Now’s the time when holiday enthusiasts start dreaming of a White Christmas. But the marshmallow world created by falling snowflakes offers much more than a glistening backdrop for a Hallmark movie. And nobody choruses “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow” louder than farmers. In the northern states, snow can account for 2/3 of
December 8th is #NationalChristmasTreeDay. This of course sets up the great debate, real or fake? While every family weighs the pros and cons of choosing the Tannenbaum they rock around, a popular nation is that fake trees are more eco-friendly. After all, they can keep for many years, right? And isn’t it bad to cut down real trees merely for decoration? Not so fast.
What’s fueling regenerative agriculture? Sustainability, climate concerns, ESG-driven investors, soil health and heightened crop input costs are all major contributors. Another may be the shift in demographics. Millennials (born 1981-1996) recently passed baby boomers as the USAs most populous generation. And more than half of the US population is now comprised of millennials or younger. With a shift in population, and shift in culture, comes a shift in buying patterns.
This is American agriculture’s big week – Thanksgiving! Our celebration of food takes center stage on family dining tables from sea to shining sea. Not only do we honor the 1% who currently feed us, we also reflect upon the many contributions of the original American agriculturalists, our Native Americans. For starters, they saved the Pilgrims from starvation during their first years in the New World. The Wamponoag tribe utilized their famous “Three Sisters” cropping practice: corn, beans and squash.
“Sustainability is a way of thinking: At Huma® we’ve been thinking sustainably for over 50 years.” We make that statement at the top of the Sustainability section of our Huma® Website. And we stand by it. But what, exactly, does it mean? Over the past 50 years, we at Huma® have always striven to create products that work with nature in support of the well-being of our planet and our customers and to create a working environment that supports the well-being of our staff members and their families. We were doing this long before sustainability became the “thing” that it is now.
I’ll never forget the sage words an old farmer told me when I announced my intention to start farming in the late 1990s. I explained that I was not leaving my marketing job and that I was also doing a fair amount of freelance consulting work. He told me, “It’s funny how many other jobs you need
Clocks turned back one hour in most of the country over the weekend (a notable exception was Arizona). There’s a popular belief that daylight savings time was intended for farmers. Agriculturists are, of course, infamous early risers, said to awaken with the roosters to do their daily chores. Contrary to popular belief, the idea to “fall
When you’re carving your Halloween pumpkins this week, be sure to thank a bee. That’s because pumpkins are not self-pollinating plants. Unlike cotton and soybeans, where pollen produced within a flower fertilizes the ovary of the same flower on the same plant, pumpkins have specific male and female flowers across their vines. So they need bees to carry pollen between the flowers. Pumpkin growers will rent bee colonies during the growing season to ensure better pollination and higher yields.
One of the greatest inventions in history is the combine. The concept of threshing and separating grain in one operation revolutionized our food system, as well as redefined our labor force. Consider that in the mid-1800s, 90% of the US workforce was involved in some aspect of farming. Now it’s under 2%. To think my grandfather harvested corn by hand and threw the ears in a wagon! He used the pull-behind model in the 1940s to harvest small grains (that’s him, Fred Nichols, combining oats on our family farm). My mother still talks about dad wearing a Jesse James style mask while operating their first self-propelled combine without a cab.
Last week I was a guest on the TopSoil Webinar series hosted by Mitchell Hora of Continuum Ag (you can check it out here). I mentioned how western growers seem further along in their regenerative agriculture journey. That’s largely driven by regional attitudes and the food companies, who have pledged to sell products grown using regen ag practices. This has motivated growers of crops such as potatoes, onions, apples, and blueberries to hasten their adoption. But in the Heartland, where commodity crops fill the landscape, these growers have lacked many of the market-driven economic incentives. Until now.
STAY IN TOUCH
