Following a year of rising input costs and challenging weather conditions that complicated agricultural operations, farmers gathered for a crops and cattle forum Jan. 6 to hear from LSU AgCenter experts about what they can expect in 2022.

While it remains to be seen how this year’s weather pattern will pan out, it’s likely that prices for inputs such as fertilizer and herbicides will stay high. Farmers who attended the forum at the AgCenter Dean Lee Research and Extension Center near Alexandria were advised to prepare to adjust accordingly.

Please see the links below for the LSU AgCenter’s 2022 enterprise budgets and farm management tools for your information. These planning tools (available for download in PDF and Microsoft Excel formats) allow growers and stakeholders to compare costs of competing crop enterprises for the 2022 crop year and input their own individualized farm data to evaluate net return estimates on a per-acre basis.

Thank you to the American Sugar Cane League, the Louisiana Rice Research Board, the Louisiana State Support Committee of Cotton Incorporated, and the Louisiana Soybean and Feed Grain Research and Promotion Board for their support of this applied economic work.

Louisiana FFA members recently gathered at McNeese State University to compete in State Leadership Development Events.

To be eligible for competition, members qualified through parish, district and area competitions this fall. The top two students or teams from each area were invited to participate in the state events.

“The benefits received from participating in an LDE include public speaking skills, communication strategies, leadership growth, confidence, memorization skills and teaching strategies,” said Cade LeJeune, executive secretary of the Louisiana FFA Association

Certain health issues preclude many people from consuming white rice. A new rice variety developed by the LSU AgCenter has a reduced glycemic score that is allowing people to put rice back on their plate. LSU AgCenter correspondent Craig Gautreaux has the story from the Cajun prairie of southwest Louisiana.

The LSU AgCenter will hold the Central Region Crops and Cattle Forum on Thursday, Jan. 6, at the State Evacuation Shelter near the LSUA campus in Alexandria.

Registration will begin at 7:45 a.m. The program will get underway at 8:20 a.m. with opening comments by Tara Smith, director of the AgCenter Central Region.

Small steps in a positive direction that lead to substantive change was the theme of Coming Together for Racial Understanding, a joint workshop between the LSU and Southern University agricultural centers held Dec. 9 and 10.

The two-day event focused on group exercises, open dialogues and active listening opportunities that concentrated on inclusiveness.

The LSU AgCenter and the LSU College of Agriculture recognized outstanding faculty and staff during an awards ceremony Dec. 14 at the LSU Foundation Center for Philanthropy.