Agriculture News
Farmland Access Bootcamp
Renewing the Countryside | Posted on January 13, 2019Securing 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. In this course you will craft a plan to help move you forward -- we'll cover resources for finding and assessing land, owning vs. leasing, and key considerations for planning your financing and structuring your business plan. Registration is $25 per farmer plus $10 for additional farm-partners or just $10 for members of Practical Farmers of Iowa. Participants will also be introduced to the Land Access Hub, an initiative created to help new farmers navigate the increasingly difficult process of finding affordable land to farm in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. The hub includes many partners working to provide new farmers with an integrated, supportive process to help them gain affordable and secure access to farmland. The hub offers workshops, day-long trainings, and no-cost, one-on-one coaching with farmland access navigators. Technical advisors include attorneys, real estate professionals, financial experts, and seasoned farmers.
Vegetable Crop Prices Are Frozen in Time
Growing Produce | Posted on January 10, 2019With 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. But an alarming 44.6% of you have seen either no price increase or, worse, lowered prices. These statistics should worry us all. Almost half of the industry — that 44.6% — faces going out of business, because that’s the logical outcome of no price increase over 10 years.
First case of PEDv discovered in Alberta
Meat & Poultry | Posted on January 9, 2019According 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. There are 735 hog farms registered in the province, according to Alberta Pork, and the emphasis of animal health officials in this or any PEDv outbreak is adherence to strict biosecurity practices to prevent the spread to other farms.
Drug resistance in animal farming could mean a fight against urban elites
Daily Yonder | Posted on January 9, 2019Farmers 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. But despite alarming concerns from the early 1960s and warnings that the issue of antimicrobial resistance could cross barriers between animal species, the problems of antimicrobial use in animal farming have for long been ignored by policy makers and the food industry.Yet when the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared in 2001 that antimicrobial resistance was a “global problem” for both humans and animals, the link between animal farming and human health could no longer be ignored.
China gives long-awaited GM crop approvals amid U.S. trade talks
Reuters | Posted on January 9, 2019China 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. The United States is the world’s biggest producer of GM crops, while China is the top importer of GM soybeans and canola.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.The United States is the world’s biggest producer of GM crops, while China is the top importer of GM soybeans and canola.
New Waters of the U.S. Rule From EPA
Farm Policy News | Posted on January 9, 2019Last 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. DTN writer Todd Neeley reported last month that, “EPA on [December 11th] released a newly proposed waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule that would erase many of the concerns farmers and ranchers had about the 2015 rule.Under the proposal, there would be just six categories of jurisdictional waters. That includes traditional navigable waters, tributaries, certain ditches that are navigable or affected by tide, lakes and ponds, impoundments, and wetlands that abut or are connected to waters of the United States.“The proposal lists waters that would not be regulated. That includes certain land features where water is present only as a result of heavy rainfalls, groundwater, most ditches, prior-converted croplands, storm water and wastewater features.”
USDA Report- Agricultural Conservation on Working Lands: Trends From 2004 to Present
Farm Policy News | Posted on January 9, 2019The 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. adoption of selected agricultural conservation practices that both reduce GHG [green house gas] emissions and provide additional environmental benefits.” Today’s update includes brief excerpts and highlights from both the report and fact sheet. The authors explained that, “Tracking every conservation practice is beyond the scope of this report; as a result, the scope was narrowed to track a subset of working-lands conservation practices producing a common benefit: reduced GHG emissions or increased carbon sequestration. Specifically, we included practices that were targeted as part of USDA’s Building Blocks for Climate- Smart Agriculture and Forestry initiative and narrowed those to practices for which survey data were available. Such practices include reduced tillage (mulch tillage and no tillage), nitrogen management, use of cover crops, use of precision agriculture technologies, and use of anaerobic digesters for manure, which generate GHG benefits by reducing emissions of nitrous oxide, methane, carbon dioxide, and/or increasing carbon sequestration.”The report stated that, “Application of nitrogen fertilizers to soils is the largest source of GHG emissions in agriculture. In 2015, it accounted for approximately 75 percent of N2O emissions and 3.8 percent of total emissions in the United States.”“Corn had the highest nitrogen per acre application rate and the highest percentage of applied acres of the three crops studied,” the report said.
Studying how conservation tillage impacts water quality
Farm and Dairy | Posted on January 9, 2019In 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. Vanni and his colleagues found that water quality responses were different during the first decade of the study (1994-2003) compared to the next (2004-2014). They also discovered that concentrations of suspended sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus each reacted differently.Levels of suspended sediment declined throughout the entire study period. However, the decline was much sharper in the first 10 years.Phosphorus and nitrogen levels had contrasting outcomes.“The concentration of dissolved phosphorus in the streams declined sharply during the first 10 years,” said Vanni. “But then, phosphorus levels increased over the next 10 years.”In contrast, nitrogen levels didn’t change much in the first 10 years. After that, they fell sharply.
Questionable changes in how ag research in land-grant universities is funded
Ag Policy | Posted on January 9, 2019While 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. Over time the purpose of the research grant was broadened to include all the various research departments that are associated with agricultural colleges.The current scope of this research touches every US resident. The funds granted to the states “shall be used to conduct original and other researches, investigations, and experiments bearing directly on and contributing to the establishment and maintenance of a permanent and effective agricultural industry of the United States, including researches basic to the problems of agriculture in its broadest aspects, and such investigations as have for their purpose the development and improvement of the rural home and rural life and the maximum contribution by agriculture to the welfare of the consumer, as may be deemed advisable, having due regard to the varying conditions and needs of the respective states”
Farmers for Free Trade pushing for trade progress
Brownfield | Posted on January 9, 2019The 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. “All matter of products are being taxed because of this trade war and we need to get that over and lifted.”Kuehl says Farmers for Free Trade would also like to see the administration focus on new trade deals.