U.S. Department of Agriculture

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.

The four largest food banks in Massachusetts are scheduled to meet to discuss how to respond to the partial federal government shutdown.

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.

If milk is a few days past its “Sell By” date, is it safe to drink? U.S. regulators are urging food-makers to be more consistent with labeling terms like “Best By” and “Enjoy By” that cause confusion. By clarifying the meaning of such dates, they are trying to prevent people from prematurely tossing products and to reduce the mountains of...

Perdue Farms, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has recalled 31,703 pounds of ready-to-eat chicken products, including gluten-free chicken nuggets sold under their Perdue Simply Smart Organics brand. Announced in a news release Friday, the recall applies to Perdue’s Simply Smart Organics refrigerated gluten-free breaded chicken breast tenders, refrigerated whole grain chicken breast strips, and refrigerated whole grain...

As recent illnesses tied to raw turkey , ground beef , cut melon and romaine lettuce suggest, U.S. food poisoning cases don’t appear to be going away anytime soon. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report Thursday that the frequency of several types of food poisoning infections climbed last year, but that the increases could be...

In the summer of 2010, reporters at South Dakota’s Argus Leader newspaper decided to request data about the government’s food assistance program, previously known as food stamps. They thought the information could lead to a series of stories and potentially help them identify fraud in the now $65 billion-a-year program. They sent a stream of what they thought were routine...

Mainstream retailers are leaping into the world of products like skin creams and oils that tout such benefits as reducing anxiety and helping you sleep. The key ingredient? CBD, or cannabidiol, a compound derived from hemp and marijuana that doesn’t cause a high. Retailers are taking advantage of the booming industry even as its legal status and health benefits remain...

A Florida woman came across a snake with its head stuck in a beer can and what she did next is different from what many of us would do. She very carefully rescued the reptile. Rosa Fond, the owner of an animal rescue, told WPTV that she waited until the racer snake calmed down then picked up the can.

U.S. government scientists bought hundreds of dead dogs and cats from “Asian meat markets” and conducted experiments that included feeding their remains to healthy lab cats for needless research, according to a disturbing watchdog report being released Tuesday. Other experiments at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s lab in Maryland included feeding dog remains to cats and injecting cat remains into...