The US Cotton Trust Protocol says Earth Day is the perfect time to highlight the increased sustainability of US cotton production. David Blakemore is a board member and a cotton ginner from Missouri. “We’re holding the soil, we’re using cover crops, we’re using legumes to help fix nitrogen,” he says. “The tillage radishes that are being used to help take the fertilizer down and hold it, and then release it […]
The head of U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action (USFRA) says agriculture needs additional resources to predict the long-term impacts of climate change. CEO Erin Fitzgerald tells Brownfield producers should have climate-smart risk modeling. “So that our farmers as they are making decisions on their farms, we can see 5, 10, 15 years out what that does. We are definitely not at that place.” She says weather extremes pose the […]
An agronomist says higher input prices mean farmers need to take more steps to mitigate risk. Tim Laatsch is the technical agronomy manager for Koch Agronomic Services. “In this crop year, nitrogen is simply too valuable to lose,” he says. Laatsch says farmers can’t control the price of fertilizer or the weather, there are some variables they can control. “Following the 4R framework, selecting high-efficiency nutrient sources, stabilizing nitrogen against […]
The Animal Agriculture Alliance’s latest Sustainability Impact Report is highlighting carbon reduction efforts in the livestock sector. Communications specialist Emily Solis tells Brownfield the report coincides with Earth Day to show animal agriculture’s progress on environmental stewardship. “Sustainability is not a destination, it’s a continuous journey, so while we’re very proud of the progress that we’ve made up to this point, we know that there’s more that we can do […]
Everyday is Earth Day to the farmers feeding the world while also protecting land and water. Aaron Chalfant raises corn, soybeans, and hogs with his dad and two brothers in east central Indiana. “We have a 50/50 corn and soybean rotation, and we raise hogs on contract. We have about 28,000 head on site that produce about 7 million gallons of manure annually, so we use that to reduce the […]
A panel of expert communicators shared their advice for telling the story of agriculture to consumers. Minnesota’s Princess Kay of the Milky Way Anna Euerle says when talking about something you’re passionate about, it’s not a daunting task at all. “Even though, if you take a step back and look at what we’re doing here today and you think, man, I don’t think I could ever do that, once you […]
A new online cropping tool is expected to provide Midwest farmers with field-specific management guidelines. Michigan State University’s Manni Singh tells Brownfield the project is currently in the data collection phase and needs farmer input. “We are looking for field-specific information that might be unique to a farmer and might be different from even your neighbor,” he says. Over the next three years, researchers will overlay producer data with soil, weather, […]
Across Corn Belt, chilly weather lingers early Friday across the upper Great Lakes region. Meanwhile, showers and a few thunderstorms are developing in the vicinity of a warm front stretching from the Dakotas into the Ohio Valley. South of the warm front, very warm, humid weather has arrived across the southwestern Corn Belt. On the Plains, livestock producers in parts of Wyoming, eastern Montana, and the western Dakotas are preparing […]
Looking ahead, the 6- to 10-day outlook calls for the likelihood of near- or below-normal temperatures and precipitation across much of the country. Warmer-than-normal weather will be confined to an area stretching from the Southwest to the central and southern Plains. Meanwhile, wetter-than-normal conditions should be limited to the nation’s northern tier, from the Pacific Northwest into the upper Midwest. ...
