Specialty Crops

USDA Says Details On $1 Billion Specialty Crop Aid Payments Expected Within Weeks

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 21:50:52 GMT

Specialty crop producers are likely just weeks away from learning how much support they’ll receive from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s $1 billion aid package , as officials work through final acreage data needed to calculate payments.

In an interview with Farm Journal, Richard Fordyce said the timeline for details depends on information gathered through the recently closed acreage reporting period.

“We’ve reached the acreage reporting signup deadline, and now we need to understand the full universe of acres,” Fordyce says. “Once we have that, we can move quickly into developing payment rates per acre by crop.”

Fordyce indicated producers could see an announcement soon.

“I would expect that we’ll have an announcement in a couple of weeks, hopefully,” he says. “It may be a little longer than that, but we’ve got some math to do and we want to make sure we get that right.”

Acreage Data Drives Payment Rates

The reporting deadline Fordyce referenced was extended by U.S. Department of Agriculture earlier this spring to ensure more producers could participate in the Assistance for Specialty Crop Farmers (ASCF) program.

According to Farm Service Agency (FSA), the acreage reporting window for 2025 specialty crops was reopened and ultimately closed April 24, 2026. The additional time was intended to capture a more complete picture of planted acres nationwide—data that will now be used to set commodity-specific payment rates.

Those payments will be based directly on reported 2025 planted acres, making accuracy in reporting a critical step in determining how the $1 billion in aid is distributed.

Program Aims to Offset Market Pressures

The ASCF program, announced by Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins in February, is designed to help producers weather a range of economic challenges. These include market disruptions, rising input costs, persistent inflation and increased competition from foreign suppliers engaging in unfair trade practices.

Authorized under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, the program covers a wide array of specialty crops, from almonds, apples and berries to vegetables like broccoli, lettuce and tomatoes, as well as nuts and other high-value crops.

However, not all crops qualify. Dry edible beans and peas covered under separate assistance programs are excluded from ASCF eligibility.

What Happens Next

With acreage reporting now complete, USDA officials are focused on translating that data into per-acre payment rates across dozens of eligible crops, a process Fordyce acknowledged is complex given the diversity of the sector.

“There’s a lot of crops when we start talking about that specialty crop category,” he says.

Once payment rates are finalized, USDA is expected to open the application period. In the meantime, producers are encouraged to prepare by setting up accounts through Login.gov, which will allow for faster application processing when signups begin. Applications will also be available through local FSA county offices.

While crop insurance is not required to participate in ASCF, USDA is encouraging producers to consider risk management tools available under recent legislation to help guard against future price volatility.

For now, all eyes are on USDA’s forthcoming announcement, which will determine how the $1 billion in aid is allocated across the specialty crop sector.

Where Could Farmers Spend Bridge Assistance Payment Dollars?

Tue, 06 Jan 2026 20:18:56 GMT

With USDA’s and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ Dec. 31 announcement detailing rates for Farmer Bridge Assistance Program payments , set to be distributed by Feb. 28, there’s the matter of how farmers will spend the funds.

“If we look at it as a share of revenue, it looks around 5% to 20% for different farms. So, it’s meaningful, it’s something, but it might not necessarily change the picture for all of the farmers,” says Wes Davis, chief ag economist at Meridian Agribusiness Advisors.

Davis estimates the payment rate per acre for corn is about $0.25 per bushel and $0.62 per bushel for soybeans.

Per the Purdue/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer earlier this fall, when asked how they’d spend potential government payments, 53% of farmers said they would use the money to pay down debt.

(Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture)

“Farmers are getting that debt off their books and concentrating on reducing their payment rates,” Davis says.

This, he adds, is supported by data from the Kansas City Federal Reserve indicating a growing segment of farmers selling mid-to-long-term assets to improve working capital or pay down debt.

(KC Federal Reserve Bank)

One-quarter said the money would go toward improving working capital.

“So, farmers may have more funding available to spend on inputs as the spring buying season starts,” Davis says.

From Farm Journal research, 75% to 80% of farmers have input decisions made by the end of February, when farmers expect to receive bridge program payments. Davis says this means the program won’t have substantial changes in seed or fertilizer purchases but will most likely have an effect on crop protection purchases.

From the Purdue research 12% and 11% of farmers, respectively, said it could be used to invest in machinery and cover family expenses.

