U.S. Department of Agriculture

A town on Massachusetts’ North Shore has become the first in the state to approve killing off aggressive coyotes. Nahant officials voted this week to hire rifle experts from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services. The move comes after a number of complaints from residents in recent months about the aggressive animals. Some residents have even had their...

This Thanksgiving, your pumpkin pie might have a lower carbon footprint. Farmers in central Illinois who supply 85% of the world’s canned pumpkin are adopting regenerative techniques to reduce emissions, attract bees and other pollinators and improve soil health.

This is not the first time the bird flu has jumped to another species, but researchers and public health officials are watching carefully.

An unusual number of seals are becoming stranded and dying off Maine this summer, and avian influenza is to blame, the federal government said Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has confirmed that samples from four Maine seals tested positive for the virus. The animals all died or required euthanasia, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. Marine mammal...

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said more than 120,000 pounds of ground beef products have been recalled due to possible E. coli contamination.

Federal and state agencies say a strain of avian flu that can cause high mortality rates among birds has been confirmed at a commercial turkey farm in southern Indiana.

About 25 million Americans will be eligible for more money in food assistance under new guidelines from the Biden administration

Nestlé Prepared Foods is recalling about 762,615 pounds of select batches of Hot Pockets, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced on Friday.

Unions representing workers at 10 chicken processing plants in six states are suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to challenge a policy that allows companies to increase production speeds that the unions say puts workers at risk

Wakanda’s free trade agreement with the United States wasn’t forever.

Until Wednesday afternoon, the fictional country from the popular 2018 Marvel superhero movie “Black Panther” was listed as a free trade agreement partner of the United States on the Agricultural Tariff Tracker maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

Go ahead and rinse your cranberries, potatoes and green beans. But food say experts say don’t — repeat don’t — wash the turkey before popping it in the oven on Thanksgiving Day. They say that could spread the germs lurking on your turkey in the kitchen sink or nearby food. But it’s been a challenge trying to convince cooks to...

Tuna maker Bumble Bee Foods said Thursday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, with an agreement from Taiwan-based FCF Fishery, its largest creditor, to purchase its assets for roughly $925 million. The bankruptcy proceedings are meant to reduce Bumble Bee’s debt burden caused by “recent and significant legal challenges” and help facilitate the sale. In 2017, the...

Plummeting cranberry prices and the country’s ongoing trade wars have America’s cranberry industry eyeing a possible new savior: solar power. Some cranberry farmers in Massachusetts, the nation’s second-largest grower after Wisconsin, are proposing to build solar panels above the bogs they harvest each fall.

Nearly a million children could lose their automatic eligibility for free school lunches under a Trump administration proposal that would reduce the number of people who get food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has released an analysis that says as many as 982,000 children could be affected by the change. About half would have to pay a reduced price...

Should you rinse raw poultry? Advice over the years has been conflicting. Even cooking legends Julia Child and Jacques Pepin disagreed, but a new study from the Department of Agriculture has a definitive answer: Don’t do it! “The sink could be a source of cross contamination,” warns the USDA’s Dr. Mindy Brashears.

State and federal authorities are asking Mainers to keep an eye on trees this month for the Asian longhorned beetle, an invasive pest.

The Trump administration determined that more than 500,000 children would no longer be automatically eligible for free school meals under a proposed overhaul to the food stamp program, but left that figure out of its formal proposal, NBC News reported, citing House Democrats. The U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to crack down on eligibility for food stamps, estimating that 3.1...

Maine’s agriculture commissioner is asking the federal government to use a new program to buoy the state’s wild blueberry industry during a difficult time. Blueberry harvesters collected about 57 million pounds of the berries in 2018. That was down nearly 11 million pounds from the previous year, and prices have been low. Maine Agriculture Commissioner Amanda Beal’s asking the U.S....

U.S. production of maple syrup increased slightly this year, even though the season was shorter than last year’s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said this week the country produced 4.2 million gallons (16 million liters) of the pancake topper, up 1% from 2018. Leading producer Vermont made more than 2 million gallons (7.6 million liters), an increase over 2018. Data…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the 20-year-old Virginia man was not aware of the animal until it emerged after he arrived at a vacation rental property.