Latest News From Coronavirus

The commodity markets came under pressure to start the week as traders tried to shed risk over shipping concerns in China as COVID-19 concerns caused officials to shut down transportation amid a two-pronged lockdown.

The pandemic is now old enough to talk, and it’s telling us things about our actions and choices that suggest an unfamiliar future.

A red zone is defined by the White House as an area with 100 or more new infections over a one-week period. The good news is the rate of new cases is dropping, says Alan Morgan, CEO, National Rural Health Association.

If international trade were an Olympic sport, then the U.S. would have lost this latest round of competition by more than a mile.

Rural communities are likely to see an outbreak of the COVID-19 variant omicron later than big cities but Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci says the pandemic will eventually end.

Small, rural hospitals are struggling to keep, find or hire staff as the omicron variant begins its push across rural America. Rural healthcare advocates say it's already creating an unsafe situation.

More than 60 ag groups telling the Biden Administration on Monday the nearly 7,000 South African farm workers should be exempted from restrictions related to the Omicron variant. 

USDA said late last week it’s not approving a vaccine mandate exemption for Farm Service Agency (FSA) employees, and now there are fears the next shortage farmers will face will be with FSA local field staff.

Supply chain issues are becoming one of the biggest concerns for agriculture, and some economists say as the bottlenecks reach a critical point, it could take at least a year to remedy chaos in the global supply chain.

Dr. Bechara Choucair, White House vaccination coordinator, joins AgriTalk’s Chip Flory to discuss Full FDA approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for people 16 years old and older.

The National Restaurant Association says wholesale food prices remain on track to post their largest annual increase since 2014.

When China first started imposing lockdowns on major cities to curb the spread of COVID-19, supply chains for food produce were disrupted, leading to shortages, crop spoilage and food security concerns.

“We know rural areas are different from urban areas, people are more spread out, it's not always as easy to travel to one location that's close to everyone to get a vaccine," Dr. Murthy says.

From fresh produce being plowed under to unharvested crops sitting untouched in fields, fruit and vegetable growers are the latest agriculture sector facing fallout from COVID-19.

Three trends are currently underway in the countryside.

The restaurant shutdown due to COVID19 has thus plugged the major consumption channel for potatoes. John Phipps explains the potato paradox in John's World.