Hey, Cotton Has A Kelce Connection, Too!
Let’s tip a cap to Jason Kelce.
Yes, that Jason Kelce. All-Pro center and Super Bowl champion with the Philadelphia Eagles. Big brother to Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce…and thus, a personal friend of Taylor Swift. Now retired from his playing days, he’s become his own corporation of sorts, including broadcasting, podcasting, social media, and his own YouTube channel…not to mention endorsements.
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2025 Beauregard Watermelon Festival Begins This Week
The 2025 Beauregard Watermelon Festival is set to kick off this week in DeRidder.
The yearly festival features plenty of fun for the whole family, with unique events like mutton bustin’, seed spittin’, pig scrambles, and even a mullet contest. If you feel like having a ball, there will also be dance lessons where you can learn to do the Watermelon Crawl.
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Linking Higher Reference Prices and Boost in Farm Program Payment Caps
If Title I reference prices in the farm bill are increased significantly, it would be logical to also consider raising the current payment caps for farm program payments.
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Game of Horns: Iowa Poacher’s Antler Addiction Leads to Historic Bust
The darkest corner of buck fever hides addiction—and sometimes, fetish.
Staring at a headless deer splayed in a cornfield, game warden Craig Roberg had no inkling a killing spree was underway on Iowa farmland. The decapitated carcass, still oozing blood, was one link in a 52-kill chain, with each rack procured to satisfy a compulsion.
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Invasive Apple Snails Return; Solutions Researchers and Farmers Testing to Keep Snails Out of Crops
Apple snails are popping back up around the state as the weather starts to get warmer, and entomologists say they pose a bigger threat this year.
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Lawmakers Send More Signals Farm Bill Is Uncertain This Year
Politico's Grace Yarrow and Marcia Brown reported Wednesday that Republican "lawmakers are currently weighing whether to put Biden-era conservation programs into their party-line megabill that might have otherwise been included in their separate reauthorization of federal farm programs, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations."
Yarrow and Brown reported that the possibility of moving conservation programs into the megabill is "sending more signals they doubt their ability to pass a new, bipartisan farm bill this year."
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Farmers Grow More Optimistic Despite Tariff Concerns
Farmer sentiment improved in April as producers expressed more optimism about current and future conditions on their farms.
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LDWF Announces Temporary Closure of South Farm in Sherburne Wildlife Management Area
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) has closed South Farm on Sherburne Wildlife Management Area (WMA) due to flooding.
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Commissioner Temple Urges Residents to Prepare and Be Insurance Ready Ahead of Heavy Rain
Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple is urging Louisiana residents to prepare for heavy rainfall which is expected to develop Tuesday evening and continue through Wednesday. The rain could produce flash flooding across the region.
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The Cow Country Reporter: May 2025
I had planned to start out our May CPL Country Reporter with a market summary of record prices, however, every week in April both the calves and feeders broke "all-time records" as did the slaughter steer and heifer (fat cattle) market. So, by the time y'all get this report these prices will be "old news.'
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Louisiana Crop Progress & Condition
This report contains the results from the Crop Progress and Condition weekly survey. The survey is completed by parish extension agents’ visual observations and contact with producers in their parish.
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Shurley: Will We See Improvement In Weak Cotton Prices?
In USDA’s March 31 Prospective Plantings report, farmers said they intended to plant 9.87 million acres of cotton this year – down 12% from last year. Some industry observers expected as much as a 15% decline. I wonder now if, in fact, that’s where we’re headed. New crop prices (Dec.‘25 futures) haven’t helped.
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West Baton Rouge Parish Man Arrested For Theft Of Livestock
On May 1, West Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Deputies arrested 38-year-old Johnny L. Payne II of Port Allen in West Baton Rouge Parish regarding theft of livestock
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