Category Archives: News

A little more than one week remains before the nomination period opens for the 2011 county committee elections. The nomination period — which runs through Aug. 1 — allows farmers and ranchers to select themselves or others as candidates to … Continue reading →

Parts of Vermont have received 600 percent more rain than normal for this time of year. With 19.94 inches of rain tallied for the months of April, May and June, along with a storm that flooded rivers, farmers are seeking … Continue reading →

Farmland more than 100 years old is the latest victim of flooding caused by the Missouri and Souris rivers in North Dakota and South Dakota. Family farmers in the area have installed thousands of sandbags and are running multiple sump … Continue reading →

Replacing the food pyramid with the new USDA My Plate guidelines may prove beneficial to farmers. The new guide suggests that half of the plate be made up of fruits and vegetables. Should Americans comply, can farmers produce that much? … Continue reading →

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has an idea that could help decrease the state’s unemployment rate while filling a labor gap in the agriculture industry. According to the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, farm workers have dropped off as much … Continue reading →

Farmers have doubled the output of corn while using less fertilizer to nourish the crop, according to an announcement by The Fertilizer Institute. Based on data released by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, farmers grew 6.64 billion bushels of … Continue reading →

The USDA Commodity Credit Corporation, which helps stabilize, support and protect farm income and prices, released interest rates for June 2011. The borrowing rate-based charge is 0.250, which is unchanged from May 2011, while the 1996 and subsequent crop year … Continue reading →

Purple-colored boxes are being hung on trees throughout the country to track and monitor the spread of the Emerald Ash Beetle. The “traps” are not meant to catch the beetle, but are part of an $8 million USDA survey to … Continue reading →

In response to drought conditions in Texas, the USDA Farm Service Agency authorized the use of emergency grazing on acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program for 13 additional Texas counties. This authorization brings the total number of counties approved … Continue reading →

A well-managed dairy herd kept outdoors year-round left a carbon footprint 6 percent smaller than that of a high-producing dairy herd kept in barns, according to researchers at the USDA Agricultural Research Service. The study used a computer program that … Continue reading →