Respondents in the latest Farm Journal Ag Economist Monthly Monitor warn the payments may help with short-term cash flow, but could delay market adjustments.

“Payments will prolong high input costs and land values,” one respondent said.

When economists in the Farm Journal Monitor were asked if they expect the Farmer Bridge Payments to sufficiently cover financial losses experienced by farmers in 2025:

54% said the payments are “partially suﬃcient , the aid will cover some but not all losses.”
38% said, “The aid will be insuﬃcient to cover losses.”

When followed-up with, “What impact, if any, do you expect the bridge payments to have,” economists said:

May help pay down current operating loans for some and for others, help get a start on 2026 inputs
All players in the farm supply chain know about the payments and will know the exact payment rates. The payments will prolong high input costs and land values/rental rates. Any adjustments that should occur from an economic perspective are delayed because of the cash influx.
Support cash rent and land values
The payments will help producers with short-run cash flow issues. They will not help encourage needed adjustments in rental rates and other production expenses.
They will help pay down debt for most producers, providing a much needed boost the the agricultural lending sector.
It will help the younger producers that don’t have the capacity to roll operating loans, but many of the dollars will flow-through to input suppliers. That delays what should be a downside correction in input prices.

“A lot of this money — half of it — is just going to be a simple pass-through,” Davis says. “So, farmers have already spent it on that debt; they’re going to use it to pay down those balances. It might actually reduce the amount of interest payments that farmers have over the next season, but for it to pass through and increase the spending on some of their inputs or equipment or potentially land, that’s not really showing up in the data that we’re seeing, and farmers are not telling us that’s what they’re going to go and use the funding for.”

The bridge program is an economic assistance program, not a tariff relief program.

Seth Meyer, the former USDA chief economist and now director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri. explains the intent behind the $11 billion in farmer bridge payments that were announced late in 2025: they weren’t designed to offset trade losses, but to bridge producers to the point where long-standing safety nets take effect.

“These were calculated based on shortfalls in cost of production, not trade impacts,” he tells Farm Journal. “If this is going to be a bridge payment, it needs to be quick. That’s why an ECAP-style approach made sense, it could be administered fast.”

Davis says is an important distinction.

“If you look at the last trade war that we had, there were payments, and they were directly tied to the price impact and the actual damage that was done to farm prices,” he says. “Potentially, it leaves some options open for the administration to add funding that does supplement those prices. We’ve heard chatter over time that there may be another round of payments or funding available over the next year. I think that leaves the window open for trade relief if this is positioned as economic relief, with inputs staying well above the level that they were even five years ago.”

One big question remains.

It’s how the program will support specialty growers. USDA announced an additional $1 billion for specialty crop growers, but further details on timing and eligibility have not been released.

“Analysis from the American Farm Bureau showed almost every single major specialty crop is in the red by 1x to 2x what they have been historically,” Davis says. “Figuring out how that payment will be distributed to those growers will be really important.”

AFBF notes specialty crops account for more than one-third of U.S. crop sales: $75 billion.

Meyer also acknowledges a smaller $1 billion pool for specialty crops and sugar poses challenges: “With the diversity in specialty crop areas, it’s much more complicated to implement, how do you cover all of that efficiently?”

New Crop Insurance Company Leverages Data to Help Growers Better Understand Risk

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 21:57:59 GMT

Andrew Burdock, CEO of Insure.ag, says he saw a strong need for specialty crop growers to have data to make better decisions on the amount of risk they undertake with a crop insurance policy. Burdock, a co-founder of Aerobotics, which uses drone and phone imagery to provide farming insights, says he also saw this need as crop insurance adjusters used Aerobotics’ insights to gain better data.

“We saw a real opportunity to, instead of doing the inspections and doing essentially audits for crop insurance companies, we could go back to our core, which was working with growers — and instead of using this data for the audits, use it for the grower to set up this crop insurance policy,” he says. “Because what we’re seeing was a lot of these numbers in these crop insurance policies were incorrect.”

Burdock says that growers might take a policy out for 1,000 acres, but there might be declining trees, pump houses, wells or missing trees that would impact claims.

“A lot of these guys had 100% stand in their policies,” he says. “It was leading to issues when a claim came around and the adjuster came out, and then there was an argument about what was in the policy upfront. We saw an opportunity, really, to become a crop insurance broker using our data to help growers put the policies together.”

