Food, Agriculture, and Animals

Only 12 commercial fishing captains hold permits to go reefnet fishing in the Pacific Northwest out of a fleet that once numbered in the hundreds. The distinctive technique of reefnet fishing dates back thousands of years as a traditional Indigenous method to catch salmon. Its practitioners today say the gear should be the preferred way to harvest healthy salmon runs while avoiding fragile stocks.

There's a rising tide of interest in opening seaweed farms in the Pacific Northwest. If even half of the current applicants succeed, it would more than double the small number of commercial seaweed growing operations in Oregon and Washington state.

Half a dozen Pacific Northwest craft breweries are diversifying into making nonalcoholic beer. But instead of brewing bland and watery "near beer," they're injecting quality and variety into a space that used to be dominated by a few national brands. A swelling customer base is lapping it up.

Nearly 12,000 acres of Easterday family farmland in Benton County will likely sell for more than its $210 million asking price, according to court…

Nicole Berg wades into her stunted wheat field. It’s so short and sparse, she doesn’t think the combine can even reach the wheat without eating rocks.…

The forest smells slightly damp. Grasses cover logs. Sticks decay on the ground. Unknown animals have surely left scents as they traipse about, eating…

Redtail hawks glide off telephone poles sailing above verdant fields that scoop downward along a basalt slope to the bending Columbia River. This unique…

This spring, biologists discovered something they weren’t expecting to see. Male sage grouse proudly strutting during their quirky mating dances. The…

Much of the Northwest’s high country is still deep in good snowpack but short on rain this spring. That has dryland wheat farmers and cattle ranchers…

Washington apple growers are shipping about 20 percent less fruit abroad now compared with this time last year.The result is a drop to export levels not…