Month: February 2024

French startup Ÿnsect has been granted authorization to use defatted mealworm proteins in dog food. The green light from the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) marks the first authorization for the commercialization of defatted mealworm proteins in the US. Ÿnsect says the approval follows two years of evaluation by AAFCO, which is responsible …

“Ÿnsect” Gets Approval to Commercialize its Mealworm Proteins in Dog Food Read More »

One of the most important decisions a producer makes every year is what seed to put in the ground. While good quality seeds play a critical role in the success of any crop, not every good seed is ideal for every farm. A new tool from AcreShield aims to take the guesswork out of this …

NEW Tool “Yield Optimizer”… Taking the Guesswork Out of Seed Selection Read More »

Farmland is one of the best asset classes around, outperforming most other major assets over the past three decades. That trend is only expected to accelerate as farmland steadily becomes more scarce even as global food demand continues to rise. This has not gone unnoticed by investors, which have been adding farmland to their portfolios …

Institutional Buyers Continue to Gobble Up US Farmland Read More »

Indiana farmer and well-known “Ag-vocate” Brian Scott, who does a lot of work trying to bring the producers and consumers together on topics of debate, once shared his collection of the most Game-Changing people in agriculture. Reading and reviewing the list makes me wonder what and who comes next. Will they have something to do …

10 Most “Game-Changing” People In Ag Read More »

A new study from a team of scientists at Chalmers University in Sweden describes how microbes in soil and water may be evolving to eat plastic. The researchers found the evidence in DNA samples taken from the environment, which revealed some 30,000 unique enzymes that are capable of degrading 10 different types of plastics. The …

Microbes Might be Evolving to Eat Plastic Read More »

U.S. farmers produce +25% more pork than they did two decades ago. But… U.S. demand for pork is -9% less than what it was 20 years ago, according to estimates from Kansas State University. The resulting glut has shrunk U.S. pork producers’ profit margins to their lowest levels since 1998, according to the American Bankers Association. If …

US Produces +25% More Pork Than We Did 20 Years Ago… But Consume -9% Less Read More »

Global corn production is forecast to swell to record levels this year to more than 1.2 billion metric tons, just above the previous record crop in 2021-22, according to the latest USDA estimates. That in turn is seen pushing global ending stocks to the highest levels since 2018-19 at more than 322 million metric tons. …

Checking in on Brazil’s Second Corn Crop Read More »

Results from USDA’s highly anticipated “2022 Census of Agriculture” show the trends of fewer farms and farmland, aging farmers, and climbing expenses remain intact.  In 2022, a little over 3.37 million producers operated 1.90 million farms covering 880.1 million acres. That compares to just under 3.40 million producers on 2.04 million farms and more than …

Census of Agriculture Shows Continuing Decline in Farms and Acreage Read More »

After two decades of cautiously tiptoeing around the commercial adoption of genetically modified crops, China recently seems to have done a complete 180. The country has been revving up its approvals of new GM crop varieties and pushing farmers to adopt the seed technology, marking one of the Chinese government’s most significant steps in recent …

China is Suddenly Speeding Ahead on GM Crop Adoption Read More »

The start of the new year officially marked the start of big changes for the pork industry with California’s controversial “Proposition 12” going into effect. That means pork producers that want to sell their products in the state must comply with its larger animal housing requirements. So far, industry stakeholders have mixed opinions on the …

Uncertainty Clouds Pork Market After California’s Proposition 12 Takes Effect Read More »