The farm subsidy program now in place pays out more than $7 billion directly to larger farmers for a few select crops like corn, cotton, rice, soy and wheat. But it pays nothing to most other often smaller farmers of fresh fruits and vegetables. These farm giveaway bills are always justified by promising to ensure Americans inexpensive food, the survival of family farmers, and national agricultural independence. Federal farm bills originated in Depression-era America when commodity prices...

If you keep your apples in a bowl on the kitchen counter you will make an apple-grower cry. So if you can't keep them in your refrigerator, the next best would be a cool basement, where temperatures do not fluctuate as much as they do in a garage. All orchardists counsel keeping apples cold. Apples will keep pretty well between 40 and 60 degrees, but the important thing is that the temperature be steady. Subscription deliveries only, with vegetables, all over the region. Old fashioned...

Apple wine, made from fermented apples, has 5.5 to 7 percent alcohol and has been popular in Frankfurt since the 16th century. The plan is ''absolutely unnecessary, unacceptable and extraordinarily damaging,'' the newspaper quoted Roland Koch, the prime minister of Germany's regional state of Hesse, as saying. Frankfurt Mayor Petra Roth called the EU proposal ''bureaucratic nonsense,'' according to the report.

The family filled its acres this year with apples, pumpkins and other crops reaching their peak during the fall. The most difficult part of the fall harvest is organizing the harvesting process with everyone involved, Steve Donaldson said. Although its location by the mountains can make moving around the orchards difficult, Benner said the location gives the Donaldson farm other advantages. Benner manages the farm's bookkeeping and ordering, while her brothers spend time in the field or...

The Fulton Street Farmers Market offers a wide array of local products ranging from fruits and vegetables to meat, eggs and honey and even some jewelry and handmade clothes. The Farmers Market has nearly as much variety as the local grocery store, minus those foods that traveled way too far a distance for the dignified person to consume. Walking down the long aisle of the market, one is surrounded on both sides by booths overflowing with colorful fruits and vegetables. The prices of...

Short supply and high demand have pushed up prices -- and profits -- for Michigan growers, who contribute $450 million a year to the state's agriculture economy. Farmers from states such as Ohio, Arkansas and Missouri who lost their apple crops to freeze and drought are buying fruit from Brown's 25-acre orchard. Even though the freeze, along with a midsummer drought, did reduce yields statewide, orchards managed to produce some luscious and profitable fruit, said Bob Tritten, an MSU...