Planting rush doesn’t alter fertilizer dynamics. Published: May 21, 2013 Farmers took giant steps towards getting caught on planting spring crops last week, but the record acreage seeded doesn’t appear to have changed the rationale of prices in the fertilizer market. Dealers appear to be still filling orders off existing inventory. That’s keeping prices from any significant price gains in...

The U.S. Drought Monitor is produced in partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Drought Summary — May 21, 2013 The discussion in the Looking Ahead section is simply a description of what the official national guidance from the National...

By Tyne Morgan, Ag Day TV National Reporter, March 21, 2013 The 2012 drought proved too much for countless acres of row crops to handle last year. As farmers were forced to watch their dying crops starve from no moisture, livestock producers saw the writing on the wall. And early last fall, Kansas’ Brookover Feed Yards Manager Brian Brice knew it was just a matter of time before feedyards would be in the red. “The...

Thursday, March 21st, 2013 Some 1.2 billion people-almost a fifth of the world-live in areas of physical water scarcity, while another 1.6 billion face what can be called economic water shortage. The situation is only expected to worsen as population growth, climate change, investment and management shortfalls, and inefficient use of existing resources restrict the amount of water available to people, according...

By Allison Floyd, Growing Georgia, March 20th, 2013 The USDA will begin to furlough inspectors for 11 days beginning in July, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the Sioux City Journal on Tuesday. Some 6,200 inspectors might be forced to take furlough days under mandatory budget cuts that took effect on March 1. Vilsack warned a month ago that furloughs would affect meat processing and testified last week...

Ed Whaley in Growing Georgia, March 15th, 2013 What if there was something a farmer could do to make his sprayers more efficient without buying any new equipment? It may be as simple as turning the nozzle. “Whether you are using a liquid fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, if you are using a vertical sprayer, you are losing a lot of your chemical because it’s hitting the leaf and running off the plant. You’re...

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 Under current law as applied by USDA’s program agencies, Government payments directly paid to producers are expected to total $10.9 billion in 2013. This payment level generally remains unchanged from 2012. Direct payments under the Direct and Countercyclical Program (DCP) and the Average Crop Revenue Election Program (ACRE) are forecast at $4.94 billion for 2013. Strong crop...

By Jim Langcuster, Alabama, Cooperative Extension System  February 25, 2013 For centuries, farmers have operated largely at the mercy of nature’s fickle temperament, whether this was expressed as a late freeze, a prolonged drought or a scorching temperature spike. Now, a growing number of them are pushing back, thanks to what climate researchers have learned about El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), recurrent...

farmgateblog.com February 19, 2013 All of the newspaper and television headlines will scream that net farm income for 2013 will be up 14% compared to last year. And many of those readers and viewers will remember prior headlines that indicated farmers were raking in cash from the USDA’s crop insurance program at levels higher than they would have received in a normal production year. Unfortunately, agriculture...

BrownField AgNews, February 8th, 2013 Farmers and ranchers receive only 15.8 cents of every dollar spent on food.  The National Farmers Union cites a USDA report indicating that marketing, processing, wholesaling, distribution and retailing account for more than 80 cents of every food dollar spent in the United States.  Among the statistics in the January report, dairy farmers get $1.72 for a gallon of milk...