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The ranching industry’s toxic grass problem

Food Environment and Reporting Network

Fescue toxicity is the most devastating livestock disorder east of the Mississippi,” said Craig Roberts, a forage specialist at the University of Missouri (MU) Extension and an expert on fescue. An overgrazed fescue pasture in Elk Creek, Missouri. Many ranchers would like to avoid the risk of total pasture makeovers, if they can.

Ranching 111
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In Fire-Stricken Maui, Sustainable Land Management Is Key

Modern Farmer

It’s all grazed pasture,” he says, spared “because the fuel load was low.” Introduced to the islands decades ago as livestock forage, invasive vegetation such as Guinea grass and buffelgrass proliferate in the islands, largely on unmanaged agricultural land. Some areas of grazed pasture on Diamond B Ranch went unburned.

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Changing How We Farm Might Protect Wild Mammals—and Fight Climate Change

Civil Eats

Strips of trees, bushes, grasses, or flowers around agricultural or pasture fields can house higher numbers of small mammals than cropland. For instance, agriculture can destroy forest habitats that certain bat species, like the endangered Indiana bat or northern long-eared bat , use for roosting and foraging. Runoff from U.S.

Farming 143
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When Not Farming is the Best Use of Land

Modern Farmer

Not all farmland is created equal,” says Jesse Womack, a conservation policy specialist with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). Photography submitted by Delta Farmland & Wildlife Trust. In general, permanently retiring farmland has much better benefits for the climate than even working lands with conservation.”

Farming 97
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Can Taller Cover Crops Help Clean the Water in Farm Country?

Civil Eats

The tall forage stands out in southeastern Minnesota’s corn and soybean fields, which this time of year have been reduced to stubble poking through the snow. It works as both a cover crop and forage for the cattle, and it’s helping Bedtka build up organic matter in his soil. farmland is regularly cover cropped.

Crop 140
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Agricultural Diversification: Practice and Policy

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

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. Mixed summer forage in the Southeast U.S. More diversity within pasture polycultures can enhance the nutritional quality, animal health benefits (e.g.,

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Could Dry-Farming Wheat in San Diego Seed a Local Grain Economy?

Civil Eats

percent, and it’s concentrated in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys and used mostly for animal forage. In good rain years, it can yield a harvest; in dryer years, it can be used for forage.” Ernie Klemm, forage manager at Konyn Dairy in San Pasqual Valley, has been dry-farming grains for 50 years—as food for cattle.

Grain 138