Agriculture News
Trump’s war on NAFTA is already taking a heavy toll on U.S. farmer
Think Progress | Posted on February 27, 2018President Trump’s relentless crusade against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is already creating trouble for a community the White House has long purported to champion: U.S. farmers. exclusive report from Reuters published on Thursday indicates that Mexican buyers are following through on their threats to shift away from U.S. suppliers. According to data from Mexico’s Agrifood and Fishery Information Service (SIAP), purchasers in the country imported ten times more corn from Brazil in 2017 — 583,000 metric tonnes, a 970 percent increase from 2016 — all purchases made in the last four months of the year. That trend is on track to continue in 2018, with severe implications for the United States. Mexico is the top importer of U.S. corn and second biggest buyer of U.S. soybeans, making the country a crucial trade partner. But as negotiations over NAFTA have soured, Mexico has increasingly looked to South America instead.
Washington budget-writers smile on hemp
Capital Press | Posted on February 27, 2018Washington lawmakers appear willing to throw a lifeline to the state Department of Agriculture’s hemp program. House and Senate budget proposals released this week allocated funds to resume issuing and renewing licenses to grow and process hemp. WSDA suspended processing applications late last year because it ran out of money.
2017 dairy exports highest in three years
Capital Press | Posted on February 27, 2018Strong overseas demand for milk powder, whey and cheese led the way for a 14 percent jump in U.S. dairy exports last year.
Meter deadline approaches for Idaho groundwater pumpers
Capital Press | Posted on February 27, 2018roundwater pumpers have until April 1 to have an approved flow meter installed on their wells. Dairies were required to comply by Jan. 1. Those qualifying for a variance must have an approved variance on record.
The Milk Flows, But Dairy Business is Drying Up
edairynews | Posted on February 27, 2018Dairy farmers have always dealt with big swings in milk prices. But now that that swing is hovering at some of the lowest prices per hundredweight since 2006. The USDA’s mid-January report predicted prices to fall to under $16 per hundredweight in February and beyond, a far cry from 2014 milk prices which exceeded $24 per 100 lbs. The underlying facts behind the price decline include an oversupply of milk in the United States and the closing or shrinking of what were reliable export markets a year ago. Additionally, the record prices of last year prompted a lot of farmers to add more cows, and U.S. milk production rose 4 percent — while U.S. consumption of milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream has remained more or less steady.
Norwegian company to build large, land-based salmon farm in Maine
Portland Press Herald | Posted on February 27, 2018Norwegian company plans to build one of the world’s largest land-based salmon farms in Belfast, a project that would create 60 jobs within two years and up to 140 once it is completed, according to the company’s chief executive officer. Nordic Aquafarms, an international developer of land-based aquaculture, has signed agreements to purchase 40 acres on the outskirts of the city and plans an initial investment of $150 million in the project. The company is currently building the largest salmon farm in Europe, but Heim said that facility would be dwarfed by the one planned for Belfast, which would be roughly five times the size.
With sales falling, pork rebrands in quest for bigger slice of the market
Omaha World Herald | Posted on February 26, 2018You remember the old ad campaign “Pork. The Other White Meat,” right?A lot of people do. For the pork industry, that’s a problem.The best-tasting pork chops, it turns out, aren’t the really pale, lean ones. They’re a darker pink color, marbled with fat.The famous ad campaign, launched in the low-fat ’80s by Omaha-born advertising firm Bozell, did almost too good of a job positioning pork as a lean meat, industry leaders now say.The fact that consumers still seek out whiter cuts — and then tend to overcook them into dry, white hockey pucks — contributes to falling sales of fresh pork among today’s flavor-seeking consumers. Of particular concern is consumer lack of interest in the pork chop. A slice of the pork loin, the pork chop ought to be a star, the way a steak is tops with beef.
To Stay on the Land, American Farmers Add Extra Jobs
The Wall Street Journal | Posted on February 26, 2018Craig Myhre, a farmer in western Wisconsin, is trying to make a living off 600 acres of crops and a small herd of beef cattle. He also hires himself out to harvest other farmers’ fields, earning money to make payments on his combine. It’s still tough to make ends meet, despite putting in 12- to 16-hour days. In 2015, he added yet another job, as a mail carrier.“We’re constantly doing something around here to keep things moving,” said Mr. Myhre, who is 50 years old. His wife is a physician’s assistant, and sometimes climbs into the seat of a combine herself. Sometimes, that means missing his sons’ high-school football games, and staying home while friends in town take vacations. “I struggle to pay myself sometimes,” he said. Most U.S. farm households can’t solely rely on farm income, turning what was once a way of life into a part-time job. On average, 82% of U.S. farm household income is expected to come from off-farm work this year, up from 53% in 1960, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Last week, the USDA said income from farming is expected to fall further over the next decade. Now, picking up work in construction or truck driving is required for many farmers to fund seed and fertilizer purchases, and keep current on loan payments for tractors and land.
President's budget eliminates working lands program
Des Moines Register | Posted on February 22, 2018Last week, our federal government made a sobering statement: It proposed to eliminate the nation’s largest working lands conservation program, the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). This was done as part of the president’s larger budget, an annual, lengthy set of proposals to Congress; the latest was released last week. Although the decision to preserve CSP ultimately lies at the feet of Congress, it is deeply troubling that the agency tasked with administering the program has publicly proposed to eliminate it. For those who are new to this debate: CSP provides an important support for our farmers to enact soil and water conservation practices on their land, which is particularly valuable during a time of low commodity prices. CSP is a voluntary working lands program. “Voluntary” means farmers can opt in. “Working lands” means that, unlike with its older cousin the Conservation Reserve Program, farmers enrolled in CSP can continue to produce on their land. Both of these traits lend to CSP’s appeal to farmers. CSP is also comprehensive. In enrolling, farmers have the valuable opportunity to step back and work out how to increase conservation on their whole operation – and then, work with a government conservation professional to figure out how to make that happen. Once enrolled in a five-year contract, farmers adopt a suite of conservation practices tailored to fit both their farm and their previous experience with conservation. These practices range from planting cover crops to rotational grazing of livestock to adopting precision pesticide application.
Noble plans to develop ecosystem market program
DTN | Posted on February 22, 2018The Oklahoma-based Noble Research Institute announced Wednesday that the group will work to create a new environmental services trading platform for agriculture to bring together both carbon-sequestration and water trading goals. Noble has brought together a small cadre of conservationists that have been working on carbon trading or water-quality trading concepts over the last several years. The Noble Foundation challenged those conservationists to look at the various attempts at similar projects and develop a new platform that would allow for both carbon and water trading together, said Bruce Knight, a former USDA undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs under the last Bush administration.Later this week Noble will issue a request for proposals to develop a protocol and business platform. Ideally the project will be testing the protocols and strategies later in the summer. Each segment of a protocol needs quantification and verification. "These are not small tasks and things need to be done carefully and methodically to make them function in a way that willing buyers and sellers can come together for a transaction," Knight said.