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Farm income is expected to take a turn in 2025, after two years of consecutive decline. agricultural economy faced financial headwinds in 2024, but new USDA farm income projections indicate that net farm income will increase in 2025, largely due to the substantial rise in government payments. Its no secret that the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, only 1 percent of farmland in the United States is organic. Making the switch from conventional farming practices to organic is a three-year process, and comes with a series of steps. They will launch the first cohort in 2025 with three farms. According to the U.S.
Ecosystem services are the benefits provided by nature and managed by farmers on their farmland. For example, soil and vegetation on farms remove carbon from the atmosphere, regulate hydrological flows, and shelter pollinators who pollinate crops. Farmers manage these subsidies of nature on their farmland, free for the public.
This gives Big Ag plenty of political clout, making it “”impossible to modify the CAP in ways that reduce the environmental impact of modern agricultural practices and promote sustainable farming.” If this sounds familiar, consider the US farm bill. Its bottom line: “Such capture of government by an interest group is dangerous.”
Tom Farquhar planted several large plots of beneficial flowers around his vegetable farm in Montgomery County, Maryland. Once a conventional corn and soybean farm, the idea was to control pests at the Certified Naturally Grown operation by increasing the number of beneficial predator insects and spiders.
As news of weed killer resistant plants hits the headlines, Patrick Holden reflects on discussions at the latest Oxford Real Farming Conference, highlighting why the plough may not be the worst option when it comes to nature-friendly cultivation. In parallel, Richard Gantlett, who is somewhat of a data geek (I mean that as a compliment!),
Partly because I am old enough to remember that back in the 1950s and 60s, in other words before the widespread adoption of intensive chemical based farming, we used to produce food in harmony with nature at scale. Last year we produced an acre of carrots for schools in West Wales, using no chemical fertilisers or pesticides.
In the months before Patrick Brown was born in November 1982, his father, Arthur, lay down on a road near the familys farm to prevent a caravan of yellow dump trucks from depositing toxic soil in his community. Patrick currently operates Brown Family Farms on the land that Byron worked as a sharecropper once he was freed.
Local food not only supports the local economy and helps to preserve traditional farming practices, but also offers a range of health and environmental benefits. At Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT), we believe that protecting Iowa’s farmland is essential to promoting sustainable and just food systems.
In other words, farmers lucky enough to produce a high-value product—especially when it’s intrinsically tied to the soil it’s grown in—may be uniquely positioned to help experiment, develop, and de-risk regenerative practices across all kinds of farms. “If If we take this as a holistic system. It is a rapidly growing category.”
Yet the bucolic scene belies an environmental problem roiling beneath the surface: The groundwater in this part of Minnesota is so contaminated with nitrates running off farm fields that the U.S. And when nitrates are present, it’s inevitable that other contaminants, such as pesticides , are also polluting the water.
23 Food Tank and The James Beard Foundation will kick off Climate Week with a day of programming titled: “ Restaurants and Farms are Key Solutions to the Climate Crisis ,” presented along with partners Planet FWD, Brightly, Guckenheimer, Astanor and Protein PACT. Here’s what we have in store for you during Climate Week: Monday, Sept.
Over the past decade, vertical farming has been touted as just such a disruptor in agriculture. More crops, longer shelf life, no pesticides, fewer bacteria, less land, 99% less water, climate independent. The Emergence of Vertical Farming Top News Headlines About Vertical Farms 01.01.11 to 01.01.22.
Even though organic farming makes up less than one percent of US farmland , it’s still a multi-billion-dollar industry. For a food to become certified organic, the farmland must be proven to have not received any pesticides or unapproved substances for at least three years. But it is getting better.
These synthetic polymer products have often been used to help boost yields up to 60 percent and make water and pesticide use more efficient. Yet their pervasive use—along with farmland, plastics cover everything from individual seeds to bales of hay and packaged produce—has allowed them to plant themselves deeply in our food supply.
Check out our companion piece: How to Start a Backyard or Urban Farm—Whether You Own Land or Not As a renter millennial, I wanted to start farming. This is a common sentiment among many student-loan-saddled millennials and Gen Z-ers who want to work with the land but don’t have land that they own to start gardening or farming.
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed weaknesses within our food and farming system and exacerbated long-standing inequities. This measure aims to deliver healthy food to the most vulnerable Californians while climate-proofing our farms that face droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather. Find a recording of the press conference here.
On a summer day in downtown Salinas, California, a group of farmers, biotechnology start-ups and pesticide corporations gathered to talk about the benefits of biology. While the realm of pesticides and fertilizers has been dominated by chemistry for the past eight decades, it seems like biology may soon have its day.
Even in good years, farmers need access to a strong and secure Federal crop insurance program, a program that farmers have described time and again as a critical element of the farm safety net. It is no accident that the most recent farm bills have emphasized risk management, and in doing so, protected the interests of American taxpayers.
Poor water quality has been a persistent challenge in agriculture, particularly due to sediment and nutrient loss from farmland. We already do this for pesticide and manure applicators. This would be a far better use of taxpayer money than any other farm program or practice payment.
But on Mallonee Farms , a Washington State dairy farm , things are different. Only found in small areas of prairie grassland west of the Cascade Mountains, Mallonee Farms is the northernmost epicenter for the lupine in the US. In most instances, farmers will spray the plant with herbicide and kill it.
The news hasnt really shown the devastation wreaked on the farms and forests in our area. Weve experienced nothing like this before, said New River Conservancy Executive Director Andrew Downs.This is due to fuel, pesticides, and sewage that has polluted the streams. Gene has a small beef farm with 15 cow/calf pairs and raises 1.5
These days, farming is a lot more than just plowing the field and planting seeds. Farming also includes marketing your goods, managing finances and employees, keeping up with technology —and that's just the beginning. But there are still ways for young people to get into farming if they're willing to do their homework first!
