Dozens of Port Projects Waiting for Funding
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.
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Keeping Ahead of Strawberry Diseases: LSU AgCenter Working With Strawberry Growers To Manage New Disease
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.
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Louisiana Legislators May Convene in Late 2025 to Discuss Potential Redistricting of Current Congressional Map
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.
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Progress Being Made in Containment of Backbone Fire in Kisatchie Hills Wilderness Area
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.
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Northeast High School Plans to Grow and Sell Food in a Brand New Greenhouse for Agriculture Program
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.
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Tiny Louisiana Parish Becomes AI Boomtown as Meta Builds $10B Data Center
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.
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USDA Delivers on President Trump’s Promise to Put American Farmers First with Enhanced Crop Insurance Benefits Following Passage of One Big Beautiful Bill Act
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.
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California’s Last Beet Sugar Factory is Leaving the State
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.
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LSU Hires Louisiana Firm for Presidential Search
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.
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$1M in State Funding Awarded for Louisiana Foodbank Efforts
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.
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Secretary Rollins Blocks Taxpayer Dollars For Solar Panels On Prime Farmland
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.
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Keeping The Southeast The Land Of Cotton
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.
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EPA Extends Comment Period For Proposed New Dicamba Registration To September 6
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.
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USA Rice Outlook Conference Origin Story
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.
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Louisiana 4-H Explores Agriculture on the Emerald Isle
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.
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