A Roadmap to Better Decision Making

The US is considering mass vaccination of poultry birds against Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) as the death toll from the disease pushes toward 60 million. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says it has already begun testing potential vaccines and is in discussions with industry leaders. Historically, such a move has met fierce opposition due to the threat ...
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Born in 1860 on a farm in Greenwich, New York, Anna Mary Robertson was the third of ten children. She left home at age 12 to work as a "hired girl" on various wealthy neighboring farms. At age 27, she met Thomas Moses at one of those farms and the two soon married. They relocated to the Shenandoah Valley near ...
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St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow, March 17, which for many Americans means stuffing themselves with corned beef. Most probably assume this is a traditional Irish food but it was actually created right here in the US by Irish immigrants. While Ireland does have a long and somewhat complicated history with the dish, it was nothing like what we call corned ...
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Argentina's crops are in trouble as a third year of La Niña deepens one of the worst droughts in at least four decades. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its most recent supply and demand report downgraded both Argentina's corn and soybean output in 2022/23 for a third month in a row, subsequently reducing the country's corn export projections ...
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It was on this day in 1794 that a young 29-year-old Eli Whitney was issued a US Patent (#X0072) for his cotton gin. Whitney was born into a farming family in 1765 in Westboro, Massachusetts. The oldest of five children, he spent much of his young life puttering around his father's workshop. By age 14, he was running his own ...
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One of the buzzy trends in venture capital circles right now is so-called "molecular farming." The technology has most recently been in the spotlight thanks to the Nasdaq debut of Moolec Science (MLEC), which describes itself as a "pioneer" of molecular farming. In its simplest form, the technology harnesses the production power of plants to make specific substances or compounds ...
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When it comes to capturing carbon in the atmosphere, few things in this world are more efficient - let alone "green" - than trees. A biotechnology firm called "Living Carbon" believes that supercharging trees to grow faster and store more carbon could be a powerful nature-based solution to reducing CO2 levels. As most likely recall from basic biology class, trees ...
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Brazil is threatening to dethrone the US as the world's biggest corn supplier with most analysts still predicting a monster crop despite recent weather setbacks. Importantly, soybean harvest has been slow due to rainy conditions, which has delayed planting of the country's second-season corn crop. This in turn could mean a significant portion of the second crop gets planted outside ...
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Ukraine is often described as the "breadbasket of Europe" thanks to its high-quality soils and significant agricultural output. The country has close to 104 million acres of agricultural land, of which more than 75% is typically cultivated, making it one of the most highly cultivated countries in the world. Russia's invasion has inflicted a devastating human toll and created numerous ...
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Water shortages in the West are reaching crisis levels in some areas as the Colorado River Basin continues to suffer under the most severe drought in centuries. The so-called "megadrought" over the last 23 years has depleted water supplies in the region's two largest reservoirs - lakes Mead and Powell - to the point that experts don't believe they will ...
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