Guilford, Connecticut (CNN) — Tom Pinchbeck never dreamed he’d turn his family rose farm into an employment center for people with autism.

In 2008, faced with a sagging U.S. economy and fierce international competition from South American rose growers, Pinchbeck found himself priced out of the market. He had no choice but to do the unthinkable — close the farm started by his great-grandfather.

The historic flooding in the South is poised to wreak havoc on the economy at multiple levels, likely putting local farmhands out of work while contributing to the nationwide rise in food prices.

As the Mississippi River crests and the flooding spreads to Mississippi and Louisiana, the vital grain crops in the region are in peril. In some places, the floodwaters are swamping or bearing down on wheat that is almost ready for harvest and corn that has broken through the ground, as well as plantings of rice, soybeans and cotton.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — With wheat futures soaring to their highest level in two years, you could soon find yourself paying more for a loaf of bread at your local grocery store.

The price of wheat has surged more than 80% from its seven-month low in June. Prices continued to rally Thursday, surging to their highest level since August 2008, after Russia said it would ban grain exports until Dec. 1 due to a drought that has destroyed more than 20% of its wheat crop.

DOVER, N.H. — In 1632, John Tuttle arrived from England to a settlement near the Maine-New Hampshire border, using a small land grant from King Charles I to start a farm.

Eleven generations and 378 years later, his field-weary descendants — arthritic from picking fruits and vegetables and battered by competition from supermarkets and pick-it-yourself farms — are selling their spread, which is among the oldest continuously operated family farms in America.

Porter Holder vividly remembers the day in 1998 when he left a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan office in Oklahoma empty-handed.

He had applied for a low-interest USDA loan to help keep a farm in family ownership. He says he expected his application to be accepted. He had kept his debt at a minimum and developed a plan for supplementing his income. He believes he was turned down because he’s Native American, a member of the Choctaw tribe.

“The day I walked out of there, I knew why he denied me,” Holder said.

(CNN) — A multistate romaine lettuce recall because of fear of contamination with a potentially deadly bacteria has restaurants east of the Mississippi River scrambling to assure customers that their salad is safe.

At least two cases of the human swine influenza have been confirmed in Kansas and one more in California, bringing the U.S. total to 11 and stoking fears that the virus could trigger a pandemic.

At least eight students at a New York City high school probably have swine flu, but health officials said Saturday they don’t know whether they have the same strain of the virus that has killed scores of people in Mexico.

A strain of the flu has killed as many as 81 people and sickened more than 1,300 across Mexico. The World Health Organization chief said Saturday the strain has “pandemic potential” and it may be too late to contain a sudden outbreak.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese dairy firms that sold baby formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine will pay compensation to the families of nearly 300,000 children who were killed or sickened as a result, state media reported.

Twenty-two dairy producers will soon make one-off cash payments to the families, the Xinhua news agency cited the China Dairy Industry Association as saying on Saturday.

It did not disclose the size of the payments.

OZNAN, Poland (Reuters) – An ancient technique of plowing charred plants into the ground to revive soil may also trap greenhouse gases for thousands of years and forestall global warming, scientists said on Friday.

Heating plants such as farm waste or wood in airtight conditions produces a high-carbon substance called biochar, which can store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and enhance nutrients in the soil.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. Subsequently storing that carbon in the soil removes the gas from the atmosphere.