Burdock says this is what started Aerobotics Crop Insurance Solutions (ACIS), which Burdock has now purchased and spun off into its own entity, Insure.ag.

“We built up quite a significant customer base there, and we’ve really helped mainly large growing groups where the guys have got 20,000 acres — very difficult to manage that crop insurance policy,” he says. We’ve always really wanted to grow this thing out. I think we’ve piloted pretty much well inside Aerobotics and it came to a point where we needed to grow the team and really like take this thing to the next level. Over the past year, I’ve been out trying to raise capital to purchase the crop insurance business out of a robotics and spin it out into its own separate entity.”

Burdock says Insure.ag will use data from Aerobotics and CropGuard to help provide growers with a better understanding of historical trends and future projections for better policies. He says growers often struggle to find the optimal coverage for both farm economics as well as potential risk.

“We have partnered with a company called CropGuard that has built technology to solve for this,” he says. “They’ve got technology that uses AI and goes and looks at historicals for your crop type in your county and also predicts how the future is going to turn out. It does a 10-year forecast analysis of different outcomes and then predicts where it thinks you would have the best bang for your buck on your crop insurance spend.”

Burdock says he wants to bring the insights from Aerobotics and CropGuard together to provide a differentiated experience for growers to help them optimize coverage, reduce waste and mitigate claim risks.

“We’ll provide the contents and inventory for your policy, make sure that’s 100% right and dialed in and no issues when it comes to claims,” he says. “And No. 2, we will help you make the best decision you can in terms of how much money should you spend on your crop insurance so that you get the best return over the next 10 years on that spend.”

Burdock says his team at Insure.ag continues to grow, and while he wants to make sure to provide great service, he wants to make sure that growers have access to the type of technology that can help ease the struggles of purchasing crop protection insurance.

“I think you really need to be leveraging technology to make sure that you know you’re adding more value,” he says. “It’s a significant investment for insurance for these growing groups and to make sure that that investment is protected and is spent wisely.”

John Deere Layoffs Continue Amid Sales Downturn, 142 Iowa Employees Notified

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 22:38:28 GMT

Farm equipment giant John Deere has confirmed it is laying off 101 employees at its Waterloo Operations (last day on October 17) and 41 employees at the Des Moines Works (October 31) plant, according to an official statement emailed to Farm Journal.

It is a little over a month since the last round of layoffs , which affected over 200 employees across factories located in the Quad Cities region of western Illinois and eastern Iowa.

Deere says in the statement: “Production schedules at each John Deere factory vary to align with seasonal farming needs. When fewer orders come in, each factory adjusts accordingly.”

Despite the layoffs and an overall tough farm economy that some think will stretch well into 2026, Deere still intends on moving forward with its $20 billion investment strategy here in the U.S., according to the statement.

During John Deere’s earnings call in August, the company issued a warning that tariff costs could total $600 million for fiscal year 2025. The company’s share price dipped 6% immediately following that call. Deere’s net income for Q3 also sank 26%, and its total net sales decreased by 9% compared to Q3 in 2024.

At the beginning of August, John Deere addressed long-standing Right To Repair concerns with a new digital diagnosis and repair product for John Deere machines and Hagie STS high-clearance sprayers. That tool costs $195 per tractor for farmers and $5,995 per year for independent service technicians.

And in May, Deere acquired Minneapolis-based drone and sensor provider Sentera . Financial terms for that deal have not been disclosed.

John Deere also just dropped a new commercial featuring injured San Francisco 49ers quarterback and Iowa State Cyclone Brock Purdy cooking meals for farmers with tractor influencer @JustAJacksonThing. You can check that out below.

Additional Information

Deere shares the following bullet points regarding compensation benefits available to laid off employees:

Affected employees are eligible to be recalled to their home factory for a period equal to their length of service. Those laid off are automatically placed in seniority order for openings they are qualified to perform at the factory.
Weekly supplemental unemployment benefit (SUB pay), dependent on number of years of continuous employment.
Transitional Assistance Benefit (TAB) pay, which may cover up to 50% of their average weekly earnings for up to 52 weeks. 
Profit sharing, calculated based on hours worked, average earnings and the company’s profit margin.

