PrairiePundit

 Fox Business: An American farmer is speaking out after the Biden administration reportedly sent billions to U.S. adversaries. During an appearance on "Fox & Friends First," National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd Jr. ripped the Biden administration for dispensing money to China and Russia, arguing that the president has done nothing but deliver "empty promises" to the farming community. NC LAWMAKERS VOTE TO BLOCK CHINA, HOSTILE FOREIGN COUNTRIES FROM PURCHASING US FARMLAND "It's a real slap in the face. Here you have American farmers losing their farms and right here in the United States with this. Last year alone, we lost over 10,000 farms in the United States and this administration had done nothing but give us broken promises here," Boyd Jr. argued, Friday. "We're losing our farms in America. And this administration is giving money to Chinese producers, Russia, hand over fist. What does that say to America's farmers...

 Breitbart: Corn growers feeding the ethanol gasoline market are unhappy with President Joe Biden’s push for electric vehicles. Ethanol producers would get “only a tiny slice of the funds proposed in the infrastructure package, despite Biden’s assurances that he views them as key to reducing dependence on fossil fuels,”  Politico   reported . “To not see [biofuels] listed as part of an infrastructure piece, I’m hoping is just an oversight and a misunderstanding — because I know that there’s support for it,” Rep. Cindy Axne, Iowa’s lone Democrat in Congress, said. Via  Politico: Rob Walther, vice president of federal advocacy at biofuels producer POET, said that based on continuing conversations with congressional allies and leadership, the company is confident “the plan was an opening bid in order to set the vision of bold climate action.” “You could take away that it was very electric-vehicle driven,” Walther told POLITICO. “On the other hand, we have a solution for...

AP/Houston Chronicle: Farmers from across the nation gathered in Washington this month for what has become an annual trek to seek action on the most important matters in American agriculture, such as immigration reform and water regulations. But this time, a new, more shadowy issue also emerged: growing unease about how the largest seed companies are gathering vast amount of data from sensors on tractors, combines and other farm equipment. The increasingly common sensors measure soil conditions, seeding rates, crop yields and many other variables, allowing companies to provide farmers with customized guidance on how to get the most out of their fields. ... Farmers worry that a hedge fund or large company with access to "real-time" yield data from hundreds of combines at harvest time might be able to use that information to speculate in commodities markets long before the government issues crop-production estimates. Others are concerned that GPS-linked farm data could be ob...

Image via Wikipedia LA Times: The federal investigator took the witness stand and described the crime scene: a sprawling field clogged with boulders, native grasses and knee-high sagebrush. The defendant, a California farmer , had said the site was a 200-acre wheat field. But the investigator found no tilled soil, no tractors, no plows. In fact, she testified, she found no wheat. The field was just a field — and a prime example, federal prosecutors allege, of a wave of agricultural insurance scams sprouting across the nation. Such crimes are being perpetrated by farmers who fraudulently claim that weather or insects destroyed their crops to cash in on a government-backed insurance program. Some cheats never bother planting at all. Others sell their harvests in secret and then file claims for losses, collecting twice for the same crop. One North Carolina tomato grower, armed with a camera and a party-size bag of ice cubes, created a mock hailstorm in his fields and swindled ...

Times: Sudanese authorities arrested the country's leading Islamist ideologue as they sought to respond to the weekend attack on the capital by Darfuri rebels. Hassan al-Turabi, the man who invited Osama bin Laden to live in Khartoum during the 1990s, was taken into custody but then released without charge after 15 hours of questioning. Mr al-Turabi is closely linked to the leader of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Khalil Ibrahim, who was once his pupil. On Saturday the rebels launched an audacious attack on Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, the seat of parliament and separated from the capital only by the Nile. They were beaten back before they could cross into Khartoum but today promised fresh attacks. Security services have responded with a round-up of al-Turabi's supporters. Issam al-Turabi, his son, told The Times that armed soldiers and pickups mounted with anti-aircraft guns surrounded the family home at about 4am. Mr al-Turabi, who was entrusted with...

NY Times: Americans are in sticker-shock over grocery prices, while people in developing countries are rioting over food shortages. And across the heartland, American farmers are enjoying record incomes, but losing sleep over rising expenses and turbulence in the commodity futures markets. Here on Capitol Hill, though, it is pretty much farm politics as usual. As Congress works toward final passage of the farm bill, it is poised to continue most of the existing farmer subsidy programs, including about $5.2 billion a year in so-called “direct payments” that will be disbursed even as net farm income is projected to hit a historic high in 2008. The farm bill, which comes along once every five years and will cost upward of $300 billion, in fact will do little to address many of the most pressing concerns. It will not change biofuel mandates that are directing more corn to ethanol and contributing to a global rise in food prices . It will do little to ease worldwide food shortages. An...