This Week in Ag #105 - You can’t live without insurance these days. You can’t get a home mortgage without it. Nor can you legally drive without it. And if you’re a corn or soybean grower, you really can’t farm without it. That’s why over 90% of commodity crop acres are insured with Federal Crop Insurance. But FCI is anything but a normal insurance policy.
Last June, I had the privilege of visiting parts of Asia to attend a conference hosted by one of our distributors. The event brought together ag experts, farmers, and researchers from different parts of the world to discuss the future of farming. I was excited to collaborate with them all and little did I know,
This Week In Ag #104 Here’s an inconvenient truth about farming: many farmers live off their equity. When land is your biggest asset and land prices remain strong, so does your balance sheet. This offers lending power. Depending on your situation, it’s very possible to break even, or even lose money in your farming operation
“There’s got to be a better way.” Those words were expressed to me last week at the World Ag Expo. I had just completed my presentation, “Breathe New Life into Your Soil”, when a nice lady and her husband approached me. She introduced herself as a multi-generational rancher who grows alfalfa and orchard grass for their
All four faces on Mount Rushmore are farmers. Along with being the father of our country, George Washington was a father of regenerative agriculture, implementing intense crop rotation (he grew 60 different crops), cover crop practices, manure management, and grazing from multiple livestock species on his 8,000-acre Mt. Vernon farm. Thomas Jefferson, considering himself “first a
Fred Nichols, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Huma®, shared his perspective in a recent article on biostimulants and biofertilizers, published in CropLife and American Fruit Grower Magazine. In the article, Fred discusses the growing role of these products in sustainable agriculture, their benefits, and their impact on crop production. Below are the questions posed
Ask yourself this. Would you really want to be on the other side of a trade dispute with the USA? With all the hysteria over tariffs, that’s a question few seem to be asking. In the global economy, the good ole USA remains the 700-pound gorilla. Boasting a GDP over $25 trillion, the US economy is nearly
Centuries before Saint Valentine was marrying couples in ancient Rome, legend says the red rose sprouted from the ground, watered by Aphrodite’s tears and her lover Adonis’ blood. Throughout the ages, the quintessential red rose has been a symbol of love, but have you wondered where it comes from? Most rose production is centralized in
Farmers grow food. That’s a simple and straight-forward premise. Or is it? We continue to shake our heads at survey results that reveal many consumers think their food comes from the grocery store. But what about the industry itself? If we’re being totally honest, we should ask: are we largely focused on growing food, or producing commodities?
Shopping with a farmer can be quite the experience. It’s one my mother refused to partake in during her entire 40-year marriage. This weekend, I went with my wife to exchange a pair of blue jeans that Santa brought me. As we were looking for my size, a clerk at Boot Barn suggested a different
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