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At Farm Credit of Southern Colorado, we take great pride in supporting the families who shape agriculture in our region. The Mattive family of Worley FamilyFarms has spent generations cultivating success in the San Luis Valley, and their story is one of resilience, dedication, and innovation.
For Trisha, sustainability means “freedom to really farm how we should be farming,” including being freed from the volatile cost of inputs like synthetic fertilizers. Fertilizer costs rose by more than 33 percent from 2020 to 2021 because of several factors, including extreme weather events and the Russian war against Ukraine.
When Jeff Broberg and his wife, Erica, moved to their 170-acre bean and grain farm in Winona, Minnesota in 1986, their well water measured at 8.6 Those tiles, which were first installed in the mid-1800s and have now largely been replaced with plastic pipes, ultimately allowed farmers to grow crops on land that was once too wet to farm.
In the months before Patrick Brown was born in November 1982, his father, Arthur, lay down on a road near the familysfarm to prevent a caravan of yellow dump trucks from depositing toxic soil in his community. Patrick currently operates Brown FamilyFarms on the land that Byron worked as a sharecropper once he was freed.
Kava has endured a long history of adversity, said Lakea Trask, a Hawaiian farmer and local activist who cultivates kava and other Native crops for Kanaka Kava , his familysfarm-to-table restaurant in Kailua-Kona, on the Big Island. Hawaii is a state of small farms, he said, with more than 90 percent measuring less than 50 acres.
On June 29th, Lopes FamilyFarms hosted a field day with Community Alliance with FamilyFarms (CAFF) in Princeton, CA focused on rice and duck farming, a Biologically Integrated Farming System (BIFS). Additionally, being such a novel method of farming in the U.S.,
Soil Health : Advanced soil sensors can measure critical factors like moisture levels, pH balance, and nutrient content, enabling farmers to fine-tune fertilizer use. Farmers saving 30% on fertilizer costs and boosting crop yields by up to 10% are not uncommon with these insights.
One common way to put a value on soil is to determine how much fertilizer it would take to replace the lost nutrients. An example from our familyfarm is shown below. To determine the cost of erosion, I used the NRCS tolerable soil loss or “T” value for our farm of 5 tons per acre. What’s the value of that?
Tiffany Stanley runs A Different Chick Farm, a Certified Organic familyfarm on just under 6 acres in Johnson City, Tennessee. She is participating in OFRF's Farmer Led Trials (FLT) Program to explore options for making on-farm compost to reduce input needs and increase fertility on her farm.
But she maintains that “organic is still really important,” and that’s why USDA organic standards, food grown without most pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, is the minimum baseline for the ROC certification. Her familyfarm has been organic certified since 2006, but it only adopted the ROC standards in June 2022.
Meet some Midwestern agrarians, some of whom come from conventional farmingfamilies, who are using their land to reestablish the connection between trees, animals, and food production. Wendy Johnson’s ‘natural savannah’ Wendy Johnson and her husband, Johnny Rafkin, own Jóia Food & Fiber Farm, in Charles City, Iowa.
Payne operates a 300-acre regenerative farm in Concordia, Missouri, an hour outside of Kansas City, where he raises sheep and cattle. Above those temperatures, heat stress causes cattle to produce less milk and decreases their fertility. according to the industry group American Farm Bureau.
All plots were treated the same in terms of custom planting, herbicide, rolling (on soybean ground), fertilizer, and land rent. The differences between plots were calculated to $18/acre for tillage (which is conservative considering the cost of diesel), $25/acre for rye cover crops and $40/acre for multi-species cover crops.
Below is a basic diagram showing how carbon cycles through a corn field yielding around 200 bu/acre. Our familyfarm in Northeast Iowa with 3% SOM in the top six inches has about 67,000 lbs. of carbon per acre in the top two feet of soil. of carbon per acre annually. It’s the tiny input from fertilizer and seed.
Between the years 2017 and 2022, America lost almost 20 million acres of farmland. Despite this rapid decline, the average farm size increased five percent to 463 acres. This ag census data highlights the trend toward farm consolidation as more and more familyfarm operations are feeling the pressure to go big or get out.
The USDA issued a press release yesterday titled “The American Families Plan Honors America’s FamilyFarms” In the press release, they strived to indicate that the transfer tax proposed in the American Families Plan will not affect 98% of farm estates. 1 million grain facility worth $1.5
I had to rely on others to eat, and it was really difficult,” says Bista, who is one of six refugee farmers employed by New Leaf Agriculture, a 20-acre organic operation located in Manor, Texas. At age 30, she was forced to seek asylum in Nepal, and for the next 19 years, she was unable to work or grow her own food. “I
Further, they have added nearly five acres of prairie strips. Both practices reduce their climate risk while increasing the farm’s ability to absorb carbon. Rick Hartlieb, of Castanea Farms in Pennsylvania, has used local and state grant resources to help him plant acres of chestnuts and to shift his farm toward silvopasture.
