"Over 2,000 years ago, an important tree had one of its branches removed on the order of Indian emperor Ashoka the Great. It was under this very tree that the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment. Ashoka bestowed kingship on the branch, and planted it in a thick-rimmed solid gold vase."

"Three days before Donald Trump is to be inaugurated as America’s new president, just one Cabinet agency lacks a nominee to lead it: the Department of Agriculture."

"Dow Chemical Wants Farmers to Keep Using a Pesticide Linked to Autism and ADHD".

"In farm country, the cost of nitrate pollution often falls on towns." "Pretty Prairie, home to 650 people on the southern Kansas plains, is a one-well town. And that well is giving the town fits."

"EPA's revised Worker Protection Standard is scheduled to take effect on Monday (Jan. 2), but the new rules face an uncertain future in the new administration."

"There's more methane gas in the atmosphere than there used to be, by every scientific measure. The Obama administration has been trying to stem the increase of this powerful greenhouse gas, but the incoming Trump administration appears bent on keeping the government's hands off methane."

"Hundreds of construction workers will be put to work in Fremont over the next couple summers building a massive $275 million facility for producing broiler chickens, and the utility lines and roads to serve it, as well as upgrading the city’s water treatment plant."

"Competing against millions of acres of cotton, winegrowers fear federal approval of new herbicides to be used on genetically modified cotton seeds will wipe out the wine industry in the Texas High Plains."