Farmers are among the most likely to die by suicide compared with any other occupation, according to a 2020 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With COVID-19 fallout, record debts, drought, wildfires and a lack of access to counselors, the need for a conversation about mental health and solutions in rural America is more urgent than ever, experts said. "Therapists may not fully get that a lot of these farmers literally would rather die than lose the farm that has been in their family for 100 to 120 years," said McConkey. She said it's vital to provide an understanding of mental health to everyone associated with agriculture. Crop consultants, agronomists, crop insurance salesmen, seed salesmen and elevator employees should all know the warning signs of someone struggling with mental health issues.

HYDE PARK, Vt. (AP) — Grappling with a changed industry, two brothers operating their family’s dairy farm in Vermont have made the drastic decision to give up hundreds of cows for goats. The Jones family, which had raised cows for 150 years at Joneslan Farm, houses about 1,000 goats in their barn that remains adorned with painted cut-outs of dairy cattle. Fluctuating milk prices paid to dairy cow farmers and rising costs have driven some small family farms to go big or out of business — or get creative like brothers Brian and Steven.

WASHINGTON — The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is authorizing emergency procedures to help agricultural producers impacted by extreme drought conditions. USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) is working with crop insurance companies to streamline and accelerate the adjustment of losses and issuance of indemnity payments to crop insurance policyholders in impacted areas.

On July 6, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) designated 14 counties, mostly in Eastern Washington, as primary natural disaster areas. The declaration allows the Farm Service Agency (FSA) the ability to offer emergency loans to producers to help them replace essential equipment, inputs or the refinance of farm-related debts. Producers in 10 Washington counties that are contiguous to the primary counties are also eligible to apply for emergency loans. A federal drought designation is made when a county has a D2 (severe drought) conditions for eight weeks in a row or a D3 (extreme drought) conditions during the growing season. The primary counties are Adams, Asotin, Columbia, Franklin, Garfield, Grant, Kittitas, Klickitat, Lincoln, Spokane, Stevens, Walla Walla, Whitman and Yakima. The contiguous counties are Benton, Chelan, Douglas, Ferry, King, Lewis, Okanogan, Pend Oreille, Pierce and Skamania.

At more than 300 farms, Washington state accounts for a quarter of U.S. shellfish production — valued at $108 million in market sales — according to the Pacific Shellfish Institute. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife received at least six reports of shellfish die-off in Puget Sound waters after the record heat in late June, according to communications manager Ben Anderson. Some came from the public on recreational shellfish beaches and one from a grower. “The suspicion, obviously, is it’s related to the heat wave,” Anderson said. Like Macias, he noted the impact won’t be known for some time but said the department is actively monitoring potential fallout.

Experts hold little to no optimism about this year’s wheat harvest after droughts during the spring and summer, and the record heat wave, shriveled fields in the Inland Northwest. Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission, said he’s expecting winter wheat to be about 50 bushels per acre for Eastern Washington when the average tends to be about 70 bushels per acre. Harvesting has not started in the region, but some results have come in from farms in drier south-central Washington that start the process earlier. They’re not good.

STILLWATER, Okla. — Oklahoma State University researchers have received funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to examine how virtual fencing technology could improve the water quality and ecosystems of cattle grazing lands. The new EPA grant totaling more than $800,000 supports research on how GPS-enabled collars worn by cattle can help producers not only better manage grazing, but also improve water quality and other natural resources, such as wildlife habitat and soil health.

LYNDEN, Wash. — The raspberries growing high on the rows of vines Rolf Haugen has cultivated on his Lynden farm for 41 years should not look like this on July 5. “They’re sunburned and shriveled,” said Haugen, who says he has never seen such damage from the heat of a single day — June 28, when temperatures reached 108 degrees on his farm — and the highest in recorded history for Lynden.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Biden administration plans to issue a new rule to protect the rights of farmers who raise cows, chickens and hogs against the country’s largest meat processors as part of a plan to encourage more competition in the agriculture sector.

EAST WENATCHEE, Wash. — The Batterman Fire, which started about noon on the Fourth of July, grew to 7,900 acres by Monday evening, burning brush and grass in steep terrain near East Wenatchee and Rock Island. About 10% of the fire’s perimeter was contained, and firefighters burned the west side of Rock Island Grade to hold the fire’s southeastern line, according to the Southeast Washington Interagency Incident Management Team out of Pasco.

Something unusual happened a few months ago in an asparagus field on the Oregon-Idaho border: Six thousand people showed up on a Saturday for the chance to pick some free veggies. "I am a big fan on community, so it's really cool to see so many people out here," said one picker. Children who were out picking were divided on whether they like eating asparagus.

Grower leaders from the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) and the Washington Grain Commission (WGC) have sent a letter to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee asking him to announce a drought declaration in wheat counties so growers will have access to federal natural disaster aid.

WHATCOM COUNTY, Wash. — At the request of two tribes, the Washington Department of Ecology plans to sue water users in Whatcom County, raising the possibility of severely curtailing irrigation in Western Washington’s top farm region. Salmon need more water, the tribes say. Receptive to that, Ecology invokes equity, climate change and environmental justice to justify the adjudication, in which a local judge will sort out the region’s water rights.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today additional aid to agricultural producers and businesses as part of the USDA Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative. As part of the Pandemic Assistance initiative announced in March, USDA pledged to continue Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) payments and to provide aid to producers and businesses left behind. Implementation of the assistance announced today will continue within 60 days to include support to timber harvesters, biofuels, dairy farmers and processors, livestock farmers and contract growers of poultry, assistance for organic cost share, and grants for PPE.

