Food Tank

FEBRUARY 16, 2024

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, released weekly on Thursdays. It is obvious to most of us that food is a human right. But our discussions of food justice need to be grounded—literally—in what experts are calling a right to healthy soils. human rights conference on food justice in Doha, Qatar.

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UnderstandingAg

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

By: Brian Dougherty Understanding Ag, LLC I recently attended a Ranching for Profit (RFP) school where one of the instructors asked a very simple but thought-provoking question: Do you control your business, or does your business control you? That got me ruminating about who is really in the drivers seat on a typical farm or ranch business.

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Ranching Ruralism Farming Farming 95

Modern Farmer

DECEMBER 18, 2024

full_link READ MORE Mending Hawaii’s food insecurity with breadfruit. They spend each day at a different farm, ranch, or cultural learning program area throughout rural Kohala with various organizations. Food served on boards from a harvested kiawe tree. At each location, they have plots with different varieties of kalo.

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Ranching Crop Cultivation Food 84

Civil Eats

DECEMBER 10, 2024

Patrick Brown, who was named North Carolinas Small Farmer of the Year by North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University this year, grows almost 200 acres of industrial hemp for both oil and fiber, and 11 acres and several greenhouses of vegetablesbeets, kale, radishes, peppers, okra, and bok choy.

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Plantation Farming Farming Acre 144

Food Tank

MAY 3, 2024

She since partnered with Niman Ranch, which is a network of more than 600 small and mid-size farmers and ranchers across the U.S. Niman Ranch provides the participants with a guaranteed market for their hogs in exchange for upholding high standards of sustainable and humane farming practices. Become a member today by clicking here.

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Ruralism Farming Farming Ranching 115

Daily Yonder

DECEMBER 4, 2023

Early in the summer of 2018, a nonprofit few Nebraskans have heard of bought a 22,613-acre chunk of land in Garden County. Box in Salt Lake City, picked up another 3,331 acres of county land, buying it from a Colorado investment company. The Mormon Church now owns about 370,000 total acres of zoned agricultural land in Nebraska.

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Ranching Real Estate Farmland Acre 111

Food Tank

JANUARY 5, 2024

Eric Boor took over his great-grandfather’s nine-acre farm in southern Iowa four years ago. Eric and Mikala both knew that they could raise hogs outdoors, but it wasn’t until they started partnering with Niman Ranch that they could make it work financially and begin to grow their business. “I

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Ranching Farming Farming Acre 128

Modern Farmer

AUGUST 24, 2023

Two organizations want to put an end to the wild west of claims and prove, through certification, that food labeled regenerative is genuinely the gold standard of sustainability and not just another marketing buzzword. Photography courtesy of Cabriejo Ranch. Photography courtesy of Cabriejo Ranch. But it’s not quite that simple.

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Food Ranching Ecology Fertilizer 98

Caff

JUNE 16, 2022

From a food safety standpoint, they were still able to keep all crops refrigerated, washed, and handled according to their high standards. The farmers and firefighters worked tirelessly for those weeks and in the end Brisa Ranch was able to save most of their main building infrastructure, tools, and crops.

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Ranching Food Crop Farming 52

Civil Eats

NOVEMBER 5, 2024

His is the last ranch before the Bear River—the longest river in North America that does not empty into an ocean—flows into the Great Salt Lake. Ferry must now not only think of his ranch, but his neighbors, and their neighbors, and everyone else in the state, not to mention fish and wildlife that rely on rivers, lakes, and streams.

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Food Tank

SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, typically released weekly on Thursdays. The next few months have the potential to make a huge impact on global food systems. We need to keep repeating this: Food and agriculture systems have to be central to any meaningful discussions of solving the climate crisis.

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Food Farmland Agriculture Agriculture 118

Food Tank

NOVEMBER 3, 2023

Today, he’s a sixth-generation pig farmer partnering with Niman Ranch. Williams, his wife Hannah, and their toddler Lyle now live on Williams Family Farms, sustainably and humanely raising pigs and farming about 400 acres of cropland. The best thing about Niman Ranch is how transparent they are.

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Ranching Family Farming Farming Farming 105

Modern Farmer

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

Surveying the aftermath of the Kula Upcountry Fire—one of three devastating wildfires that raged across Maui last month—Brendan Balthazar noticed a striking pattern emerge across his cattle ranch. Peppered throughout some 500 acres of charred pastureland, he found sizable patches of grass left unscathed by the blaze.

