Agriculture

In just a couple of months, Minnesotans will be able to grow their own cannabis plants and local businesses are eager to help them get started. But there is one thing they can’t sell — cannabis seed.

As the auction selling the HyLife pork processing plant in Windom launches, about half of the plant’s 1,000 workers face an uncertain future.

The bill gives state regulators stronger authority to crack down on violators who pump more water than they're permitted. Farmers worry they could face hefty fines if they overdraw to keep their crops alive during a drought.

A new Minnesota law will help protect farmers when they sell grain to a business that fails. The law creates a dedicated fund to reimburse farmers when a grain elevator goes bust and they don't get paid.

While Californians consume 13 percent of the pork eaten in the United States, nearly 100 percent of it comes from hogs raised outside the state, including in Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and North Carolina.

Minnesota's agriculture industry had a record-breaking year for exports last year. The state is a leading producer of many farm commodities like soybeans and corn, and exports to other countries are a key part of the ag economy. A complex web of connections moves those crops around the world.

A widely used class of insecticides is known to harm both native bees and honeybees. But a new University of Minnesota study finds the neonicotinoid insecticides have little effect on adult Monarch butterflies.

MinnTofu is interrupting the industrial food system by turning soybeans into tofu locally instead of shipping them to California. And it has the added benefit of producing a cleaner-tasting tofu.

Backyard chickens are having a moment. Around Minnesota, many communities which once outlawed keeping a coop in the backyard are relaxing those regulations.

It’s a busy time of year for farmers like David Wise, who is juggling quite a few projects, including reintroducing bison and Ojibwe horses to his farm in Northern Minnesota. He is a descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the founder of Native Wise farm, which produces wild rice, maple syrup, CBD and vegetables.