Black farmers unconvinced by Vilsack's 'root out' racism vow
“The reality is there are inherent, legacy barriers and practices that have prevented black farmers and other producers from getting access to programs, and I will do everything I can to remove those barriers,” Vilsack said in an email to The Associated Press.
House Ag panel will start with climate change | Successful Farming
With the resolution of a disputed election in New York State, the House Agriculture Committee is ready for action with climate change as its top issue. “Everything will tie into climate change,” says the committee chief of staff, and the first hearing of the year will focus on climate change’s impact on agriculture.
Black farmers unconvinced by Vilsack's 'root out' racism vow | Agriculture | capitalpress.com
President Joe Biden’s nomination of Tom Vilsack to lead the Agriculture Department is getting a chilly reaction from many Black farmers who contend he didn’t do enough to help them the last time he had the job.
Vertical Farming Is The Future of Food Production - The Debrief
“Vertical farming is a type of controlled environment agriculture that uses artificial lighting, typically indoors, and vertical planting systems that utilize a space’s cubic footage as opposed to square footage in traditional farming,” Megan Pirelli, community engagement director at Fork Farms, told The Debrief. “This allows for significantly more production in a much smaller space.”
U.S. Farmers and Ranchers in Action promotes agriculture's potential as a climate solution | Successful Farming
U.S. Farmers & Ranchers in Action (USFRA) —in conjunction with World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), The Mixing Bowl, and Croatan Institute has issued a new report that analyzes the state of soil health technology. The report also identifies opportunities to find new sources of capital to scale up the adoption of climate-smart agriculture on U.S. farms and ranches.
Opinion: Carbon can be the next American cash crop – if we plant trust first | 2021-02-05 | Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
While some similar carbon-credit programs for agriculture have been announced, many still rely on broad estimates of carbon improvements over many acres, due to the difficulty and cost of verification and validation. It’s essential that any system of carbon-credit farming is built on clear, science-based standards tied to real-world results.
Modern farming is better because it uses low-impact, “precision” techniques that require less land, less energy and fewer chemicals for every bushel produced. The secret has been to incorporate tools that use sensors, information and communications technology, big data, and even machine learning to reduce farming’s dependence on material resources.
How Regenerative Agriculture Can Grow | Conservation Finance Network
This series, by the Yale Center for Business and the Environment's Regenerative Agriculture Initiative team, looks at how changes in training, investing, insuring and marketing the work of regenerative farmers can bring about broad benefits.
Racial inequities in the allocation of farm aid is not a new or unusual issue. The unequal administration of pandemic support is part of a much longer trend of government programs underserving minority populations.
Radicchio proved to be an important crop in 2007 when Erickson-Brown and her husband, Jason Salvo, started their 15-acre farm, Local Roots Farm, in Duvall, Wash.
USDA may use $30 bn fund to create carbon bank | Agriculture | capitalpress.com
Insiders say the new administration wants to use the money to tackle climate change, potentially by establishing a carbon bank that pays farmers to store carbon in their soil.
One topic most red, blue, and green politicians — and, even more strikingly, farmers — agree on is climate change; it’s real.In fact, notes the Dec. 2020 Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll, 58 percent of …
Article: Latinx Farmworkers Are Purchasing Failing Farms From White Owners
The next generation of farmers in the United States might not be whom we expect. If the COVID-19 pandemic revealed the importance of farmworkers in our food system, the story left out a rising class of farmworkers who now own their craft with the help of incubator programs across the country. Latinx
Article: Black farmers expecting change under Biden administration - TheGrio
Black farmers expecting change under Biden administrationLoading the player...Sedrick Rowe was a runningback for Fort Valley State University in Georgia and discovered an organic farm on the grounds …
Sandison: COVID, Trade Issues Remain Into 2021 – PNW AG Network
"...we anticipate that the social distancing requirements and all the other things that I’ve already talked about in terms of partitioning and PPE will continue to be something that we have to implement or to put into play with our agricultural operations.”
Up-trending farming and landscape disruptions threaten Paris climate agreement goals
One of President Joe Biden's first post-inauguration acts was to realign the United States with the Paris climate accord, but a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Irvine demonstrates ...
Ranchers back blueberry growers in trade claim | Livestock | capitalpress.com
Some cattlemen are cheering on blueberry farmers who are seeking protection from foreign competitors, countering the jeers from sectors of U.S. agriculture that depend on serene trade relations.
Using Satellites to Improve Sustainability, Yield - California Ag Network
Two of the nation’s great agricultural regions are the focus of new research that aims to head off emerging threats and improve sustainability. Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are joining colleagues to create and use artificial intelligence to help farmers in the Colorado River Basin and Salinas Valley, CA, improve their management of irrigation, fertilization, …ARS has three primary roles in the project: To calculate project area crop water use and anomalies with crop water use across the entire region; develop tools that help growers avoid salinity damage while minimizing the leaching of fertilizer; and to gather field data to validate satellite algorithms.