agriculture

“Nobody gets into farming for sane reasons, other than the sanity of knowing where your food comes from and just general health,” said one student at the Great Lakes Incubator Farm, which teaches people how to work in agriculture.

An incubator farm aims to bolster Michigan's agricultural future. Also, a new investigation into the Antrim County Clerk's office.

Grape growers are planting hybrid grapes that can withstand colder temperatures, irrigating their vines rather than relying on natural rainfall and turning to new strategies to ensure healthy soil.

When Seth Swoboda’s trees started dying, he asked two scientists for help. Their theory: herbicides were drifting onto his private property from farm fields and killing his trees, and it was happening all over. They just had to prove it.

The SWAT Act was introduced in 2022 and reintroduced for a first time in 2023. It would set aside $6.5 million in funding for research on eliminating an invasive pest in cherry orchards.

Stress over weather and markets to sell their products has endangered family farms. And now, state funding for farmer mental health counseling is gone — not among the items renewed in this year’s budget.

The decision comes after years of outcry from some farmers that the cost of labor, transportation and housing for H-2A workers was making it impossible to break even.

On a remote island in Lake Michigan, some old apple trees could have very rare, never-before-discovered genes. And if they do, they could join the U.S. stockpile of apples poised to fight off future threats.

Northern Michigan’s agriculture industry is feeling the impact of rising costs, supply shortages and less research funding, among other things that benefit farmers.

Waste from the energy-producing digester was at the center of the disagreement.