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Plantation Pasture Acre Ranching 125

Food Tank

MARCH 8, 2024

A version of this piece was featured in Food Tank’s newsletter, released weekly on Thursdays. We’re reaching out to keep you in the loop on the amazing All Things Food Summit next week in Austin, Texas, as part of the SXSW festival. Levine , U.S.

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CalCAN

AUGUST 24, 2023

55 miles south of San Francisco along Highway 1 lies Pie Ranch. Founded in 2002 by Nancy Vail, Jered Lawson, and Karen Heisler with a vision to create a regenerative farming and food education center.

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Ranching Agriculture Agriculture Acre 52

Modern Farmer

APRIL 24, 2024

Nearly four decades ago, Ron Mardesen and his wife Denise stopped using antibiotics on their hog farm, A-Frame Acres, in Elliot, Iowa. He and his wife Nancy own a 150-acre grass-fed beef farm and use a rotational grazing method. He cannot sell that pork to Niman Ranch, which has a strict “no-antibiotics ever” policy.

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Cattle Food Acre Ranching 143

Modern Farmer

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

“Driving the I-5 between LA and San Francisco, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what people think cattle ranching is.’” Carman didn’t intend to stay on the ranch on which she grew up. She witnessed how difficult it was for them to work the ranch alone. Carman uses the principles of regenerative soil management on the ranch.

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Cattle Ranching Supply Chain Forage 136

The Equation

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has estimated that these dollars will help hundreds of thousands of farmers and ranchers apply conservation to millions of acres of land. Flooding, excessive heat, and drought wreaked havoc on farms and ranches around the country, from California to Texas to Massachusetts.

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Food Ruralism Farming Farming 129

Civil Eats

MARCH 4, 2024

It’s no wonder that hospital food gets a bad rap, says Santana Diaz, executive chef at the University of California Davis Medical Center, a sprawling, 142-acre campus located in Sacramento, California. But for Diaz, good food is key to good health. That was never the focus of hospitals,” he adds. Davis Med Center.

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Pasture Ranching Supply Chain Cattle 142

Civil Eats

OCTOBER 2, 2024

He and 100 caprine teammates can clear about an acre a day. “I Founded in 2020, Happy Goat farm sits on a 2,000-acre property in Mariposa County, near Yosemite National Park. That amounts to approximately 200 acres in addition to the 220 acres the goats take on each year back at the farm. Photo by Craig Kohlruss.

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DTN

MARCH 21, 2024

agriculture and ranching was released in February. Cover crop acres increased to 18 million total acres, a 17% increase, but when compared to total farmland, this represents only 6% of 300 million acres. million acres annually. The pinnacle report on the state of U.S. more than five years ago.

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Acre Biofuel Ranching Crop 103

Modern Farmer

DECEMBER 5, 2023

It’s late October and Jon Griggs, manager of Maggie Creek Ranch in Elko, Nevada, still has more than a thousand Angus-cross calves left to wean. It’s been a decent year at the 200,000-acre spread, with enough forage for the 2,000 mother cows and their calves. A beaver is released at Maggie Creek Ranch. Bob Boucher with a beaver.

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Ranching Cattle Acre Pasture 125

Modern Farmer

APRIL 8, 2024

Conserving farmland underpins a stable local food supply. million full- and part-time jobs were related to the agricultural and food sectors in 2022, which equals 10.4 Most farmers and ranchers could find a buyer willing to purchase their property and develop it, whether into 10-acre ranchettes or 1/8-acre lots,” he says.

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Farmland Acre Real Estate Ranching 122

Food Tank

JULY 14, 2023

In 2019, they connected with Niman Ranch, which is a network of more than 600 small and mid-size farmers and ranchers across the United States. Niman Ranch offers a guaranteed market for its farmers’ and ranchers’ products in exchange for a high standard of practices. Right now, Steven and Alaina both work off-farm jobs.

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Farming Farming Ranching Farmland 97

Food Tank

AUGUST 30, 2023

A version of this piece was featured in a special edition of Food Tank’s newsletter. I just returned from one of my favorite events, the Niman Ranch Hog Farmer Appreciation Celebration in Des Moines, Iowa, at which Food Tank is honored to co-host an Educational Summit. But now, he says that he confidently plans for the future.

