Originally published on October 23, 2019 7:51 am Drew Eggers stood at the edge of one of his stubble fields when he plucked a patch of mint left over from harvest. “You can smell the spearmint,” he said, offering it up for a sniff. This was his 41st year farming out in Meridian, Idaho.

Originally published on October 21, 2019 7:42 am Ski and snowboard season is already here. The Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in north-central Colorado opened Oct. 11, making it the first ski resort to fire up its lifts in North America.

Originally published on October 14, 2019 4:39 pm Researchers out of Colorado are hoping to map the entire earth with a new type of laser technology, and climate change is driving the effort.  The Earth Archive is an unprecedented endeavor that would use laser-based mapping called lidar to track changes to landscapes around the world. 

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Originally published on October 4, 2019 11:40 am A study published this week in the journal Science found that the bird population in the U.S. and Canada has fallen by nearly 30%, or 3 billion birds, over the past 48 years.

Originally published on October 4, 2019 11:40 am California is king of U.S. agriculture. But on a per capita basis, no state brings in more farm revenue than Idaho. New USDA data published at the end of August show that Idaho’s ag product sales add up to about $4,300 per person.

Originally published on October 4, 2019 11:40 am Pharmaceutical companies are facing scrutiny over the opioid crisis, but that hasn’t stopped them from giving millions of dollars to members of Congress, including many in the Mountain West.

Originally published on October 4, 2019 11:41 am Federal agencies are trying to tackle the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women after years of extremely limited record-keeping and uncoordinated attempts to address these crimes.  Members of a House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing on Wednesday challenged those federal agencies to explain where they’ve made progress

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Originally published on October 4, 2019 11:42 am Wildfires are still burning across the Mountain West, but far fewer than in the last few years. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 22 of this year, about 3.8 million acres around the U.S. burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Originally published on April 18, 2019 9:06 am It’s been five years since the last ag census. Since 2012, the U.S. has lost about 70,000 farms, saw the average age of farmers go up and prices for certain commodities go down.

Originally published on December 20, 2018 2:05 pm Updated at 3 p.m. Dec.

Originally published on August 16, 2018 8:30 am Pesticides are all over, from backyard gardens to cornfields. While their use doesn’t appear to be slowing, concern over drift and the resulting effects on health is driving research — and more worries.

Originally published on April 27, 2018 7:53 am It’s a challenge for people with severe mental illnesses to hold down a job or get the medical help they need. And that extends to when they try to alleviate hunger by getting on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Originally published on March 8, 2018 12:00 pm Western Illinois might be close to the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, but it’s the driest part of the state this year.