Healthcare benefits employees can receive during a layoff include: 

Employees can keep healthcare coverage for at least six months, or as long as they are eligible for SUB pay.
Weekly Indemnity (WI): Employees who become disabled while on layoff can get WI benefits for the same duration as their SUB pay.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP): Employees and their household members can access EAP services for the duration of their recall rights. EAP provides up to eight sessions of in-person or virtual therapy per year.

Other benefits laid-off employees may receive include: 

Life insurance
Legal assistance
Tuition reimbursement and job-placement assistance.

Your next read: Why a Farmer on the Brink of Suicide Chose to Keep Going

Machinery Debuts: Can-Am Model Year 2026 ATV Fleet; New Holland Round Baler, Utility Tractors

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 18:54:30 GMT

Can-Am’s Model Year 2026 ATV lineup includes:

the Can-Am Outlander Electric
the rugged Outlander MAX 6x6
the industry’s first semi-active suspension ATV
the Maverick R X rc, and an updated Maverick X3 platform

(Can-Am)

Can-Am says its 2026 Outlander Electric (shown above) is powered by the modular Rotax E-Power powerpack, delivering 47 hp and 53 ft.-lb. of torque with up to 50 miles of range (in optimal conditions). The all-electric ATV model also features instant throttle response, selectable ride modes — normal, sport, work — and charges from 20% to 80% in just 50 minutes.

(Can-Am)

Can-Am’s Outlander MAX 6x6 (shown above) is engineered to work harder with six-wheel traction, a robust chassis and powerful Rotax engine packages. The Outlander MAX 6x6 is now the hardest-working ATV in the Can-Am lineup.

For the first time in the ATV industry, Can-Am is introducing semi-active suspension. Available on 2026 Can-Am Outlander XT-P and MAX Limited packages, the Smart-Shox technology electronically adjusts the compression and rebound settings of the shocks to the terrain on the fly, Can-Am says.

(Can-Am)

And finally, the 240-horsepower Can-Am Maverick R is being updated for model year 2026. The new Maverick R X rc brings purpose-built, rock-crawling performance to the Maverick R platform, Can-Am says. The X rc package includes rock-crawling-specific features like an extra low gear range and ROCK mode for the Smart-Lok differential.

To dive into all the details on Can-Am’s Model Year 2026 ATV lineup head to Can-Am.BRP.com .

New Holland intros Roll-Belt 1 Series variable chamber round balers, two PowerStar Electro Command utility tractors

(New Holland)

New for model year 2026, New Holland introduces three updated Roll-Belt 1 Series models designed to work smarter, bale faster and ensure producers stay connected.

New Holland says feeding performance gets a boost with its Roll-Belt 451, 461 and 561 models. A newly designed single roller windguard now comes standard on all OSF (OverShot Feeder) pickup models. And a larger 8.4" roller — 60% larger in diameter than its predecessor — helps better compress the crop mat and improve feeding into the chamber.

For those baling larger windrows, a new dual roller windguard is available as an upgrade option on the 561 model. The front and rear rollers pivot independently, providing adaptive control in variable crop and ground conditions. Operators can also lock both rollers together when compressing loose or fluffy windrows.

And for the tractor segment, New Holland North America has unveiled its all-new PowerStar Electro Command utility machines.

(New Holland)

New Holland says the new models deliver serious performance in utility-sized footprints. Rated at 110 hp and 120 hp, with PTO horsepower of 85 and 99, the new machines are suitable for crop, dairy and general livestock operations as well as hay and light field work.

With a rear lift capacity of more than 10,000 lb., the Electro Command has nearly double the rear lift capacity compared to other PowerStar tractors and utility tractors available on the market.

New Holland says the two tractors feature 21-gal.-per-min. (80 L/min.) load-sensing hydraulic pumps that deliver targeted power and all PowerStar Electro Command machines can be equipped with a CNH loader.

The update that New Holland says truly sets the PowerStar Electro Command apart is its 16x16 semi-powershift transmission. Unlike the traditional 12x12 transmission or Dual Command’s high/low split, this allows clutchless shifts between key ranges (A/B and C/D) and includes up to eight automatic gear shifts.

For more information, visit agriculture.newholland.com/en-us/nar or contact your local New Holland dealer.

