Author: staff

For more than 60 years, the Buckert family name and Case tractors have been synonymous in much of western Illinois and eastern Iowa. It all started with Alvin Buckert, who started farming near Hamilton, Illinois, with a Case Model CC. Over the years, other Case tractors were added, including a DC and SC. In the meantime, Alvin’s son, Fred, joined the farming operation in 1955 after he returned from the U.S. Army — adding even newer Case models like a 730 and 800.   However, Fred saw Case tractors as more than just farm machines. By the early 1960s, he was…

Case IH is rolling out the new Farmall M Series tractors — which the brand says is built to bring reliable power, comfort, and versatility to everything from daily chores to demanding fieldwork. It is designed with integrated technology and a smoother operator experience. The Farmall M Series includes the 100M, 110M, and 120M models, each running a 4-cylinder, 3.6L Stage V engine that delivers between 100 and 120 horsepower. Sitting at the top of the Farmall range, these tractors boast a 5,200 kg rear lift capacity and an 8-ton gross vehicle weight, with transport speeds up to 40 kph…

Oklahoma’s attorney general has asked a federal judge to keep the state’s governor out of a long-running lawsuit against Tyson Foods and other major poultry companies. The lawsuit, filed by the state in 2005, accused several poultry companies of polluting the Illinois River Watershed in eastern Oklahoma with phosphorus from chicken waste spread on fields as fertilizer. In 2023, U.S. District Judge Gregory Frizzell ruled in favor of the state but ordered each side to negotiate damages. This year, Attorney General Gentner Drummond asked Frizzell to impose penalties exceeding $100 million on the companies, including Tyson, Cargill, and Simmons Foods.…

By Cami Koons Iowa saw its first snowfall over the past week, which Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig said marked the “official end of the growing season.”  While crop progress and condition statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture are unavailable due to the ongoing government shutdown, Naig estimated that corn and soybean harvest in the state is coming to a close.  “Based on my observations while traveling around the state and the conversations I’m having with farmers, harvest appears to be nearly complete,” Naig said in a statement Monday. According to Naig, what he has heard from farmers…

Lumo was selected as the Audience Choice Award winner during the AgSharks Pitch Competition at the 2025 Western Growers Annual Meeting. During the competition, startup companies pitch their innovations in front of a live audience of the world’s largest specialty crop producers to win a $250,000 minimum investment  The finalists were: DriftSense gives growers field-scale, hourly-resolved 10-day spray plans so they can use less chemistry, avoid drift and protect yields. Lumo helps growers irrigate to plan with block-level precision. Mapana analyzes plant systems for fertilizer and mineral intake and provides input recommendations and tracks soil health. TRIC Robotics helps farmers…

BEIJING/PARIS, Nov 12 (Reuters) – Chicago soybeans rose on Wednesday as traders adjusted positions ahead of the release of official U.S. data on global supply and demand on Friday, the first update in weeks, but prices were capped by a lack of large Chinese purchases. The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) was up 0.4% to $11.32 a bushel at 1120 GMT. China has made modest U.S. agricultural purchases since the leaders of the two countries met last month, but traders are awaiting major soybean deals after the White House said Beijing had pledged to buy…

By Ryan Hanrahan Politico’s Aaron Pellish, Meredith Lee Hill, and Marcia Brown reported that “President Donald Trump said (last) Friday that he asked the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into meatpacking companies, which he accused of illegally manipulating beef prices at the expense of beef farmers and consumers. The announcement comes amid pressure over the high cost of beef — and a bubbling feud with farm-state Republicans over plans to import beef from Argentina — and shortly after a White House meeting with a handful of senators from beef-producing states.” “‘I have asked the DOJ to immediately begin…

By Nick Paulson, Gary Schnitkey, Jonathan Coppess, Henrique Monaco, and Carl Zulauf Support from the Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agriculture Risk Coverage, county option (ARC-CO) programs for the 2024 crop year are currently being processed and distributed by the Farm Service Agency. Payments from PLC are expected to be triggered for peanut and seed cotton base acres enrolled in that program, while ARC-CO payments are expected in many counties for base acres of most crops if they were enrolled ARC-CO. Total PLC and ARC-CO support for 2024 is estimated to approach $2.6 billion for 2024, with 89% of total…

By Claire Carlson For Wendy Johnson, a livestock and organic grain farmer in Charles City, Iowa, October is usually the time she visits her local Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office.  There, she’ll sit down with one of their employees and go over the practices she implemented on her farm over the past year, along with documentation that proves she met the requirements of whichever U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) contract she was operating under. Once that’s done, she gets paid for the work she did.  But this October is no normal year for Johnson and thousands of other farmers…

By Jeff Beach North Dakota rancher August Heupel has yet to sell any of the beef calves he has raised this year, so far avoiding the recent drop in prices that was fueled in part by comments from President Donald Trump on importing beef.  Heupel is hopeful that prices will stabilize and the industry can continue to grow. “Fundamentally, things have not changed one bit,” Heupel said. “There’s still strong demand, and there’s still low cattle numbers.”   Cattle prices had been at record highs in October when Trump signaled he was in favor of beef imports from Argentina to lower…