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Food Ranching Farming Farming 52

Civil Eats

DECEMBER 26, 2023

We looked into how the next farm bill could best tackle some of the biggest problems related to food and ag, from climate change to food insecurity. Can Point Reyes National Seashore Support Wildlife and Ranching Amid Climate Change? This Farm Bill Could Reshape the Food System. We Explain Why. in September.

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Farming Farming Ranching Food 140

Civil Eats

JANUARY 23, 2024

On a crisp weekend this past fall, 30 state legislators from across the nation descended on TomKat Ranch , an 1,800-acre ranch focused on regenerative agriculture in Pescadero, California, an hour south of San Francisco. Attendees at the TomKat Ranch tour organized by the State Innovation Exchange (SiX).

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Agriculture Agriculture Ranching Food 142

UnderstandingAg

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

Now let’s take a look at some of the economic costs and benefits of addressing erosion on farms and ranches. To determine the cost of erosion, I used the NRCS tolerable soil loss or “T” value for our farm of 5 tons per acre. Despite the complexity, 5 tons per acre per year is a reasonable estimate for the Midwestern U.S.

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Acre Fertilizer Crop Ranching 95

Modern Farmer

JANUARY 28, 2025

Some relied on prairie dogs for nourishment during thin times, or used them as a ceremonial food. Residents periodically pop out of doors to grab food, gossip about the neighbors and scan for danger. But in 1981, a northern Wyoming ranch dog proudly presented his owners with his most recent treasure: a dead ferret.

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Food Tank

JANUARY 24, 2024

agriculture, food systems, and rural communities.” tons of American agricultural soil per acre, costing farmers and ranchers US$44 billion annually and taxpayers nearly US$100 billion. At the same time, skyrocketing input costs squeeze farmers’ margins, hurting rural economies and jacking up food prices for consumers.

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Ruralism Agriculture Agriculture Food 128

Civil Eats

NOVEMBER 1, 2023

After years of philanthropic support for fisheries, water, and education, members of his generation (along with some of their elders) are not only accelerating that environmental focus, they’re applying it to food and agriculture in new ways. She’s also put millions of philanthropic dollars into a demonstration farm in Oregon.

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Supply Chain Food Agriculture Agriculture 145

Civil Eats

NOVEMBER 20, 2023

For three generations, Fanny Brewer’s family has been ranching the same land in South Dakota’s Ziebach County. million-acre Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation , where she grew up, the county is among the poorest areas in the United States. Encompassing part of the 1.4-million-acre

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Agriculture Agriculture Farming Farming 145

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

MARCH 8, 2024

This post explores some of the high-level themes from across the Census, while the subsequent post will take deeper dives into conservation and local foods. million farms and ranches across the U.S. – At the same time, the average size of farms increased slightly to 463 acres, a trend that has continued since the 2012 Census.

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Agriculture Agriculture Acre Farming 106

Caff

MARCH 27, 2023

The Local Food Producers Bill, if passed, will help identify and create a legal definition for “Local Food Producers”, independently-owned farms operated on less than 500 acres who sell direct to their local community. Proposal: AB 1197 (Hart) will define and identify local food producers.

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Food Acre Farming Farming 52

Agwired

JANUARY 29, 2025

Recognizing the vital role that four-legged friends often play on family farms and ranches, Farm Bureau launched the Farm Dog of the Year contest several years ago now a popular feature of the American Farm Bureau Federations Convention. Grotegut Dairy Farm of Newton, Wisc.

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Supply Chain Livestock Farming Farming 45

Agwired

APRIL 1, 2025

dairy herd are fueling historic gains in key milk components needed to produce cheese, butter and a variety of other popular dairy foods. The largest cattle industry event of the year will be held in the heart of Music City, home of honky-tonks, history and hearty food. Genetic improvements within the U.S. The Nelson A.

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Poultry Cattle Food Logistics 45

Farmbrite

DECEMBER 12, 2024

This is where data becomes not only invaluable but imperative, helping farmers grow more food while conserving resources; farming smarter, not harder as the saying goes. Monitor Livestock: Many ranches utilize livestock RFID tags to track their herd movements and easily scan and understand their health and wellness.

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Farming Farming Technology Yield 97