In 2017, he tried subterranean clover in his NE field. Subterranean clover is a cool-season annual legume that produces seeds during the summer at or below the soil surface (hence the name subterranean). Seeds then germinate in the fall after the first rains and grow rapidly through the fall/early winter. It may go dormant for a time during the winter, but becomes active again in early spring. It grows in densely matted clumps that are 6-15 inches tall. The clover spreads through rootless runners reaching up to 3 feet in length. After a few years of trial, Fred reports that the “Subclover cover crop, in what is now our nine-year-old hazelnut orchard, is working very well and is quite easy to manage. Plus, now as the trees have sent roots out in the row centers, we are getting some nitrogen benefits. This orchard was visibly greener than our other orchards last spring. Every year it [the cover crop] gets better without having to add any seed since it is self-seeding.”

“Bees in particular are the most productive pollinators, serving as a key player in the food chain,” says Brent Jones, head of GO SEED’s Iowa Research Farm. “Yet in the last couple of decades, the bee population has significantly suffered, directly threatening global food production.” According to the USDA, this decline is largely due to Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), resulting in colonies abandoning immature bees and food supply. A wide range of factors such as diseases, nutritional deficits, habitat loss and climate variability has been attributed to this. The intensification of agricultural production leading to the decline of crop diversity has also been attributed to CCD.

Earlier this Spring, Oregon’s Peter DeFazio and Washington’s Dan Newhouse joined Rodney Davis of Illinois, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Jimmy Panetta of California and Chellie Pingree of Maine, introducing the Continuous Improvement and Accountability in Organics Standards Act, better known as the CIAO Act. Newhouse noted this bipartisan legislation will provide assistance to the industry, as well as the USDA, in efforts to advance organic standards. “It’s going to help improve oversight, enforcement of new rules, it’s going to give guidance and hopefully this is going to clear some of that regulatory red tape so that does not hamper innovation within the industry.”

Joe Del Bosque is leaving a third of his 2,000-acre farm near Firebaugh, California, unseeded this year due to extreme drought. Yet, he hopes to access enough water to produce a marketable melon crop.

Nearly all of Washington is in moderate to severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Eastern Washington is mostly a dryland farming region. Producers don’t divert water or irrigate their fields with sprinklers. Their plants can’t grow without rain. “We can’t turn on the irrigation,” Whitman County farmer Gary Bailey said. “Mother Nature does that for us, and she seems to have taken a break this year.” Farmers can see signs of the drought already.

Berg is a dryland wheat farmer in the sweeping Horse Heaven Hills of south-eastern Washington. She shows off one head of half-turned golden wheat amid a sea of them. Besides being too short, the plant’s kernels didn’t fill out properly. “See how the wheat head is curled like that?” Berg asks. “And then you break into it, you might have some berries down here, but this will be empty. There is no wheat inside the wheat head. It’s a sad situation. It’s farming though. You know, thank goodness for crop insurance.”

When Steven Hsieh tweeted in March that Tian Tian Farm would be bringing its harvest, specializing in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese vegetables, to the Ballard Farmers Market this year, the excited reaction – and more than 700 likes – took him by surprise. But it also confirmed to him and his business partner, Elizabeth Whitman, that they weren’t alone in their frustration with current options for buying the produce they grew up eating.

Columbia Straw Supply works with local balers to buy up all that leftover wheat straw, which Columbia Pulp turns into pulp for paper products, giving farmers a new stream of revenue — and pushing the paper industry into a more sustainable direction.

Shifting away from large-scale farming would build resilience in the face of climate change and other crises. The authors of new research want to show how to make it happen.

The May 7th, 2021 Sustainable, Secure Food Blog explores how wind erosion affects farming in Washington and some solutions farmers can use. According to blogger Andrew McGuire, “Wind erosion is a soil health thief. In both sandy and fine-grained silt soils of Eastern Washington, wind erosion lifts, sifts, and then carries away the best part of the soil. Lost are the tiny particles of clay and silt with the organic matter that is stuck to them.” Local soil conditions make matters worse. Low rainfall produces sparse vegetation, therefore low soil organic matter levels.

Joint Base Lewis-McChord is adding to its list of on-base services with a weekly farmers market. The JBLM Marketplace launched April 20 and will continue every other Tuesday through Sept. 14. Leaders are hoping the marketplace will become a year-round event. “Obviously it will be subject to vendors availability and the popularity of the event,” said Josh Soldan, business and recreation division chief for JBLM’s Office of Morale, Welfare and Recreation.

The Biden administration has released a report outlining its vision to conserve and restore land, water and wildlife with recommendations for locally led, voluntary efforts to conserve 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The 24-page report outlining the administration’s “America the Beautiful” initiative recognizes the contributions of farmers, ranchers, forest owners, private landowners and fishers and commits to supporting those efforts.

At their San Francisco headquarters, Plenty is working on perfecting vertical farming of kale, arugula, bok choy, beet leaves, fennel, and mizuna. According to chief executive and co-founder Matt Barnard, Plenty’s technology uses a fraction of the land and one to five percent of the water compared to traditional agriculture. Additionally, all of Plenty’s facilities are powered by 100 percent renewable energy.

Once officially launched, AIM for Climate will catalyze greater investment in agricultural R&D and innovation to help to raise global ambition and underpin more rapid and transformative climate action in all countries, including by enabling science-based and data-driven decision and policy-making.

USDA will permanently end its Farmers to Families Food Box Program at the end of May. The program, which bought meat, dairy and produce from farmers and directed it to hungry families, was created by the Trump administration during the pandemic. Over the past year, USDA has spent more than $4 billion on the program and delivered more than 156 million boxes through mid-April.