Despite being called a “cruise,” the people on board The Pelican described the experience on the hypoxia monitoring expedition as very different from the elaborate dinners on a towering vacation ship or booze- and buffet-filled Caribbean itinerary.
Passengers describe waves up to 5 feet high in the Gulf of Mexico, swinging the 116-foot research vessel like a pendulum, plaguing anyone who didn’t have sturdy sea legs with bouts of seasickness. Daytime temperatures in late July soared ever higher as sweat dripped down the backs of hard-hat covered heads.
Southern University College of Agriculture alumna Allison Thomas has been named the U.S. Dairy Export Council’s (USDEC) Chief Operating Officer (COO). The announcement was made on August 11, 2025 by the USDEC and will become effective on August 25, 2025.
In her role as COO, Thomas will report directly to USDEC President and CEO Krysta Harden and serve as her strategic thought partner, oversee USDEC’s senior leadership team, and spearhead initiatives to accelerate growth, enhance operational performance, and drive innovation across the organization.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced it is investing more than $2.1 million in four projects across nine states in the Southern Region to restore state and private forestlands. These investments directly support the agency’s efforts to reduce wildfire risk, increase timber production, and expand rural economies, while providing critical support to landowners across management jurisdictions as they work to promote healthy, productive forests that benefit rural communities.
The investments, totaling more than $7 million nationwide, are being delivered as competitive grants through the Landscape Scale Restoration program. Of the total funding, $600,000 will support two projects for federally recognized tribes.
The American Soybean Association is urging President Trump to prioritize soybeans in U.S.-China trade talks, warning that retaliatory tariffs are shutting American farmers out of their largest export market going into the 2025 soybean harvest.
In a letter sent to the White House, the group called for the removal of Chinese tariffs on U.S. soybeans and commitments for future purchases. ASA also released a white paper outlining the financial consequences of losing long-term market share in China.
Earlier this week, USDA released its estimate for the national average farm case price for corn in the 2025/26 marketing year to be $3.90. That update is down 30¢ from what USDA was saying just last month in July.
Farm CPA Paul Neiffer says in the short-term it means two things: a focus on government payments and tougher conversations with ag lenders.
Louisiana’s Office of Multi-modal Commerce says billions of dollars in port projects are stuck in line for funding, with requests piling up as far back as 2019.
Julia Fisher-Cormier, the office’s director, said the program’s design allowed applications to build up without caps on approvals, even when annual funding was a fraction of the demand.
Louisiana strawberry farmers regularly contend with a multitude of challenges, including labor costs, unfavorable weather conditions, insect and mite pests, and plant diseases. In February 2022, a new-to-Louisiana disease was identified when a Tangipahoa Parish strawberry grower asked me to look at a field where plants were dying.
Louisiana House Speaker Phillip DeVillier has told legislators to keep their calendars open for a possible redistricting special session in late October or November. Lapoliticsweekly.com publisher Jeremy Alford says there are already constitutional questions about Louisiana’s current Congressional map and there’s also an effort to create more Republican seats.
Crews are making good progress on the Backbone Fire in the Kisatchie Hills Wilderness Area in Natchitoches Parish. Jim Caldwell with the U.S. Forest Service says as of yesterday evening, the 2,400-acre fire was just under 60% contained.
“Our lines are certainly holding. There’s still a very small amount of fire out there, but things are going completely to plan, and we think it will soon be out,” Caldwell said.
There's a new greenhouse at Northeast High School for its agriculture program.
"When I found out that we were getting a new greenhouse. I said that's one of the best things that could've happened here at Northeast," senior Tahj Turner said.
Turner said he enrolled in the class during his junior year.
The S Mart in Bee Bayou has always done a brisk business.
It's the only convenience store for miles amid the corn and soybean fields that line the old two-lane La. 80 in rural northeast Louisiana, and the only place to get heaping to-go plates of fried chicken gizzards with mac and cheese.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) announced the rapid implementation of significant enhancements to federal crop insurance programs following the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) on July 4, 2025. In record time, RMA has delivered these transformative changes, demonstrating the Trump Administration’s unwavering commitment to putting American farmers first by expanding benefits for beginning farmers and ranchers, increasing coverage options, and making crop insurance more affordable and accessible across multiple insurance programs.
