The challenge facing American farmers was unprecedented trade war with China. Almost immediately, China stopped buying soybeans altogether. This action was in retaliation, following the launch of the Trump administration’s unprecedented trade war. Previously, China was purchasing more than $12 billion worth of American soybean products in 2024. This represented approximately half the value of soybeans grown in the […]

Climate change denialists are fond of pointing out that rising CO2 levels will mean that plant life will flourish, since plants “breathe” carbon dioxide. And it’s true that, up to a point, plants do grow faster with higher CO2 levels. But those plants have less nutritional value for the animals that depend on them for […]

USDA has now dropped the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates in the much awaited October reporting. In a simple one liner, here is the gist of it – lower soy and corn yields this year (drought and lack of fertilizer – we saw this one coming), but wheat supply down, but higher than last […]

Agricultural news is slim, few and far between and usually relegated to only a few places. Mainstream media doesn’t have an audience for hard ag journalism, and ag journalism mostly preaches to the choir. Two great publications that I typically get information from are Successful Farming and AgWeb –. Both have varying degrees of in-depth […]

We are firmly into an ENSO phase in the United States that could be regarded as the essence of the word dire. Milestones in Texas the past two weeks from a drought, weather, and a livestock production perspective are coming fast and often. Largely throughout the entire west – it’s hot, dry, and uncomfortable, both […]

In this series we explore marketing farm fresh goods in the litany of different ways as a direct consumer edibles farmer. Many types of farms exist within the framework of directly edible, from market gardens, to 100 acre California avocado fields, dairy barns, hen houses, and multiple large monocrop “people food” producers. Direct to Consumer […]

Harvest season has sprung upon us in a hurry. We had to spend a few evenings in the fields collecting squash, zucchini, cucumbers, and even dug up all of the potatoes, among the multitude of other things we planted this spring and continue to plant. It’s been a busy few weeks that have been hard […]

In Texas a large portion of Plant ’22 has already happened. Central Texas corn emergence is already knee high, green, and waiting for the rains to continue this week. Other parts of the country have struggled to get seed in the ground either due to low soil temps, too much precipitation or no rain to […]

Just how dry have the ground conditions been? Dire. Fire sweeping towns from Austin to Los Angeles, dire. Rain? Forecast yes, but closer to the Powell Line. The Powell Line, as stated previously is where the dry plains and the wet prairie meet. An abundance and a desert. Too much and not enough. Floods and […]

As we rounded out the month of March the USDA has been busy assessing the planted acres around the United States, reported the 31st of March. Much to my prior post, there are not really any surprises as the data has indicated that the planting is mirroring last year…with a few caveats, most namely the […]