Agriculture

The Natural Resources Conservation Service is a federal agency that helps farmers protect soil and water and fight climate change. Advocates say those goals are in jeopardy.

Growers in New Orleans can often be kicked off the land they steward when they don’t have formal agreements, so some are turning to social media and the public for help.

Spring leaves arrive 2 days earlier in New Orleans and 8 days earlier in Monroe.

Coca-Cola said they plan to release a line of their signature beverage sweetened with sugarcane in the U.S. this fall.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture terminated a $400,000 grant that would have expanded composting in New Orleans. It’s the first grant received by the city’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability that’s been cancelled.

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared only wetlands connected to a “water of the U.S.” will be protected. That ruling, Sackett v. EPA, could remove safeguards from more than half of the nation’s remaining wetland.

South Africa is unleashing weevils imported from Louisiana in a bid to fight off the sprouting growth of Salvinia minima, an alien species of aquatic plant native to South America that is choking up dams and rivers.

Exploring the details of the Certified Naturally Grown certification, how it compares to USDA Organic, and why some farmers are pursuing it for their operations.

For the past few decades, the trees that grow in the Mississippi River floodplain, known as floodplain forests, have been struggling. Although they're named for their ability to withstand the river's seasonal flooding, they've recently been overwhelmed by higher water and longer-lasting floods. Government agencies and nonprofits are attempting to reverse the forestland decline by planting new trees and volunteers are key to the effort.

"It's one of the most dramatic changes on the upper Mississippi," Larson said. "It's everywhere."