WEST DES MOINES, Iowa - Cover crops are something of a new element in agricultural operations, and they prompt a lot of questions."How you build them into a system that's already sophisticated?" explained Soil and Water Conservation Society Executive Director Jim...
WASHINGTON - USDA?s latest acreage projections for 2015 paint a somewhat different picture than what analysts were thinking. Some of the biggest news to come out of USDA?s Ag Outlook Forum last week was an initial acreage projection for U.S. cropland this year.Corn...
WASHINGTON - After 15 years of negotiations, China joined the World Trade Organization in late 2001. In so doing, it agreed to eliminate its export subsidies on agricultural products. 14 years later, China still hasn?t eliminated them, nor has it even given the WTO a...
WASINGTON - According to a February 4th Farm Journal poll, 20 percent of the 1,200 corn growers surveyed had not yet priced any of their 2014 corn crop. 17 percent had only priced at most a quarter of their 2014 corn crop.?Farmers are looking at a much different price...
WASHINGTON - This year farm profitability is expected to slide 32 percent from last year's forecast.The new information is from USDA?s farm income forecast, and is a significant step down from 2014?s projected net farm income of $108 billion.?Both measures are down...
WASHINGTON - Of the 1.7 million producers eligible to sign up for several new farm bill safety net programs, only 80,000 have actually done so, according to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack. The news came last week in a conference call with reporters to update them on the...
DES MOINES, Iowa - The proposed Dakota Access pipeline would cut diagonally across the state of Iowa from Lyon to Lee county, carrying crude oil out of North Dakota. A newly-minted coalition of 19 interest groups is trying to stop it.On Wednesday, members of the...
DES MOINES, Iowa - The third largest farm show in the country has overtaken the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, and out of all the new technology on display, there's one that's clearly taking off as a viable part of modern farming: agricultural drones.In fact, five...
DES MOINES, Iowa - The topic of water and soil conservation in Iowa are only becoming more important, according to the Conservation Districts of Iowa.In 2016, CDI estimates legislative funding for soil and water conservation will need to increase 43 percent from the...
DES MOINES, Iowa - On Wednesday, the Sustainable Iowa Land Trust (SILT) launched in Des Moines, with a goal of keeping more of Iowa's land in local food production.It works like this: landowners donate their own acres to the trust as gifts, or place their land into a...
