The LSU AgCenter will hold a prescribed burn workshop at the Hammond Research Station Nov. 9 to 11.
Sessions will run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Friday’s class will end at 1 p.m.
Read More
Due to a month-long lack of rain in the Mississippi Valley, river levels are more than 10 feet below normal, causing cruise ships to run aground and preventing cargo ships and barges from dropping off crops at their destination docks.
Louisiana officials are calling for more dredging of the river to try and ease a problem that they say will wind up costing consumers.
Read More
Even a farm out in Zachary is not exempt from the new Stormwater Utility Fee that Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome introduced last week.
James Womack co-owns a farm, and says business is tough as it is.
Read More
Adtran, Inc., the leading provider of next-generation multi-gigabit fiber access and fiber extension solutions, today announced that Volt Broadband is leveraging Adtran’s end-to-end fiber broadband solution to launch fiber broadband services and close the digital divide in rural Louisiana.
Read More
This year’s rice harvest in southwest Louisiana could be the costliest and possibly one of the more frustrating ones for many farmers in what could have been a banner year in the industry.
Read More
John Deere said it will spend $29.8 million to expand its Thibodaux plant, a move that will create 70 jobs and allow the company to shift cotton harvester manufacturing from China to the U.S.
The new jobs will have an average annual salary of $47,472, according to Louisiana Economic Development. The company currently has 284 employees in Thibodaux. The work is projected to create 110 indirect jobs.
Read More
Since Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s September announcement that he was ending subsidies for fuel, violent protests and an uptick in gang violence has ravaged the country. This is an escalation of the violence, kidnappings, and theft of food, fuel, and other goods that have been a part of everyday life here since last year’s assassination of Haitian President Moise. U.S. rice exports have been, taken by gangs directly off ships, off trucks after discharging at port, and even taken from humanitarian warehouses.
Read More
More than a dozen LSU AgCenter scientists will give presentations on their work during a set of conferences to be held early next year in Baton Rouge.
The 26th annual National Conservation Systems Cotton and Rice Conference, Southern Soybean and Corn Conference, Delta States Irrigation Conference and Southern Precision Ag Conference will take place Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at the Crowne Plaza hotel conference center.
Read More
In October 2021, Jason Richard was doing exactly what he is doing this October. He was waking up at the same time before 5 a.m., climbing in the same John Deere, harvesting sugarcane in the same fields and hauling his crop to same place — the nearby Raceland Raw Sugar Corporation. But things looked a little different in Lafourche Parish 12 months ago.
Read More
Population declines will continue to drive a years-long economic slide in Louisiana's rural areas, and the 29 parishes outside the state's nine metropolitan areas could lose nearly 3,000 non-farm jobs by 2025, according to a new forecast from economist Loren Scott.
Read More
A Bienville Parish resident was arrested on October 6 by agents with the Louisiana Department of Corrections Probation and Parole Division and the Bienville Parish Sheriff’s Department. The arrest resulted from an arrest warrant from Bienville Parish regarding an investigation conducted by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s (LDAF) Livestock Brand Commission.
Read More
Two closures on the Mississippi River reopened Sunday, easing a backlog of more than 2,000 barges. Still, river levels remain at critical lows and forecasts show them steadily declining over the coming days.
The Mississippi River is currently at its lowest level in the past 10 years, according to the National Weather Service. And it couldn’t come at a worse time.
Read More
USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will conduct its biannual Agricultural Labor Survey in October. The survey will collect information about hired labor from more than 300 Louisiana farmers and ranchers. NASS will publish the data on Nov. 23 in the Farm Labor report available on the NASS website. Survey recipients who do not respond by Oct. 19 may be contacted by NASS to arrange an interview or sent a reminder email.
Read More
Elton Kennedy came from a family of ministers in rural northeast Louisiana, but he always wanted to be a farmer. When given the chance to lease land with an option to buy in the town of Mer Rouge, he turned to the plow. He farmed his first rice crop in 1969, and over the years, his bulk-rice companies, Kennedy Rice Dryers and Kennedy Rice Mill, grew to include an average of 60 growers per year working over 15,000 acres. But to him, it was a family business all along. "I always thought that I would have a son to take over one day," Elton says. "As it turned out, having four daughters worked out just the same."
Read More
Did you know there’s wood cellulose in your ice cream? Or that those pretty purple berries are on a shrub called American beautyberry? And no, the berries are not edible.
These are just a few of the things over 700 fifth-graders from around Rapides Parish learned at Forest Awareness Week held at Indian Creek Recreation Area this week.
Read More