Your Next Read: Sorbe To Lead PTx, Farmall Tractors And Case IH Round Baler, Claas Jaguar Forage Choppers

Why Used Specialty Machinery Is Trending Right Now

Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:56:35 GMT

Right now is the time to sell used hay equipment and versatile loader tractors at auction. That’s because farmer interest in both of those machine segments has likely hit its ceiling for the year, according to a recent episode of the “Moving Iron” podcast.

Another trend in the market is spiking farmer demand for economically priced machines.

“You’re looking at that $50,000 to $150,000 [range], that’s like the peak thing right now,” says Casey Seymour, host of the podcast. ”And you know, if you look at the cattle side of the business, there’s a lot of cash out there right now and a lot of things moving.”

With fall auction season right around the corner, Machinery Pete thinks dealers should monitor the volume of units that flow into the auction world, because he thinks the used market can go either way at this point.

“I wonder if there’s going to be some dealers that wish they would have sold at the end of the first quarter, or early second quarter,” Pete says. “We’ll see how the market holds up for the rest of the summer here.”

Seymour expects we’ll see a lot of auctions booked for November and December, and Pete agrees.

“Q4 has been an optimal time since 2003 or 2004 basically, with the Bush tax cuts that happened so long ago,” Pete says. “Last year was only the second year I saw a dip in the fourth quarter, and the only reason it dipped was sheer volume. That’s why I still think it pays to steer clear of when everybody else is selling.”

And all of you classic tractor fans out there will just love this fun little story that Machinery Pete shared on Facebook:

The rest of the episode

Rich Posson, business cycles analyst, Critical Point, joins the podcast to talk about implications of a recent Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation report and Federal Reserve meeting.

“The CPI came out at 2.7% this morning annualized, and that was shocking to Wall Street. First they bought and then sold, and now they’re back buying today under the idea that it’s lower than what we thought – therefore lower interest rates are coming,” he says. “But that 2.7% was actually unchanged (from last month). Years ago I learned from watching USDA data that when the government gives you an unchanged number, it basically means they don’t know what to do next.”

Aaron Fintel, used equipment specialist, 21^st Century Equipment, also joins this week to talk about how unique, specialty used farm equipment, like sugar beet harvesters, dry bean Pickett headers and hay steamers, are all “right on the cusp” of taking off on the High Plains.

“My biggest thing with keeping machinery moving is ‘Lot Rot’. On the sugar beet equipment, that’s the beauty – it’s nonexistent,” Fintel says. “In that specialty equipment (market) it’s pretty much ‘We’re upgrading to get bigger.’ or ‘We’re upgrading because we have to.’ That’s a world where a bigger percentage of your trade-ins are past their (useful) life.”

Head over to YouTube to watch the full episode. Hit the “Thumbs Up” button to “Like” the video and click on the “Subscribe” button to get a notification when a new episode drops.

Your Next Read: EPA Rolls Out Streamlined Diesel Engine Fluid Guidelines

Spray Drone Season Hits Full Throttle: 3 Service Providers Flying Acres and Boosting Yields

Tue, 29 Jul 2025 18:15:49 GMT

Nebraska native Andy Kreikemeier’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing all week, and it won’t go silent anytime soon.

That’s because his former hobby and volunteer side hustle, flying drones for the county emergency response team, transformed into a full-time gig as a spray drone operator. Kreikemeier is one-third of a team of spray drone pilots with business partners Brett Scheiding and Brad Eisenhauer. Together, the three local volunteer firefighters started Infinity Precision Ag, a custom drone application service provider in southeast Nebraska.

The Infinity team is in the crunch of the summer plant health application season, and farmers without access to a Hagie high-clearance sprayer or an aerial application service need the timely sprays these certified drone pilots provide to get their crop across the finish line and in good shape for fall harvest.

The trio is in their sophomore season offering per-acre spray drone application services to farmers, and the group learned “a ton” from last year’s rookie campaign.

“Spray drones are definitely a good tool because they can do a lot of specialized things, and it’s fun to see the old farmers come out and watch these things. They’ll tell me ‘Never in my day would I have thought this was something I’d be using’,” Kreikemeier says. “It’s a fun change, and it works. You can get more precise with your applications, and you get the stuff where you want it at all times.”

The team at Infinity exclusively flies Hylio spray drones, which are manufactured in Texas. Hylio was among the first U.S. service providers – Iowa-based Rantizo being one of the others – to receive FAA approval to swarm , or operate in concert, multiple spray drones in one flight mission. Swarming is exactly how Kreikemeier and his team prefer to operate the mostly automated quadcopters. By operating multiple spray drones together in a fleet, Infinity can cover more acres per hour.

