by Admin | Nov 17, 2019 | Finance
It was a corporate initiative supporters claimed could mainstream sustainable agriculture. Now critics are wondering how much impact it’s really having. When Land O’ Lakes, the dairy giant, announced SUSTAIN, an ambitious program designed to reduce nitrogen-based...
by Admin | Nov 16, 2019 | Finance
It’s an adage among ecologists: everything living is connected. What happens to one biological population has what economists might call a multiplier effect, cascading down a chain of causes and effects to shape the lives of other biological populations in far-flung...
by Admin | Nov 15, 2019 | Agriculture, Finance, Mortgage
Everyone knows farms draw a lot of energy to run. While power costs usually comprise only 2% of farms’ overhead, that’s still $10,000+ annually in costs. There’s significant variation depending on what commodities the land produces. If you raise cattle, that median...
by Admin | Nov 14, 2019 | Finance
Though it’s bigger than ever, the industrial food complex is under heavy criticism these days. Environmentalists fault it for chemical runoff, biodiversity loss, and depletion of water and soil. Animal rights activists decry squalid conditions inside factory farms....
by Admin | Nov 13, 2019 | Agriculture, Finance, Mortgage
Talk with any group of farmers, and conversation will eventually turn to the weather. That’s not just a convention of polite conversation. It’s a staple of discussion because farmers look to the skies for, well, everything. Even tiny fluctuations — too many...
by Admin | Nov 12, 2019 | Agriculture, Finance, Mortgage
The current generation of farmers stands among the most well-educated group ever to take up the plow. According to a recent USDA survey, almost a quarter of all active farmers have earned undergraduate degrees. Among new farmers, the proportion of the degreed eclipses...