Kenya is once again in the midst of a massive dessert locust plague just months after battling another invasion that left farmers reeling from massive crop losses. With a new generation of the voracious insect threatening livelihoods and food security, agtech startup The Bug Picture is helping Kenyan farmers harvest the locusts and turn them …
When Life Hands You Locusts…Make Feed and Fertilizer! Read More »
U.S. agricultural exports in 2021 are forecast to reach $157 billion, driven by record shipments to China that are expected to hit $31.5 billion. The estimate for the fiscal year ending September 30 would mark a new record for U.S. ag shipments and is +$5 billion higher than USDA’s November forecast. USDA says the hike …
Will China Meet USDA’s Lofty Ag Import Goals in 2021? Read More »
The number of farms in the United States in 2020 was estimated at 2,019,000, a decline of -4,000 from 2019. That compares to a decline of -5,800 the year before that and -12,800 the year before that. So the good news is this was the smallest decline in total U.S. farms since 2010 when the …
James Micioni was an avid collector of baseball cards and memorabilia. He never married, never had kids lived a modest life as a factory worker and high school janitor. He loved sports, he loved baseball, and particularly loved his New York Yankees. He also loved his seven nephews and nieces, who always knew he was …
Many farmers around the country are still cleaning up the mess that winter recently doled out, but attentions are already turning to what spring weather might have in store. Winter doesn’t officially end until the Spring equinox on March 20 but there are several items on the wish list already, as well as worries that …
Could La Niña Trigger Severe Weather this Spring? Read More »
Every input on the farm that goes into the process of growing and harvesting crops is considered a sunk cost. That’s why “operational efficiency” is so important to most farmers’ bottom lines. A company called FluroSat is working to help farmers cut costs by up to -30% by using data to optimize everything from irrigation …
Farmers that have embraced drones in their agricultural operations tend to use them for crop monitoring purposes but Iowa-based ag startup Rantizo thinks drones can do much more to help lessen the workload for farmers. The company utilizes autonomous sprayer drones for precise input application. Last summer, Rantizo became the first in the U.S. to …
Rantizo Brings “Spraying Drone Swarm” to Fields Near You Read More »
New Danish research and innovation have now cracked the code on how you can extract protein from grass in an effective way. The process is called biorefining, which covers a wide array of methods that can refine or improve the value of nature’s most basic resources. The perspectives are far-reaching. The company is called “BioRefine Denmark”. …
INTERESTING… NEW BioRefining Turning Grass into Feed Read More »
GROW is a short 2-minute video inspired by scientific light recipes which improve plants’ growth and resilience. The light is somewhat poetic, and inspired by photobiology light science technologies which have shown that certain recipes of blue, red, and ultraviolet light can enhance plant growth and reduce the use of pesticides by up to 50%. …
There is So Much More We Need to Learn About “Light” Read More »
Australia is on track to produce its second-largest wheat crop in history with exports that are expected to match. USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service’s post in Canberra recently forecast Australia’s wheat production at 31 million metric tons (MMT) for the 2020/21 marketing year, more than double last year’s drought-afflicted output of just over 15 MMT and …