Related: Trump Issues Executive Order Making Ag Drones More Efficient

Kreikemeier says the service requests from farmers this summer are “about 50-50” fungicide on corn applications and insecticide or foliar-applied biological sprays. There hasn’t been a lot of Tar Spot disease pressure in his area yet, but Gray Leaf Spot in corn is something farmers need to proactively spray for.

(Lindsey Pound)

While he won’t go as far as saying the drones are a superior application tool to a large ground rig or aerial application plane, he does see some advantages to using the technology.

“The drones can definitely get the products deeper into the plant canopy — at least that’s what I’m seeing right now,” Kreikemeier says, adding he’s also seeing improved application quality on end-rows and sensitive areas near buffers, streams and rural housing developments. An aerial applicator would usually have to pull up and gain altitude to avoid those obstacles, potentially leaving some spray to drift off-target. But an unmanned drone can stay low and keep blasting active ingredients directly into the canopy.

“Guys are definitely telling me they can see a difference between what the drones have done and what the planes have done,” he says.

From Photographer to Pilot-In-Charge

Drone shots of a drone spraying fungicide on corn field sprayer spray - By Lindsey Pound

(Lindsey Pound)

Over on the East Coast, Joshua Berry got his start in the drone world along the same lines as many early adopters: he built up a custom photography and videography business for years before making the decision to integrate aerial photography to stay relevant.

The first drone he purchased is widely considered one of the “OGs” in the drone world: DJI’s Phantom 1. Berry recalls his aerial photography service didn’t take off right away, but he always knew ag was an industry he wanted to join. The realization came fast and hard that he was facing an uphill battle to make that dream a reality, as his family didn’t own land or have a legacy in farming.

Berry’s big breakthrough came when he started using drones equipped with thermal cameras to help deer hunters locate fallen prey deep in the woods. The service gave him a foot in the door with local farmers – many of whom are avid hunters or at the very least friends with hunters – along Maryland’s specialty ag-rich Eastern Shore.

refilling drone spraying fungicide on corn field sprayer spray - By Lindsey Pound

(Lindsey Pound)

“A guy out in Ohio saw what I was doing and wanted to get into the deer recovery stuff, so he befriended me, and I helped teach him a couple things,” Berry says. “One day he calls me up and he’s like, ‘Yo, have you seen these agricultural drones?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I have my eye on it.’ And he tells me it’s going to be the next big thing.”

Berry started doing research and soon enough he agreed with his buddy in Ohio that spray drones would be his ticket to a career in farming. He ordered a pair of DJI Agras T-40 models and started working on getting licensed to legally apply chemicals.

That took him a few months (today the FAA licensing process has been streamlined), and he was able to start flying and applying midway through the 2024 growing season.

“I did a lot of research and networking before I flew a single acre, so I felt like I set myself up for success (early on),” Berry says. “Even though it was a dry year – dry and hot means there’s not a lot of pressure on farmers to spray – I ended the season with between 2,500 and 3,000 acres. For a guy in his first half of a season, I was happy with that.

Related: How Spray Drones Revolutionize Corn Farming, Make Farmers More Efficient and Sustainable

This year, Berry’s acreage will double to about 6,000-7,000. That’s an impressive figure, considering how fields are laid out on the East Coast. This isn’t Iowa, Berry says, where a drone operator can park at an intersection and knock out 300 acres of flat, continuous fields without having to move the truck and tender trailer.

As far as the job mix this summer, he is putting on a lot of single pass fungicide-insecticide-liquid fertilizer applications across a diverse mix of crops. Berry is also hearing some farmers in his area are buying drones themselves and skipping the whole FAA licensing process to spray their crops themselves.

“That’s going to hurt us as an industry, big time. And also, it’s going to hurt the farmers eventually. Even though the enforcement wing of the FAA is almost nonexistent, there is enforcement out there,” he says. “They may not have the manpower (now), but if that changes, you’re going to see these unlicensed guys really start to get dinged.”

Tendering for Spray Drones

The Mitten State is a good proving ground for spray drone applications, says Leon Thelen, agricultural drone application specialist, On Point Application Group (Battle Creek, Mich.).

