From left, Tom Bodine, North Dakota Department of Agriculture, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., Richard Fordyce, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Gov. Kelly Armstrong and Jeb Williams, North Dakota Game and Fish, join other officials and stakeholders to discuss the Governor’s Legacy Soil Health and Habitat Program during a roundtable event in Mapleton on May 27, 2026. (Ceilidh Kern/For the North Dakota…
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KVRR) — A USDA reorganization plan is good news for North Dakota. The state will gain 45 additional Agricultural Research Service employees and 10 new research projects totaling nearly $29 million. The research is being reassigned from Maryland’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Sen. John Hoeven, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Committee, says the reorganization includes moving two…
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KVRR) — Attorney General Keith Ellison files for emergency relief to protect SNAP benefits for the almost half a million Minnesotans who rely on the program. The motion challenges a USDA demand that Minnesota verify SNAP eligibility of nearly 100,000 households through in-person interviews within 30 days or lose funding. His office says that demand would require…
FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — Since 2019, wholesale turkey prices have gone up and down. But this year, those numbers have jumped exponentially due to the highly pathogenic avian influenza. “So when we see those big disruptions, we lose those birds, there’s less birds entering the meat case, and the demand is still going to be strong for it. So that…
President Donald Trump’s administration is demanding states “undo” full SNAP benefits paid out under judges’ orders last week, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has stayed those rulings, marking the latest swing in a seesawing legal battle over the anti-hunger program used by 42 million Americans. The demand from the U.S. Department of Agriculture came as more than two dozen states warned…
President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP after a pair of judges’ rulings required it to keep the food aid program running. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it due to the shutdown. The program…
Fargo, N.D. (KVRR) – Local food banks may see more difficulties in determining how many people in their communities are going hungry. That’s after the USDA announced that it will end the longstanding Household Food Security Report, calling it “redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous.” Great Plains Food Bank says that this report was an important part of how they compare…
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KVRR)– USDA releases the second round of livestock disaster assistance for losses from flooding and wildfire. They are providing $1 billion to livestock producers to help offset increased supplemental feed costs as a result of qualifying wildfires or floods in 2023 and 2024. This second round brings the total livestock set-aside to $2 billion. The Emergency Livestock Relief…
HALSTAD, MINN. (KVRR) – Local organic farmers and distributors are facing new pressures as tariffs and funding cuts have led to growing uncertainty. Hugh’s Gardens, LLC in Halstad, Minnesota has been washing, storing, and marketing organic potatoes from Red River Valley farmers since the late 80’s. They work with many distributors, as well as food banks and public school systems…
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KVRR) — U.S. Department of Agriculture has released $1 billion in disaster relief for livestock producers impacted by wildfire or drought in 2023 or 2024. The Emergency Livestock Relief Program funding comes as part of the $21 billion in weather-related assistance include in the year-end legislation passed by Congress in December. It’s the first of two assistance programs…
