News from rural America.

Farmers are being squeezed by trade wars and the government shutdown, ICE tactics have alarmed a small Southwest Colorado community where agents used tear gas to subdue local protestors and aquatic critters help Texans protect their water.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

Trade wars and the long government shutdown are hitting farmers hard.

Tariffs on China crashed the price of soybeans when the largest US export market retaliated by turning to other suppliers.

China may reverse that move, but the import taxes are still raising the cost of inputs like fertilizer at a time when commodity prices were already collapsing.

Jesse Womack is with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

We are watching a lot of our leaders in this country totally ignore how difficult producers have it right now, really neglect their duty to make tools and services readily available and easy to use.

Iowa grain and livestock farmer Wendy Johnson usually visits her local USDA office this time of year to verify her land conservation contract and get paid.

But the shutdowns closed that office, and Johnson says there are thousands of farmers caught in the same vice.

When you're removing those kosher opportunities while simultaneously putting tariffs into place, they're asking for an explosion.

The fate of two young children remains unknown after they and their father were detained by ICE in rural Southwest Colorado.

Alana Newman reports.

Fernando Jaramillo Solano was driving his 12 and 14 year old children to school last month when immigration agents took them all into custody, mistaking the man for someone else.

The family's from Columbia, but has stayed here with a pending asylum claim.

Overnight, a crowd that included Ellie Miller gathered to protest outside the ICE facility.

As she explained her reasons for participating, there were cries of people calling for the family's release.

It's important because due process is being ignored, a bunch of constitutional rights are being ignored.

As ICE agents prepare to move them to detention in Texas, Miller says federal agents used force and chemical agents to subdue the crowd.

I don't want to see any kids taken away from their families and sent to who knows where.

The father's not accused of any crimes.

I'm Alana Newman.

From the Austin blind salamander to the toothless blind cat, aquatic species help keep Texas water safe.

The seven at-risk critters have thin, absorbent skin, making them sensitive to environmental changes that alert scientists to potential ecosystem problems.

Azealia Rodriguez-Veith, with Defenders of Wildlife, calls them the Texas Treasures. so to speak, like an environmental barometer or like the canary in the coal mine.

Human population growth has pushed them close to extinction, but Rodriguez-Wies' group still regularly uses them to check the health of water bodies, sending the findings to state environmental officials.

So they have a set standard of where it should be at, what is considered quote unquote the normacy of water quality.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.