike McGraw, a projects reporter, tackled the yearlong project. His stories highlight meat processing, overuse [...]
We’ve heard a lot of coverage of the fiscal cliff. But David Sommerstein of North Country Public Radio in Canton, New York, tells listeners about the “dairy cliff” in a recent segment that also aired on NPR. His story explains there is no safety net if milk prices fall because a farm bill program has expired. [...]
Adam Belz of the Star Tribune planned to write about a local paper mill shutting down. A fatal fire caused damages of more than $50 million and the company didn’t want to make the repairs, Adam says. “Here we had this 100-year-old mill closing and 260 people were out of work,” he says. “I thought [...]
