(From KRCU – December 18, 2013) Kris Pirmann and a handful of other Johnson County residents stand outside the county commission office in Vienna, Ill., a town of about 1,400 people tucked into southern Illinois’ rolling hills near the Shawnee National Forest. “Southern Illinois. I grew up as a Navy brat. I moved all over…

(From Harvest Public Media – August 22, 2013) Feral hogs are a big, expensive problem. The prolific procreators are responsible for $1.5 billion in damages and prevention each year —$800 million in damages to agriculture alone from destroying land and rooting up crops,according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But trapping them is no easy…

(From Harvest Public Media – July 30, 2013) As a child, Robert Harris Jr. worked the cotton fields of southeastern Missouri’s bootheel. Like many sharecroppers’ children, he fled that life. Now, four decades later, the harvest is calling him again, this time to grow food for the needy in a bunch of community gardens in…

(From KRCU – June 2, 2013) Jason Smith and Steve Hodges are sprinting to the finish line of a relatively short campaign for Missouri’s Eighth Congressional District. A special election will be held on Tuesday. The winner will replace Jo Ann Emerson, the long-time Congresswoman who announced her resignation shortly after Election Day. Jo Ann…

(From Harvest Public Media – March 1, 2013) Kentucky is trying to bring back hemp, the close relative of marijuana that is used in a seemingly endless number of products like textiles, car parts, lotions and paper. But like its cousin, it’s illegal to grow hemp in the United States. Some Kentucky politicians and farmers,…

(From NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday – January 13, 2013) Every day this month, the Army Corps of Engineers is working hard to deepen the Mississippi River’s shipping channel in an effort to keep navigation open between St. Louis and Cairo, Ill. Water levels are forecast to remain high enough through January to float loaded barges, but…

(From KRCU – January 7, 2013) The United States Supreme Court will tackle the question of whether or not police must obtain a search warrant prior to conducting blood tests in drunk driving arrests. The case Missouri v McNeely springs from a drunk driving arrest in Cape Girardeau in 2010, and the Court’s decision must…

(From Harvest Public Media – December 14, 2012) Southbound barges on the Mississippi River carry grain destined for world markets. Those barges regularly pass northbound tows with thousands of tons of fertilizer heading to Midwestern ports and, later, to farmers’ fields. But this year’s drought is adding an element of uncertainty to those shipping patterns,…

(From NPR’s All Things Considered – November 29, 2012) Mississippi River water levels are reaching near-record lows. Sections of the middle Mississippi River may become obstructed in December by rock outcrops in southern Illinois. The Army Corps of Engineers plan to remove the rock pinnacles in February, but river navigation industry leaders say that’s not…

(From Harvest Public Media – August 23, 2012) This summer’s drought is proving to be both a blessing and a curse for farmers in the southeast corner of Missouri trying to recover from last year’s devastating flooding. The Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway saw nine feet of water crash on its fertile soil after the Army Corps…