Agriculture

Securing land to farm can be an enormous stumbling block for new farmers -- get a leg up on your search with this in-depth course. The Farmland Access Bootcamp will provide beginning farmers with a comprehensive overview of land access strategies, tools and resources and help them plan their next steps towards land tenure. The day-long session is designed for farmers with 10 or less years of experience, who are ready to begin or are actively searching for land or are working to change their current land situation. [node:read-more:link]

With inflation alone, crop prices should have increased by 17.5% since 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s important to understand that price increases due to inflation don’t equal growth. It’s merely a price floating up with the rest of the economy. Healthy businesses increase their prices at a faster pace than inflation in order to re-invest in the company and build cash reserves. But that’s not what you reported happened in the vegetable industry. A small percentage — 27.2% — say your crop prices are more than 10% higher than they were 10 years ago. [node:read-more:link]

According to a Jan. 8 disease notification from Alberta Pork, a case of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) was confirmed in the province at a 400-head hog farm. Officials with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry and Alberta Pork are investigating the cause of the outbreak and working to prevent the spread of the contagious disease, but according to reports, no quarantine boundaries have been established. While the disease can cause 100 percent mortality among young pigs, it is not considered a threat to human health or food safety. [node:read-more:link]

Farmers are more than technicians who merely implement the "best practices" that are defined in the lab or in the boardroom. If we want food policy that works, farmers have to have a place at the table. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been framed as one of the biggest threats to humanity in the 21st century. By 2050, more humans could die because of AMR than cancer. [node:read-more:link]

China approved five genetically modified (GM) crops for import on Tuesday, the first in about 18 months in a move that could boost its overseas grains purchases and ease pressure from the United States to open its markets to more farm goods. [node:read-more:link]

Last month, on the same day that the Senate passed the Farm Bill Conference Report, and a day before the House took similar action, the Trump Administration released a new proposed waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule.  Today’s update highlights news items that focused on the new proposal. [node:read-more:link]

The USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist (OCE) recently released a report title, “Agricultural Conservation on Working Lands: Trends From 2004 to Present.”  A fact sheet that accompanied the report explained that, “The first step toward increasing adoption of conservation practices is to establish a baseline of current adoption rates;” and added that the report, “uses survey data to track U.S. [node:read-more:link]

In the early 1990s, Acton Lake in southwestern Ohio had a muddy problem. Large amounts of sediment from nearby farms were entering the lake’s watershed. These sediments traveled through streams draining the landscape and were filling up the lake. So, the USDA gave local farmers incentives to change some of their farming practices.One of these practices was conservation tillage, which can reduce sediment runoff. A new study examines how the switch to conservation tillage has impacted Acton Lake over the past decades. [node:read-more:link]

While funding for agricultural commodity programs and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program captures most of the attention during the development of and wrangling over the budget for the farm bill, this column is focused on the funding for agricultural research that is primarily carried out through the Land-Grant University and College system. The Hatch Act of 1887 was approved by Congress to provide funding for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations by each of the state land-grant institutions. The initial focus was focused on soil fertility and plant growth. [node:read-more:link]

The executive director of Farmers for Free Trade says he is hopeful farmers will see trade progress in the new year. Brian Kuehl says the recent trade truce with China is a start…“We’d like to see the trade war with China wrapped up,” he says. “We need to get back into the business of trading- China’s our biggest trading partner.”But, he tells Brownfield the tariffs on Canada and Mexico still need to be addressed.“We still have these steel tariffs in place which means they’re still retaliating against our agricultural products- cheese, pork, and processed foods,” he says. [node:read-more:link]