The last factory in California that turns sugar beets into sugar is shutting down after 78 years, according to the company that owns the factory. The closure means the elimination of hundreds of local jobs and possibly the end of sugar beet farming in the state.
The Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative last month started the process of decommissioning its processing plant in Brawley in the Imperial Valley, which it operates under its subsidiary Spreckles Sugar Co.
The committee tasked with finding LSU’s next president will hire a Louisiana firm to guide its search.
At its first meeting Tuesday, the search committee announced it would work with SSA Consultants of Baton Rouge with the aim of finding a candidate by the end of the year. SSA’s experience primarily involves recruiting executives for the finance, general business, construction, health care, nonprofit and public sectors.
Feeding Louisiana works to end hunger and improve food access in every corner of the state, and the state is helping to put money where your meal is.
Supported by $2.5M in state funding in 2023 and 2024, Feeding Louisiana partnered with 82 local farmers to deliver locally sourced food to parishes across Louisiana.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins alongside Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Senator Marsha Blackburn, Senator Bill Hagerty, Representative John Rose, and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden, announced USDA will no longer fund taxpayer dollars for solar panels on productive farmland or allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in USDA projects. Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available. Within the last 30 years, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland and is expected to lose 2 million acres by 2027. This problem is not just in Tennessee, since 2012, solar panels on farmland nationwide have increased by nearly 50%. That is why the Department is taking action.
Of all the crops grown across the Southeast, cotton is the most romantic. Cotton has always been a temperamental and challenging crop, but the “white gold” is entwined in the very fabric of the South because it built communities and brought wealth to those who produced it.
Cotton has always been a difficult crop to grow, but for many cotton farmers, that difficulty is the greatest reward. Of all the crops a farmer grows, cotton responds the best to active management. Sure, it’s a tough crop to grow, but in the end, it delivers dividends.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is extending the public comment period for proposed registration for three end-use dicamba products for broadleaf weed control in dicamba-tolerant cotton and dicamba-tolerant soybeans.
The comment period, originally set to expire on Aug. 22, has now been extended to Sept. 6, 2025.
Today the USA Rice Outlook Conference, coming to New Orleans in December 2025, is widely acknowledged as the preeminent rice event in North America, but where did it come from?
In the late 20th Century, the Cooperative Extension Services in the primary rice growing states assembled annually to update each other about rice research being conducted and their outlook for the coming crop year.
When more than 140 Louisiana 4-H members, leaders and parents boarded planes bound for Dublin, they were stepping into more than a ten-day international tour—they were embarking on a journey that would shape their agricultural knowledge, life skills and friendships.
The trip, organized through Louisiana 4-H, included stops at dairy farms, beef operations, vegetable farms, an apple orchard, oyster farms and even the famed Irish National Stud horse farm. Each visit offered a chance for students to see how Irish farmers operate in a climate where lush green pastures thrive nearly year-round.
Much of the southeastern United States is blessed with long deer seasons and generous harvest limits. What’s more, you can hunt deer with everything from a compound bow to a cross bow, and from a primitive muzzle loading firearm to a modern rifle fitted with a sophisticated variable scope that’s capable of minute of angle precision accuracy.
Visitors and locals alike flocked to Delcambre for the final day of the 73rd Annual Shrimp Festival, enjoying a vibrant atmosphere filled with food, music, and camaraderie.
First-time festival-goer Joe Tamporello expressed his enthusiasm, saying, “We just come out here, and got some food to eat. And we’re going to have a couple of drinks and listen to the band.”
Farmers in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi pay much higher crop insurance premiums compared to those in the Midwest. Research from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture shows that hurricane risks are a major factor in driving these costs.
“I began to study the price of insurance crop insurance across the United States, and what I noticed was, there were vast differences in prices between what folks in the South and primarily the Mid-South would pay versus those in the upper Midwest. One thing that I begin to think about and do some research on is what's different about the Mid-South?” said economist Hunter Biram.
The pawpaw (Asimina triloba), America’s largest native fruit, is experiencing a resurgence of interest from chefs, brewers and native plant enthusiasts. The LSU AgCenter has been encouraging the cultivation of pawpaws in Louisiana through an annual Pawpaw Symposium in partnership with the Meraux Foundation and through extension education outreach to specialty crop producers looking to diversify their offerings.
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