Farm & Field
Waffles, Not Pancakes: Local Farmer’s Invention Could Improve Crop Yields
As vice president of Shatto Milk Company, Matt Shatto also wears another hat, that of CEO of TerraManus Technologies. Shatto has come up with a simple way that he says can increase crop yields. It’s a plastic disk that, when used with regular tilling, can help soil retain water and consolidate it instead of compact it. He says…
Is The Tide Of Antibiotic Use On Farms Now Turning?
For the first time, government statistics show America’s pigs, cattle, and poultry are getting fewer antibiotic drugs. Public health advocates call the new figures encouraging.
Giving Away the (Wind) Farm
Mark Buck can see some of the 314 turbines in Kansas’ largest wind farm from his office window in Medicine Lodge, where he is superintendent of the Barber County North School District. The nearly $1 billion Flat Ridge project, built in two phases and owned in part by British Petroleum, spans 70,000 acres near the…
Federal Tax Credits Drive Foreign Wind Investment
Investment in U.S. wind energy production has increased tenfold over the past decade with the help of billions of dollars in federal tax help, with foreign companies making up much of the increase. Indeed, six foreign-owned wind energy companies have received at least $4.8 billion in federal tax credits between 2000 and 2015, according to…
Can The Buzz Of Bees Predict Success For Farmers?
See a bee; hear a buzz. That is what researchers studying the declining bee population are banking on. A new technique based on recording buzzing bees hopes to show farmers just how much pollinating the native bee population is doing in their fields. Vegetable and fruit growers depend on pollinators to do a lot of…
As High-Tech Farms Take Hold, Can Farm Towns Hold On?
Brandon Biesemeier climbs up a small ladder into a John Deere sprayer, takes a seat in the enclosed cab, closes the door, and blocks out most of the machine’s loud engine hum. It is a familiar perch to the fourth-generation farmer on Colorado’s eastern plains. He turns onto a country road, heading south to spray…
Without Big Trade Deals, Missouri Farmers Worry They’ll Lose Out
President Trump made campaign promises to pull the U.S. out of big international trade deals and focus instead on one-on-one agreements with other countries. But that has farmers worried they will lose some of the $135 billion in goods they sold overseas last year. Two years ago, Missouri rancher Mike John expected the U.S. beef…
Big Data Is Transforming How Scientists Create Better Seeds
This summer, in cornfields in Iowa and Nebraska, about a thousand small point-and-shoot digital cameras will be enclosed in waterproof cases, mounted on poles and attached to solar-powered battery chargers. They will take pictures every ten minutes as plants grow; all part of a plan to create better seeds. “We watch plants go through their…
New Farm Will Cultivate a Future for Veterans and American Agriculture
Off a narrow dirt road in the middle of Kansas, retired Army Col. Gary LaGrange, his daughter Shari LaGrange-Aulich and a group of veterans are cultivating a future for service members and American agriculture. Three hundred and twenty acres nestled between Manhattan, Kansas and Fort Riley will be the future site of S.A.V.E. Farm, which stands…
As Bird Flu Strengthens In China, Midwest Farmers Prepare For The Next Outbreak
Midwest farmers are warily watching as one strain of a highly contagious bird flu virus infects and kills humans in China and another less-worrying but still highly contagious strain infects a Tennessee poultry farm. Two years after a devastating bird flu outbreak in the Midwest, many farmers here say they now have a better idea…