When farmer Joshua Manske heard about the acquisition of an Iowa fertilizer plant by Koch Industries in December, he saw it as a “microcosm of what’s going on nationally.” Because corn requires nitrogen fertilizer to grow, Manske is concerned that further consolidation of the fertilizer industry will drive his input prices up more.
When his father, Randy, equipped his combine with a yield monitor in the early 1990s, teenage Ryan thought it was a huge step forward for the familyfarm. The Britts now farm 5,000 acres, raising cattle, corn, soybeans, wheat and hay in Randolph, Chariton and Macon counties.
He plants nitrogen-rich legumes and other perennial cover crops amongst his pear, apple, plum, peach, and cherry trees, but he buys a commercial compost product to keep his 100-acre, fourth-generation familyfarm thriving. Ela knows first-hand how central compost is to his organic farm—and all organic agriculture.
Leadership from the USDA and agriculture schools, like the one at Iowa State University, influence farm methods; but even recommendations to reduce farm chemicals have unintended outcomes. Winter cover crops could mean using less fertilizer and herbicide in the Spring. But farm-chemical exposure is no laughing matter.
Since we had land—and we also had a good relationship with the local Farmer’s Cooperative, which generously donated seeds, plants, and fertilizer—a garden felt like a good way to support the community. Even by just raising three or four acres of tobacco, families could make a respectable return that helped their farm’s economic viability.
But the epic flooding this past March was simply unprecedented, says the owner of Lerda-Goni Farms. After a winter of record snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a sudden warm spell melted the lower reaches, unleashing nearly 40,000 acre-feet of water —a volume equal to more than a tenth of Las Vegas’ annual supply—in 48 hours.
Today, Tim and Joanne manage WR Grazing in collaboration with Doug and other family members on 3000 acres of land. In 2019, they ran a series of crop trials on 20 acre paddocks to experiment with different crop mixes. On the next plot, they used less fertilizer but planted five crop varieties.
This allows farmers to try new things like seeding cover crops with a drone or dialing back their synthetic fertilizers using data from brand new tests that aren’t yet approved by government-based programs. On top of this, they offer a generous and flexible buffer incentive payment for converted acres.
Stroup and her husband farm about 200 acres near Bessemer City, NC. But they have been consistently stymied when it comes to internet access on their farm. Haxby and her familyfarm corn and soybeans and raise cattle and goats. They raise beef cattle and plant wheat and soybeans.
Stroup and her husband farm about 200 acres near Bessemer City, Nortth Carolina. But they have been consistently stymied when it comes to internet access on their farm. “I ” Haxby and her familyfarm corn and soybeans and raise cattle and goats. They raise beef cattle and plant wheat and soybeans.
This year’s nominations–submitted by people like you–overflowed with inspiring stories of change-makers who are innovating, giving back and working to make our soils more fertile for the next generation. LEGACY FARMER Will Scott, Scott FamilyFarms Will Scott Jr.
Writing in 1985, Steele presents a clear-eyed view of the complex environmental, economic and social challenges that were facing farmers, many of which continue to be at the heart of today’s conversations about our food and farming system. INTENSIFICATION Modern farming is intensive. Tractors are expected to cut four acres an hour.
AKreGeneration is committed to restoring the land for generations to come, acre by AKre. Some of the different practices we use include: diverse crop rotation, cover crops, intercropping, low chemical use, biological fertilizer and seed treatment, soil amendments, and livestock incorporation. Why farming?
During that same time, production has grown, as only farms of more than 200 hectares (approximately 400 acres) have increased in number. According to the recently released 2022 Census of Agriculture , the largest four percent of US farms (2,000 or more acres) control 61 percent of all farmland.
As with all programs, NSAC will continue to analyze the RPFSA’s CSP provisions, including a proposed one-time CSP subprogram focused on enrollment of up to 500,000 acres of native or improved pasture land used for livestock grazing in the Lower Mississippi River Valley to address water quality issues leading to hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico.
Together, Harold and his brother, Chris, and his father, Gerald, work collaboratively as partners to manage 5000 acres of irrigated land producing potatoes — varieties of chippers, russets, and red Mozart potatoes — along with other field crops, including hard red spring wheat, winter wheat, barley, sunflowers, green peas, seed canola. “But
As the National FamilyFarm Coalition points out, Focusing only on foreign ownership distracts from an overarching trend of rising corporate investment in farmland, largely driven by U.S-based Instead, the Senate bill includes provisions focused on data collection and research of foreign ownership of farmland (Sec.
He recounted the innumerable ways his 1,500 acres of tobacco, spread over several counties around Wilson, the historic center of the flue-cured tobacco industry in North Carolina, might lose money if he’s not careful. Fertilizer, fuel, and labor costs increase every year, while prices hardly change.
tons of American agricultural soil per acre, costing farmers and ranchers US$44 billion annually and taxpayers nearly US$100 billion. Farmers are forced to use increasing amounts of fertilizer to salvage profit from the degraded soil. The climate is changing, and it’s time to take that seriously. Each year, we lose 4.6
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