Agriculture

KUOW Blog

Black-led farming program in Seattle is being asked to uproot

Nurturing Roots is a Black led community farm that started in 2016 that’s based in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. It’s a group that’s also urged city leaders to put more land in the hands of Black farmers.

KUOW Newsroom

A Northwest dryland wheat farmer looks to the sky, contemplates the coming harvest

Even with all the rain and snow in California this winter, it’s been pretty dry in our region, especially in much of eastern Oregon and parts of eastern Washington.For wheat farmers, that means there could be some nail-biting months ahead.Chris Herron owns an eight-square-mile dryland farm in north Franklin County, Washington. Correspondent Anna King spent the day with him and produced this audio postcard.This transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.

KUOW Newsroom

Proposed WA bill would raise threshold for farmworker overtime

This is the second year that farmworkers will be eligible for overtime. Right now, if they work past 48 hours they’ll get paid time and half. Next year they’ll be the same as everyone else - anything past 40 hours would count as overtime. But there’s new proposed legislation in Olympia that is trying to re-negotiate that.

KUOW Newsroom

Ban foreign entities from buying Washington forest and farmland, lawmaker urges

Legislators in Washington are joining more than a dozen other states that are considering whether to restrict or ban foreign entities from buying farmland. The initial hearing on Olympia's version of the foreign ownership restrictions however drew more criticism than support on Tuesday.

How ancient seeds from the Fertile Crescent could help save us from climate change

Some of the tens of thousands of seeds stored at a facility in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley may hold keys to helping the planet's food supply adapt to climate change. Many seeds were saved from Syria's war.

KUOW Newsroom

New podcast uncovers a true story of family, fraud, land and power in the American West

Kim Malcolm talks with Anna King, host of the new podcast Ghost Herd.

Deadly flu hits Washington birds

Wildlife officials have found hundreds of dead snow geese around Washington’s Skagit Bay, suspected victims of highly pathogenic avian influenza: bird flu.