By   Nina Kienle  March 27, 2026 6:58 am ET The Wall Street Journal Yara CEO Svein Tore Holsether is confident the steps the company has taken to diversify its energy exposure and ammonia production will help in the current situation. Patricia Monteiro/Bloomberg News The price of urea in Egypt—the regional benchmark—jumped 54% over the past month Farmers are likely to scale back fertilizer purchases amid surging prices, the head of fertilizer maker Yara International said,

By Kevin Draper  Published March 21, 2026Updated March 23, 2026 The New York Times Vertical farms, like the one operated by 80 Acres Farms in Florence, Ky., resemble sterile manufacturing facilities.Credit ...Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times The industry was a darling of the venture capital world 10 years ago. With many farms out of business, the remaining companies have scaled back. Vertical farming businesses blossomed a decade ago, promising an abundant, cleaner

By Kevin Draper  March 12, 2026 The New York Times Corn harvesting in Earlham, Iowa, last year. The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is hurting U.S. farmers because the Middle East is crucial to worldwide fertilizer production.Credit ...Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times Even before the war in Iran raised fertilizer and diesel costs, a majority of American farmers said they were “much worse off” or “somewhat worse off” than one year ago, and their biggest concern was the high

March 12, 2026 By Brooks Lamb The New York Times Holly Lynton In the next two decades, the owners of roughly 300 million acres of American farm and ranch land are expected to retire or die. How and to whom this land is transferred will determine the future of rural America and our food system. Much of this land could end up being taken over by the nation’s biggest and wealthiest agricultural operations , which already dominate farming. Other land could be bought up by privat

By Sandee LaMotte Original article from CNN Health Nearly 40% of nonorganic fruits and vegetables grown in California contain traces of pesticides that are also PFAS, or “ forever chemicals,” according to a new investigation. California supplies nearly half of the vegetables and more than three-quarters of the fruits and nuts eaten in the United States. Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are called “forever chemicals” because their strong carbon to flu

By Patrick Thomas  | Photography by Whitney Curtis for WSJ Feb. 14, 2026 9:00 pm ET MARSHALL, Ill.—Don Guinnip is running out of time. The fifth-generation farmer still wakes early each morning to tend to roughly 1,000 acres of corn and soybeans and 40 cattle. But four decades of grueling work, a bout with prostate cancer and surgery to replace both of his hips with titanium implants have taken their toll. The 74-year-old estimates he can maintain the current workload for a c

By Nicolás Rivero  January 1, 2026 The Washington Post Mariangela Hungria won the 2025 World Food Prize for her work on microbes that feed plants nitrogen, allowing farmers to slash fertilizer costs and pollution. Mariangela Hungria has spent four decades researching bacteria that convert nitrogen from the air into a form plants can use, boosting crop yields and reducing the need for expensive and polluting chemical fertilizers. (World Food Prize Foundation) Mariangela Hungri

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. 6:00 a.m. EST December 26, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. Soybeans are harvested on a farm in Warren, Indiana. (Michael Conroy/AP) Red-state farmers continue to struggle under damaging inflation and the fallout of President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, especially with China. Mike Phillips has spent the past year reconciling his vote for Donald Trump with the uncertain future of his farm in central Iowa. The 72-year-old has been farming for five decades and till

By Maureen Farrell Dec. 23, 2025 Harvey Schwartz, chief executive of Carlyle, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, had predicted a banner year for the industry.Credit ...Alex Wong/Getty Images As funds deliver mediocre returns and shed investors, the industry is struggling to unload 31,000 investments, an increase over this time last year. Heading into 2025, private equity executives were predicting a new heyday. After several years of high interest rates and a t

By Samantha Pearson  | Photography by María Magdalena Arréllaga for WSJ Nov. 5, 2025 2:00 pm ET AUTAZES, Brazil—In the heart of the Amazon rainforest, workers are preparing to dig a vertical shaft as wide as a subway tunnel half a mile down into the ground. It isn’t gold or oil hidden here in a grassy clearing between indigenous lands, but fertilizer—something arguably just as precious to this vast farming nation. As global trade tensions flare, Brazil has replaced a growing

By Carl Zimmer  Oct. 17, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET The New York Times Colorful microbial mats, composed of thermophilic microbes, surround a bubbling hot spring in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.Credit ...Jon G. Fuller/VWPics, via Associated Press Hundreds of scientists have joined together to save a group of species from extinction, a group that might not seem like it needs saving: microbes. Microbes need protection for many reasons, researchers say, including the fact that o

By Laura Cooper   The Wall Street Journal Oct. 10, 2025 9:00 pm ET SONOMA, Calif.—The U.S. wine industry hasn’t had it this bad since Prohibition.  The list of problems is long in California, the cradle of American wine. Vineyards have an oversupply of grapes. People are drinking less, especially younger drinkers, and tariffs have caused the biggest foreign market for U.S. wine—Canada—to dry up overnight. With this year’s grape harvest in full swing, way too much wine from p

By  Patrick Thomas  | Graphics by  Stephanie Stamm  and  Elizaveta Galkina Sept. 1, 2025 8:00 am ET Bumper crops and diminished demand...

By Alexa Robles-Gil   The New York Times Aug. 27, 2025 A black oak in the Yale-Myers Forest of northern Connecticut that was felled...

By Clara Hudson  | Aug. 26, 2025 12:12 pm ET | WSJ Pro Drought is rife in California. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News Investors...

By Dean Seal  | Photographs by Maddie McGarvey for WSJ Aug. 19, 2025 9:00 pm ET The company created a line of products for legal cannabis...

By Ksenia Shaikhutdinova August 19, 2025 WSJ Video A global look at the economic and cultural forces shaping our world. Hooters is...

By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media Two of the world’s largest food and agri-business players are partnering to accelerate...

By Joseph Hoppe  July 21, 2025 6:59 am ET | WSJ Pro A car is seen part submerged in floodwater, in England. Potato prices in the U.K....

By Yusuf Khan | June 25, 2025 5:30 am ET | WSJ Pro Jim Andrew, PepsiCo’s chief sustainability officer, visits a corn grower farm in...