One of the highlights of the National Farm Toy Show is the farm layouts, and encouraging the younger generation to be part of this hobby. The show takes place the first full weekend in November in Dyersville, Iowa.
New year is an ideal time to take control and get on track
While I write this, the wind is howling around my house, the wind chill has reached the depths of about minus-15 degrees and I’m tired of winter – but that doesn’t matter, because I can’t change the weather.
Michigan showing potential for larger and better hops industry
There’s plenty of potential for the expansion of hop production in Michigan, according to a panel of experts who discussed the industry at last month’s Great Lakes Expo.
U.S. corn and soy output at all-time high, for 2014
The USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) had a busy Monday as the agency released updates on last year’s crop production, grain stocks and winter wheat acreage.
Sheep numbers in Kentucky increased by 6,000 head from 2013 to 2014 to a total of 49,000. Also, breeding sheep numbers increased, which is a good mark of sustainability. These results buck the national trend.
It is January. Elected officials around the nation return to their chambers full of great new ideas that they feel need to become laws. Quite a few of these will have a direct impact on agriculture because, despite the fact that agriculture is already one of the most highly regulated sectors of the economy, there are people who think more laws are needed to keep farmers and food producers in line.
Mom, Grandma and Aunt Nina were ‘foodies’ many years ago
We didn’t know it back then, but everyone on the big southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth was a foodie. Of course there was no one named Bittman or Pollan or Waters to tell us we were foodies, but there were people named Mom and Grandma and Aunt Nina whose food knocked your socks off despite their cracking a cookbook about as often as they wrote one – which was never.
