In 2008, 14 years after the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, the U.S. market opened fully to duty-free Mexican sugar imports; that same year, U.S. fructose – chiefly high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) – flowing to Mexico jumped by 54 percent. Two years later, exports more than doubled again and have fluctuated up and down within about 13 percent of that since, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

“The accelerated pace of climate change and the intensity of projected climate change represent new and unprecedented challenges to the sustainability of U.S. agriculture,” the report notes, adding while farmers can adapt, any economic hardship is likely to hit smaller-scale producers harder because they have less capital and credit access than larger operations.

Tony Stark and his alter ego are fictional. But, as the hit of the summer box office, they may be a real boon of sorts for the welding industry – at least that’s the hope of the American Welding Society (AWS), which is taking advantage of “Iron Man’s” popularity to reach out to young people at whom it is targeted.

Following the closing credits for the movie “Moola,” there’s a special thank-you to Omniglow LLC, crediting the company for its help – without which the independent comedic film would never have been inspired or made.

It’s possible that ancient Egyptian farmers noticed something different about their soil or crops if any flyaway gypsum dust landed on their fields along the Nile River. After all, their people used gypsum to finish the Pyramids. Perhaps these farmers noticed that after enough of the fine white mineral powder drifted over their soil for a while, it seemed more loamy. Or that crops seemed healthier and more prolific. Or that their fields didn’t stand with water for as long following heavy rains. Modern waste drywall may do the same.

What Union County Biodiesel is – sandwiched between Andy Sprague’s farmhouse and his nearly 4,000 acres of corn and soybeans – is a functional on-farm plant which converts soybean oil into biodiesel. From its inception in late 2004, Sprague intended the facility as a demonstration of perhaps the ultimate in future value-added farming.

You’re an upper Tennessee tobacco farmer. You don‘t grow but a few acres, and the IRS would never mistake you for Bill Gates, but you make enough on top of your regular job or farming with leaf to give the family presents at Christmas and to finance their weekly jaunts to the movies.

Out of trench coat, Muse Watson satisfies that principal requirement of every great character actor; namely, the ability to inspire people to snap their fingers, point and rub their chins and swear, “I know I know you from somewhere! Just a minute … it’s on the tip of my tongue …”