Ben Potter

Ben Potter writes about the many new on-farm technologies that make farmers better, faster, more efficient and more profitable. He has more than 9 years of experience writing for a cotton publication and an advertising agency serving agribusiness clients. This helped him build a strong foundation of agronomic and crop-protection knowledge for corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, peanuts and a variety of specialty crops. Ben attended both the University of Missouri (journalism) and the University of Memphis (technical writing). Ben’s grandparents were corn and soybean farmers, and his father was a soil scientist with the USDA. Away from work, Ben keeps busy with a broad range of activities, whether it’s long-distance running, growing habanero peppers or spending quality time with his wife and two daughters.

Latest Stories
It’s mere days from the 2016 presidential election, but that’s far from the only race on the ballot. And some of these down-ticket House of Representatives races are currently running neck-and-neck. Thanks to a pair of online resources, you can easily find out where all the close races are happening.
The Show-Me State is home to an abundance of resources, one of which has proven an underrated asset for USDA and its school food distribution costs. Can you guess what it is?
Nothing is constant but change, and USDA’s latest acreage reports served as a not-so-subtle reminder of that. Here are the states that saw the biggest “crop swaps” this year.
U.S. adults surveyed don’t always agree with the scientific consensus on certain topics, including the safety of GMOs, climate change causes and more.
Despite some legal hiccups, researchers had good success growing the crop.
Commodity prices may be down, but land prices remain on the rise, according to the latest USDA Land Values Summary.
The world’s soybean crop has grown by leaps and bounds since 1990, growing 231%. And “the U.S. and Brazil are in a neck-and-neck competition for the top spot,” according to ag economist David Widmar, writing for the Agricultural Economic Insights blog.
The next frontier of crop protection is a set of living, breathing bodyguards collectively known as biologicals.
The verdict was for “undisclosed and unreported sales” of MSMC’s soybean seed technologies. The group had also sued for unpaid and bounced royalty checks that were issued by AgBorn Genetics.
“Given prospects for high-priced soybeans and low-priced corn, the financial incentive to shift corn acres to soybeans has reached new highs,” according to Purdue ag economist Chris Hurt.