College students with agriculture backgrounds are finding the need to defend modern agriculture and correct misinformation about food production that is being worked into class curriculums. Some classes are now requiring students to read books like “Omnivore’s Dilemma,” watch movies like “Food, Inc.” and see presentations by critics of modern agriculture like Michael Pollan. Sarah Downing, a junior at the …
Facts About Pigs With H1N1
USDA has confirmed the presence of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus in a pig sample collected at the Minnesota State Fair. The National Pork Producers Council notes, despite this development, pork is safe to eat and handle and that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, flu viruses cannot be transmitted through food, including pork. Pigs, like people, …
Syngenta Seeds Developing Water Optimized Hybrids
Coming soon to a field near you from Syngenta Seeds – corn with water optimization traits. Syngenta is going beyond drought-resistant corn to introduce water optimization traits, which will reduce the amount of moisture needed to optimize yield and minimize yield loss in drought conditions, as well as reduce water use in average years. Business Lead Corn Product Manager Wayne …
Farming for Generations
Yes, Virginia, there really are family farmers in the United States. The National Corn Growers Association wants the public to know that family farmers not only exist, but are the critical factor that make the nation’s number one industry the world leaders in production of safe and wholesome products. Polling shows that many Americans no longer understand agriculture in their …
United Soybean Board Supports World Food Prize Hall
The United Soybean Board (USB) and soybean checkoff, through USB’s Biotechnology Initiative, announced a $500,000 investment in the World Food Prize Hall of Laureates in Des Moines, Iowa. This investment will be used to help create a kiosk in the new educational wing at the Hall of Laureates that will help educate the public on the value of biotechnology toward …
Bill Gates Defends Biotech Crops
At the World Food Prize Forum in Des Moines on Thursday, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates spoke out in support of biotechnology to help feed the world. “We have to develop crops, including new inputs to go with them that can grow in a drought,” Gates said. “We have to have crops that can survive a flood, that can …
Truth About Trade and Technology Honors Irish Farmer
Farmers from around the globe gathered in Des Moines this week to participate in the 2009 Global Farmer-to-Farmer Roundtable, which is held in conjunction with the World Food Prize and hosted by Truth About Trade and Technology. The group honored one of their own today with the 2009 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award which recognizes a farmer for “exemplary …
CLEANmp Provides Help With Nutrient Management Plans
Helping livestock and poultry producers develop and implement plans to limit their environmental impact is the goal of a program called Comprehensive Livestock Environmental Assessments and Nutrient management plans, or CLEANmp. The program, which is managed by the Missouri-based Environmental Resources Coalition, is designed to provide services to all types and sizes of livestock and poultry production operations west of …
Climate Change is BAD Topic
Thursday is Blog Action Day (BAD) and the topic this year is Climate Change. Food production is top on the list of suggested ideas for bloggers to write about in an alert sent out by organizers. “Agricultural production around the world is responsible for nearly as much greenhouse gas emissions as all forms of transportation put together, so it shouldn’t …
Syngenta Seeds Striving for Control of Broad Leps
Syngenta Seeds calls them “broad leps” – farmers call them expensive – most people would just call them icky. They are a bunch of nasty wormy creatures – technically lepidopteran corn pests – that make up what Syngenta calls the “multi-pest complex” which costs growers over $1 billion each year in lost yield and grain quality. They include corn earworm, …