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Chris Bennett

Writing from the level land of the Delta just outside of Clarksdale, Miss., Bennett has blogged for several years on agriculture, surrounded by cotton and plenty of cottonmouths.

Latest Stories
Think truffles are an agricultural sideshow? A billion dollars in demand says otherwise.
Guesswork and irrigation are long-time farming partners, but it can be a happy-in-hell marriage. When to turn on the spigot? How much water to deliver? Every farm soaks and dries in isolation because one field’s irrigation recipe is another’s death sentence.
The evil twin of drought is drainage and both can cripple a crop in short time. When a river rises or a culvert backs up, water can sit on farmland for weeks and prevent planting and harvest, or simply kill crops mid-season. Time to saddle a Water Hog beast and pump directly through a levee.
Pirates are stealing billions during the exchange of U.S. agriculture goods, and pumping the wares right back onto American department store shelves. But CSI is ready to take on agriculture crime.
The single-row tractor is back and about to roll across a machinery graveyard. The first American-owned factory on Cuban soil in 55 years will manufacture single-row tractors.
The promise of precision agriculture to find the sweet spot between hardware and agronomics, under the banner of simplicity, hasn’t arrived.
Cooperation between agriculture and archaeology vital to preserve American Indian history
Sticking GMO science on the back shelf carries the highest consequences. As millions of children go blind and die due each year due to vitamin A deficiency, opponents of Golden Rice whistle past the graveyard.
Invasive fire ants, six-legged devils barely an eighth of an inch long, are a scourge to farming and livestock production. Keep the granule bait close, and the Benadryl closer.
Guesswork is a bedfellow of loss.