Urban ag is any kind of food production space within a city, inclusive of commercial farms that grow and sell directly to consumers, non-profit farms that serve a broader mission, community gardens, school gardens and even vacant lots turned into thriving personal gardens or homesteads. Oxford Tract research farm at UC Berkeley.
These technologies provide high-resolution images of farmland, allowing farmers to detect stress factors such as nutrient deficiencies, waterlogging, pest infestations, or disease outbreaks before they become widespread. Some platforms even facilitate contract farming agreements, securing fair prices in advance and reducing uncertainty.
Railways and natural resources were diverted away from Allensworth to white-owned interests and farm holdings. But maybe the most famous sabotage occurred in March of 2023, after heavy rains flooded Dear Creek and someone artificially diverted the water flow toward Allensworth to protect industrial farmland operations elsewhere.
Both durable and efficient, with no need for farmland or vast amounts of water, it threatened to leave natural fibers like cotton in the dust. In addition, most natural fibers are grown conventionally, which often means heavy use of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and genetically modified or treated seeds. Enter next-gen synthetics.
Hard truth: we have to use farmland differently Strategic cropland repurposing is the change in land use from an economic activity that produces negative side effects (such as harming people’s health and the environment) to new land uses that produce positive side effects. I believe there is: strategic cropland repurposing.
They’d take a few hundred acres of both leased and family-owned central-Texas farmland—land that for decades had grown row crops of corn and cotton—and give it “what it wants back,” he said. The challenges to farming, period—let alone transitioning to regenerative—can be high.
Increasingly, farmers and scientists are looking at them as reservoirs of genetic diversity with traits that can be bred into domesticated crops to improve drought, heat, and disease resistance—and perhaps serve as the key to the future of farming. Up to 40 percent of farmland has been fallowed in some parts of Arizona,” he wrote in an email.
Flat, sprawling farm fields fill the screen. She’s also put millions of philanthropic dollars into a demonstration farm in Oregon. As the planet faces a climate and biodiversity crisis, the family’s investments could coincide with a fundamental supply shift at Walmart, driving truly resilient, regenerative farming at scale.
His farm lies on the Columbia Plateau, a 63,000-square-mile basin formed by ancient basalt lava flows. Chris Rauch’s Oregon farm lies on the Columbia Plateau, a region that has seen increasing levels of soil acidity. Then they truck it to farms, where it is used in place of ag lime. “That’s crazy,” he thought.
On October 5th, attendees gathered at Riverwood Farm in Biggs, California to listen to Kaben Kramer of Tenderly Rooted tell his story of creating a Direct to Consumer market for his walnuts. In fact, Kaben confesses that the farm lost money the first four years of farming, especially when making $1.00
Adoption Rates of Agricultural Technology and Renewable Energy Rural Broadband The 2022 ag census revealed a notable increase in reliable rural broadband access, with as much as 79 percent of farms reporting that they have reliable internet access, representing a four percent growth from 2017.
As farmland becomes less functional as a result of increasing stresses from drought, floods, pests, and heatwaves, its regulation by diverse organisms becomes ever more important. The question of how to diversify farm production is closely linked with the question of expanding access to land.
Young farmers are on the frontlines of the climate crisis and need support to continue implementing solutions on their farms. However, they often face barriers to accessing federal conservation programs, because their farms and ranches tend to be small. The Small Farm Conservation Act ( S.2180 2180 , H.R.5354 2180 , H.R.5354
Through experience and trials and education, each farm figures out what they can grow and how they can grow it at a price that’s both affordable enough for customers and profitable enough for covering farm operation costs. Coming back to the idea of farming systems, as organic farmers we do an insane amount of management around weeds.
We have 6,400 acres this year that we farm,” LaPointe said, pointing out color-coded land plots on the map. Through multiple programs, the tribe is moving toward food sovereignty while teaching sustainable farming practices to future generations of Native farmers. “A Ho-Chunk Farms began to prioritize quality land leases over quantity.
In 2006, they began to look for farmland around Edmonton, but the exorbitant cost of land — in some areas, upward of a million dollars — was insurmountable on teacher’s salaries. But due to climate change, Jenna and Thomas’s journey into farming has been anything but straight forward.
The privatization of land in the 1850s gave rise to large sugarcane and pineapple plantations—a huge divergence from Native practices of sustainable and diverse farming on communally held plots. When farmland and pastures turn idle, the economics often make land use changes tempting, says Heaivilin. It’s a one-way valve.”
Despite incentives to establish more sustainable – even organic – farming practices, most farmers are caught in an industrial system of chemicals, hybrid seed, and genetically modified (GMO) seed. As a kid from rural Iowa, I have joked about growing up with herbicide for breakfast, pesticide for lunch, and fertilizer for supper.
In this article, Global Farm Metric Trials Manager, Olivia Boothman, shares her experience of visiting Nebraska on behalf of Regen10. Perfectly square patches of farmland cover the entire southeast of the state. Graham, a fifth generation farmer, who has recently started converting the farm to regenerative practices, filled me in.
Over recent years, no-till farming has been widely advocated as one of the ways to make farming more sustainable. It is also one of the paid options under Defra’s Sustainable Farming Incentive. What he could not have known is that the processes he describes, depend, amongst other things, on the action of mycorrhizal fungi.
By Trina Moyles Glen and Kelly Hall have been managing Timber Ridge Ranch, a 480-acre farmland situated an hour south of Calgary near Stavely, Alberta, for over 40 years. Our cover crop cocktail has resulted in an immense reduction in synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.
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