Farmers know a good weather forecast is essential. Now, long-range outlooks a whole season ahead have been shown to help African farmers do better.
Read (AP via WTOP)
Forecasts Help Farmers Improve Harvest
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Category Archives: Agriculture
Can Gene-Altered Rice Rescue the Farm Belt?
The debate over gene-altered rice has a certain urgency in the United States Farm Belt, where finding new products will help reduce reliance on commodity crops.
Read (New York Times)
Bird Swarms Invade Farmlands in Nigeria
Large swarms of birds have invaded parts of northern Nigeria, destroying grain farms and threatening harvests in a region bordering famine-stricken Niger, officials and farmers have said.
Read (WTOP)
Scientists play down ‘superweed’
Scientists urge caution over a study which may have found a so-called “superweed” growing at a site where GM crops had been trialled.
Read (BBC)
Peanut industry must crack foreign markets, agriculture official tells farmers, researchers
The 2002 Farm Bill was written during a budget surplus year. That’s no longer the situation. We’re working with a rising budget deficit. Instead of having an opportunity to share in a growing pie, we have a shrinking pie. That could mean there will be fewer agricultural subsidies in the upcoming farm bill, and the price farmers get for their peanuts, cut almost in half in 2002, could drop even more.
There has to be more emphasis on the foreign market, and new product uses need to be developed.
Read (Virginian-Pilot)
Farmers markets provide on-farm second job
Many farm families seek off-farm jobs to help make ends meet. But, some opt for a second job that is still on the farm.
Read (IowaFarmer.com)
Va. dairy will cut its operation
Valley Rich Dairy announced yesterday that it will shut down processing and bottling operations at its Roanoke plant next month, putting 160 employees out of work.
The company, which has its headquarters in Roanoke, also announced it is closing 15 of its 17 distribution centers in Virginia, North Carolina and West Virginia by Sept. 9, leaving another 140 workers jobless.
The distribution centers that are closing are in Richmond, Bluefield, Galax, Collinsville and Norfolk. The only Virginia distribution center remaining open is in the town of Appalachia, in far Southwest Virginia.
Read (Richmond Times Dispatch)
Farmers-to-be can’t afford the fields
Rising prices make it hard to break into farming, and other recent developments are putting a way of life at risk.
Read (Christian Science Monitor)
Last Known Farm Inside D.C. Beltway To Be Sold
A Prince George’s County man is letting go of what is believed to be the last working family farm inside the Capital Beltway.
Duane Dickerson is selling his 35 acres to a North Carolina developer who is reportedly planning a *strip mall*.
Read (WTOP)
Fish kill devastates North Fork of Shenandoah River
The few surviving adult smallmouth bass in almost 100 miles of the
Shenandoah River and its tributaries are spotted with lesions. These
fish, and many others in the sunfish family, are either dead or dying
of bacterial and fungal infections.
There’ll be no more real fishing on the main stem of the Shenandoah River for three or four years. A wildlife biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries predicted a longer wait for the North River – possibly until *2010* before there are 12-inch smallies in there again.
Several experts have linked the fish deaths to the rapid
runoff of sediment and fertilizers during the last week of April.
Read (Staunton News Leader)
Fertilizers Harm Freshwater Lakes
Farmers’ routine application of chemical fertilizers and manure to the land poses a far greater environmental problem to freshwater lakes than previously thought, potentially polluting the water for hundreds of years, according to research published June 13, 2005.
Read (WTOP)
Part-time farm is full-time work
At least half of Virginia’s farmers need a second or third income in order to *afford* to farm.
Read (Fredericksburg Free Lance Star)
Looking for something fresh?
Valley farmers and buyers have found a missing link. Approaching its fourth week, the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction already is shuttling fresh-picked vegetables and greenhouse flowers to retailers , and a grateful public.
Read (Staunton News Leader)
Man Tries to Revive Honeybee Population
Todd Hardie of Honey Gardens Apiaries is dedicated to his honeybees. In December he and a group of volunteers scooped up 600 hives out of the snow, packed them onto a tractor trailer and drove them south to South Carolina. The bees, threatened by the deadly varroa mite, had a better chance of surviving the winter and thriving down south
Read WTOP)
Production up at Virginia vineyards
Virginia vintners can raise their wine glasses to 2004 grape production. The state’s 250 vineyards produced more than 3,700 tons of commercial grapes last year, up nearly 3 percent from 2003. If Mother Nature cooperates, 2005 could yield an even heftier harvest
Read (Washington Examiner)