One of our distinguished guests at today’s Sunbelt Ag Expo Southeast Farmer of the Year luncheon was Mark E. Keenum, USDA Under Secretary, Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service. If you’re interested in hearing about the economics of what’s going on in agriculture then you may want to listen to him. His full comments are only about 12 minutes. However, I’m …
Brian Kirksey is Southeast Farmer of the Year
The big news of the day here at Sunbelt Ag Expo is the announcement of the Southeast Farmer of the Year. After a number of speeches and suspense it was announced that Brian Kirksey, Arkansas, was chosen as this year’s winner. He receives a check for $14,000 and is seen here on stage with his wife, Nan. Brian got to …
Harvesting Soybeans
I kind of thought I’d see more of this on the way back to Missouri from Wisconsin but I saw very little harvesting going on even though the weather was beautiful. Of course there is still a lot of green corn out there, especially in Iowa. Most of what I saw was soybean harvesting. Today I’m organizing and editing the …
Soldier Farmers
Here’s something you won’t see on the evening tv news. Soldier farmers helping rebuild the ag economy in Afghanistan. We’ve already seen this type of work being done in Iraq thanks to Paul McKellips. It looks like soldiers from several states are doing something similar to this in Afghanistan. Despite recent progress, Afghanistan remains a poor country. Its agriculture industry, …
Aquafinca Farms Fish in Honduras
I just received this story from Laura who visited Honduras recently and is back there now. Her trip was made possible by the Honduras Foundation for Investment and Export Development. Here’s a novel idea when running a business that manages more than a thousand employees: “We try to do basically everything to make them feel they are like partners not …
Urban Farmer Receives MacArthur Fellow Award
An “urban farmer” has received one of the MacArthur Fellows awards. The MacArthur Foundation today named 25 new MacArthur Fellows for 2008. This past week, the recipients learned in a single phone call from the Foundation that they will each receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. The new Fellows work across a broad spectrum …
Wind Damaged Corn
We’ve heard a lot about wind damage to corn but I guess it’s not just limited to here in Ohio. Pam Fretwell, Conklin Companies, was working here at the Farm Science Review and shared a few photos of the damage in Illinois. That’s going to be tough to harvest! Farm Science Review Photo Album AgWired coverage of the Farm Science …
FARM CREDIT + FARM SAFETY = MEALS IN THE FIELDS
More than one-hundred Illinois farm families will be treated to a free lunch – and most importantly a quick break from harvest work – during National Farm Safety & Health Week. Farm Credit Services of Illinois is sponsoring its annual “Meals In The Fields” program Sept. 22-26 to help promote farm safety. Each of Farm Credit’s 21 branch offices will …
MOSES is Organic
MOSES is the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service. At the Farm Progress Show, their outreach coordinator, Harriet Behar, visited the media tent. One of the first things I asked her was just what “organic” means. She says it’s a sustainable method of farming that uses on-farm produced inputs. “Only products that have met the organic regulations are allowed to …
More Monsanto Sustainability
The potential for increasing yields exists everywhere if you ask Michael Doane. Michael is the Sustainability Team Lead for Monsanto. He spoke at the Monsanto discussion on sustainability on the 2008 Farm Progress Show last week. After his speech, I caught up with him and we spoke more about how he thinks the world will answer the global food demands …