Most people do not give rain a second thought, but for farmers, it is sometimes all they can think about.
“It’s every day, you go to bed thinking about it at night, you wake up early in the morning way before daylight thinking about it, that’s just a farmer,” said Keith Lacombe, owner of Keith Lacombe Farms.
Read MoreDrought made the Mississippi River sluggish and led to a smaller than average dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico — an area where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life, the scientist who's been measuring it for decades said Wednesday.
Read MoreI may be a few days late on this one but apparently one of the many laws that went into effect in Louisiana on August 1 was the legalization of catfish noodling.
Wait, so it was illegal to shove your arm down into a muddy abyss and try to pull out a whopping swamp monster? What a state we live in.
Read MoreLocal staff from USDA offices around the world were in the United States recently, exchanging information with American farmers and producers and learning firsthand how U.S. agricultural systems and processes work.
USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service has nearly 100 overseas offices covering 180 countries. The agency serves as the eyes, ears, and voice of U.S. agriculture overseas. In addition to U.S. Foreign Service officers, FAS employs 320 local staff whose insight into local culture, politics, and business makes them an invaluable asset to FAS and American farmers, ranchers, and producers.
Read MoreNew information has been released from the NTSB about a cropduster that crashed Tuesday afternoon near Cheneyville, which killed the pilot.
The Rapides Parish Coroner’s Office has confirmed that the pilot’s name was Gill Pias.
Read MoreThe annual Florida Parishes Dairy Day recently brought out the spirit of winning in youth showing off their culinary and artistic skills, and farmers received bragging rights with high-yielding milk cows.
The event, which is held every summer, began early in the morning with young people judging dairy cows and others preparing dishes for the cookery contest at the LSU AgCenter Southeast Research Station.
Read MoreThe U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has processed more than 255,000 applications for the new Emergency Relief Program (ERP). USDA has made approximately $6.1 billion, to date, in payments to commodity and specialty crop producers to help offset eligible losses from qualifying 2020 and 2021 natural disasters. By breaking-down agency barriers, using existing data across USDA and pre-filled applications, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) in cooperation with the Risk Management Agency (RMA) has been able to expediently provide economic relief and save producers and staff over a million hours of time.
Read MoreFrom 2001 to 2016, the U.S. lost or compromised 2,000 acres of farmland and ranchland every day. That adds up to 11 million acres of farmland that has been paved over, fragmented or developed, according to research by American Farmland Trust.
If that trend continues, and another 18.4 million acres is converted between 2016 and 2040 — an area nearly the size of South Carolina
Read MoreThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today trimmed its hurricane season outlook from a 65% chance for above normal activity to 60% and increased the odds of a normal season from 25% to 30% because of uneven sea surface temperature, including a patch of cooler water off Portugal. Parts of the Atlantic are warmer than normal, but the variability has forecasters “backing off on the higher end” of their predictions, says lead hurricane outlook forecaster Matthew Rosencrans.
Read MoreBelieve it or not, the Internal Revenue Service occasionally makes rules that help taxpayers. Such was the case on July 8, when the IRS issued a revenue procedure that allows estates to elect “portability” of a deceased spousal unused exclusion amount (DSUEA) up to five years after the decedent’s date of death.
If you lost a spouse within the last five years and you act within that five-year window, this could provide a tremendous federal estate tax savings for your heirs.
Read MoreFor many years, the peanut was a mainstay crop on many East Texas farms. Those who grew up in “goober country” recall the peanut was a profitable crop. Then government took its toll on local producers. It got to a point where it was unlawful to grow peanuts unless you had an “allotment” to grow. Then the rules changed and those allotments could be sold and peanut production could be moved from the home county to elsewhere in Texas. Farmers on the Plains south of Lubbock ended up with East Texas peanut allotments. Those peanut raising areas in the sandy soils in Cherokee, Smith, Henderson, Anderson and Houston Counties are no more and only a fond memory for many residents..
Read MoreVeterinarian Randall Raymond sees too many dead cattle that are close to the finish line.
“Those late days-on-feed mortalities are both frustrating and expensive,” says Raymond, director of research and veterinary medicine at Simplot Land and Livestock.
Indeed, the incidence of bovine congestive heart failure (BCHF) is increasing throughout the industry, especially as cattle are fed to heavier end points.
Read MoreHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with other Congress members, set off on a high-profile Asia tour this week. While Pelosi’s office didn’t disclose Taiwan in the tour, her plane landed there on Tuesday.
Ahead of the meeting, China made their sentiments on the matter known through various statements and, most recently, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducting live-fire drills on Pingtan, an island in the Taiwan Strait, according to Jim Wiesemeyer, ProFarmer policy analyst.
Read More
