News
Today’s agriculture headlines and expert perspectives serving farmers, ranchers, crop consultants, livestock nutritionists and the entire U.S. ag community.
When farmers face the creep of federal agency regulation, the game is consistently tilted in the bureaucracy’s favor, and although agricultural producers know the deck is stacked, most are unaware of the joker concealed in the government’s sleeve: Chevron deference.
Jay Hill approaches diversification and connects with customers in innovative ways
An OSU corn plant just set a world record for the most agricultural data gathered in farming history for a single plant across an entire growing season.
Wrangler launches a new kind of food-to-table initiative
Randy Dowdy says a gas line company is responsible for major topsoil losses on his record-breaking farmland.
In 2000, southwest Mississippi producer Rodney Burkley heard about a business venture gaining steam in multiple states: earthworms.
Edward Poitevent is at the mercy of an invisible frog. He has lost private property rights on 1,500 acres to a frog species that will never live on his land and doesn’t live in his state. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is shackled to a litany of odd cases, but Poitevent’s battle with a $34-million frog may rank as the most bizarre of the lot.
Lawsuits against farmers once were a rarity, but as civil suits stack up in farm country, today’s producer is often popularly perceived as a wealthy, land-rich businessman. Welcome to agriculture’s litigious age.
Crops don’t wait for irrigation, and now means now when it’s time to water. Solid end-of-season irrigation maintenance goes a long way in preventing problems the following crop year during crunch-time. Before the grip of winter sets in, checks and repairs are vital.
Send in the bots. Artificial intelligence is finding unbounded opportunity in agriculture. Aerial and ground drone combinations are hauling a host of possibility into all areas of farming.
Slugs are an accepted part of the bill for many agriculture operations, but as numbers rise, particularly in the Midwest, producers are reckoning with a new level of damage. A mild slug presence, sheltered by increasing no till acreage, can usher in a wave of replants, major yield loss and expensive bait control.
Bill Bader is the bell cow of dicamba drift litigation, with farmers in at least 10 states right behind him. How the cases will play out remains a matter of conjecture, but one fact is clear: Dicamba-related litigation has only just begun.
John Duarte’s five-year legal nightmare ended Aug. 15, with over $1 million in total penalties. Duarte couldn’t evade the iron hand of the Clean Water Act.
Numerous companies are pushing for elbow room at the ag data table, but long-term contracts may be cause for pause for many farmers.
Hair-raising accounts of snakebites are a painful reminder that farmland is often a haven for venomous snakes.
The eastern half of the U.S. is plagued by 50 million acres of fragipan soil. Light in color, fragipan often starts at 1’ to 2’ below the surface and roughly averages 2’ to 4’ in thickness.
Ryan Loflin bet the farm in 2013 and did what no U.S. producer had done for 70 years.
More weeds, less yield. Simple math. “We could have had more beans out there if we’d had better control of weeds,” Chip Flory says.
What Crop Tour years cling tightest to Chip Flory’s memory? Good, bad and unforgettable, Flory knows there is a meticulous method to the madness of Crop Tour.
Frank Forcella has designed a four-row organic grit blaster capable of obliterating weeds.
The promise of biotech mosquitoes grabs the headlines, but the same technology utilizing genetically engineered (GE) insects is being tested on U.S. farmland.
Mikey Taylor’s 110-acre block of cover crops has attracted pickers from multiple states and yielded a bounty of blessing.
The ratoon rice crop could be a near-total loss in Texas and Louisiana after the wrath of Hurricane Harvey subsides.
Just an hour and forty-fives south of the Iowa state line, 15-year-old Garrett Heil’s cotton is a testament to the determination of a remarkable farmer not old enough to qualify for a driver’s license. Heil has succeeded in producing cotton deep in the pocket of the Midwest.
Meet three farmers who are stepping back from a complete focus on bulk commodities and carving out personal brands to directly connect with consumers.
As is a written guarantee against GMO presence to protect non-GMO crop sales
Big cotton is in the harvest cards, according to USDA’s latest report. Low commodity prices for corn, grain sorghum and soybeans pulled in more cotton acreage in 2017, and the numbers are reflected in USDA’s latest estimates.