For one, there aren’t many options for custom aerial application services available to growers like there are in the western Corn Belt. And Michigan farms are often broken into collections of smaller, oddly shaped fields with power lines, tree stands and residential developments nearby. That makes plane applications dicey.

And finally, the state has a diverse crop mix that features a lot of high-value, specialty crops like cranberries, cherries, potatoes and sugar beets. There are a lot of farmers looking to make applications without running over expensive plants with a ground rig.

Related: 7 Expert Tips To Maximize Spray Drone Efficiency

Thelen says On Point Application Group is doing a lot of field border insecticide applications, spot spraying tough weed escapes like water hemp, and putting out full field broadcast applications of fungicides with its XAG P140 spray drones.

One critical aspect of the business Thelen and his team have sorted out over the past few months is tendering. He says the giant, bi-level prefab drone tender trailers you see around the Midwest are good for most operations, but a smaller footprint tender that can fit in the back of an extended pickup is ideal for the type of work he’s doing in Michigan.

“Being that I’ve backed a trailer into a lot of fields, I like lightweight equipment that’s nimble,” he says. “We’ve got a trailer with 1,000 gallons of water and a mix tank that we can leave at the field edge and unhook. Then we have this 200-gallon hot tank with our charging equipment , batteries and everything we can take into the field. This setup works well when you’re working off (irrigation) pivot lanes or back in behind the woods. I like to be close to the field.”

Your Next Read: Yes, Corn Sweat is Real, But Here’s Why the Humidity is So Thick This Year

Can Pulse Crops Double Acreage by 2030? The Push to Include More Pulses in the MAHA Movement

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 17:12:40 GMT

You’ve probably eaten a pulse crop and not even realized it. Whether it’s hummus, made from chickpeas, or lentils in soups or salads, the edible legumes might be small in size, but are packed with powerful nutrients. And there’s now a push to include more pulses in the Trump administration’s movement to Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).

Pulse crops are grown on just over 4 million acres today, but growers hope they could be the future of healthier diets.

“We consume so little of these crops in the United States, it’s between 11 lb. and 12 lb. per person,” says Tim McGreevy, a farmer and CEO of USA Pulses. “We have to bump that up.”

From dry beans, to lentils to chickpeas, pulse crops are the dry, edible seeds of legume plants. They are harvested for their dried seeds, but according to McGreevy, it’s these crops that are a valuable source of protein and fiber as well as a way for farmers to improve soil health.

“Farmers can raise these crops all over the country,” McGreevy says. “Our issue is we’ve got to raise demand. And if we’re going to be serious about feeding our school kids and reducing obesity and their chronic diseases that are cropping up, we have to feed them healthy foods like pulses or at least increase their consumption of these really terrific foods.”

Last week during the USA Pulses Summit in Spokane, Wash., the group set a lofty goal: to double production and demand by the year 2030.

“And frankly, it’s a needed goal,” McGreevy says. “I mean, we have to turn things around. When over 70% of our population has a chronic disease or is facing obesity, I’m telling you, we have a problem. So we are all in with the Make America Healthy Again movement, because if we can do that, and lower chronic diseases, we feel pretty confident that we’re going to increase consumption of pulses because they have high dietary fiber. They have resistant starch, they’re good for your gut health. These crops are a huge solution to making America healthy again and actually lowering chronic diseases in this country.”

These crops are mainly grown in the northern Plains, as well as the pacific Northwest today. But McGreevy says the crops can be grown across the country. And with prices for crops like corn, soybeans and wheat so low today, pulse crops could be a good option for farmers searching to try something new.

What does McGreevy want traditional row crop farmers to know? He says prices for pulse crops are surprisingly good. If farmers across the Midwest who are struggling with low corn, soybean and wheat prices are looking for a crop to add to their rotation, pulse crops may be worth a try.

“You don’t have to grow a 100% of your acres, but whether it’s peas or lentils or chickpeas or beans on your acreage, you should try a little bit,” he says. “It should be part of your cropping system. And that’s really what our aim is when we increase consumption, we know acreage is going to follow.”

He says their newest member of USA Pulses is actually from Nebraska, and is a farmer who’s traditionally grown mostly corn and soybeans.

“But there are a lot of farmers that are trying it, the acreage is small in Nebraska, but they’re growing and they’re seeing that the crop diversity that they have on their farms is really important. And pulses are entering into that.”