Growing Returns

SUSTAIN: navigating the boom in precision ag

By Katie Anderson / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: June 19, 2015

There’s new proof that precision agriculture is on the rise.

Earlier this month, CropLife magazine and Purdue University released a survey that found more than 85 percent of agricultural retailers plan on investing in precision agriculture services in the next year. And more than 15 percent of the 2,000 retailers surveyed will invest over $100,000.

This is good news for increasing fertilizer efficiency, because precision technologies can go a long way toward helping farmers know when and where to apply fertilizer. Applying fertilizer when, where, and in the amounts it’s needed can help save on input costs and reduce the environmental impacts that occur when excess nitrogen runs off into nearby waters or is released into the air.

But there’s a caveat – with so many precision agriculture tools available today and even more coming to market on a regular basis, how is a farmer to know what is best? Growers need to have confidence that precision ag tools will help them optimize their fertilizer use, improve their farm’s sustainability, and protect their yields. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, croplife, farmers, farms, food production, nitrogen, nutrient efficiency, precision agriculture, soil health, sustainability, United Suppliers | Comments are closed

Operation Warbler: Fort Hood and local ranchers team up to save bird

By David Wolfe / Bio / Published: June 9, 2015

Dr. Gene Murph stands in front of prime golden-cheeked warbler habitat on his Texas ranch

I’m going to take you back to 2005, to a ranch in the Texas Hill Country, where Dr. Gene Murph operates an 80-head cattle operation on 1,300 acres of rangeland.

The ranch is vast, with rolling hills and wooded ravines. The only sounds on the ranch are those of cattle mooing in the pastures and birds trilling in the trees. If you listen closely enough, you can hear the signature call of the golden-cheeked warbler. If you look closely enough, you can spot the bird’s sunshine-yellow face.

The golden-cheeked warbler was listed as an endangered species in 1990, making Dr. Murph’s ranch a vital stronghold for subpopulations, which nest at select sites scattered throughout 33 counties in central Texas.

Another nearby stronghold for the bird is the Fort Hood Army Base, only a few miles down the road from Dr. Murph’s ranch and home to the largest known population of golden-cheeked warblers. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged bird habitat, endangered species, Fort Hood, fort hood recovery credit system, golden cheeked warbler, habitat, habitat exchange, ranch, texas department of agriculture, texas hill country | Comments are closed

Campbell’s Soup expands its fertilizer optimization programs

By Suzy Friedman / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: June 2, 2015

There’s a new reason to celebrate your favorite sugar cookie. The Campbell Soup Company has committed to fertilizer optimization in its sourcing areas in Ohio and Nebraska. These areas provide wheat for Campbell’s subsidiary, Pepperidge Farm – and the company will enroll an additional 70,000 acres into its fertilizer optimization programs by 2020.

Campbell will work with EDF to create additional fertilizer optimization and soil conservation programs for farmers, and will deploy United Suppliers’ SUSTAIN platform in these sourcing areas to help ensure farmers that changing their practices will not only reduce nitrogen runoff, but also protect yields and farm income. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, Campbell, Campbell Soup, climate change, farmers, farms, GHG mitigation, Nebraska, Ohio, Pepperidge Farm, sustainability, United Suppliers, Walmart, wheat | Comments are closed

Feds call for cooperative conservation on sage grouse, states deliver

By Eric Holst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 27, 2015

"An unprecedented, collaborative effort" was a blog published last week by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe, BLM Director Neil Kornze, USFS Chief Tom Tidwell and NRCS Chief Jason Weller

“An unprecedented, collaborative effort” was a blog published last week in The Hill by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe, BLM Director Neil Kornze, USFS Chief Tom Tidwell and NRCS Chief Jason Weller.

Last week, leaders of the four federal agencies dealing most closely with issues surrounding the greater sage-grouse delivered a strong public message: As long as stakeholders continue to work together, we can save this bird and preclude the need for listing.

The message was powerful – not just because it was endorsed by four of our nation’s top thinkers on conservation, but because it was optimistic.

“We have seen what’s possible when we all pull our oars in the same direction,” they wrote.

This is a fundamental turning of the tides in the conversation around sage grouse. Previously, the dialogue has been pointed, with industry interests, agriculture interests and wildlife interests caught in crosshairs. But the discourse has changed, and it’s because the situation on the ground has changed. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged An unprecedented, BLM, collaborative effort, colorado, conservation, Dan Ashe, habitat exchange, hickenlooper, Jason Weller, mitigation, Montana, Neil Kornze, Nevada, NRCS, public lands, sage grouse, the hill, Tom Tidwell, USDA, USFS, USFWS, Wyoming | Comments are closed

New research helps farmers set targets for reducing emissions

By Eileen McLellan / Bio / Published: May 26, 2015

Credit: photos.com

The easiest way to tackle fertilizer pollution is to lower the amount of nitrogen applied to crops, thereby reducing nutrient losses into the air and water. The problem is, reducing fertilizer rates can also shrink crop yields, which means less income for farmers and less food on our plates.

So here’s the question: how can we slash nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture without sacrificing productivity?

To meet this challenge, scientists need to understand the relationship between “nitrogen surplus” (the amount of applied nitrogen fertilizer not taken up by the plant), “nutrient use efficiency” (the ratio of how much yield you get from each pound of fertilizer applied) and nitrous oxide emissions that contribute to climate change. The more nitrogen a plant absorbs, the less it releases into the air in the form of nitrous oxide and into the water where it can contribute to harmful algal blooms. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, climate change, farmers, farms, GHG emissions, GHG mitigation, nitrogen surplus, nitrogen uptake, nitrous oxide, nutrient efficiency, tipping point | Comments are closed

How agriculture’s resilience to climate change benefits us all

By Sara Kroopf / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 21, 2015

81 percent of Americans live in cities, but rely on rural areas for everyday needs.

Traditionally, governments haven’t factored farms and ranches into their climate mitigation and adaptation planning. Instead, the focus has mostly been on protecting urban communities. But that is all changing. At the National Adaptation Forum earlier this month in St. Louis, agriculture was top-of-mind in discussions about reducing emissions and building resilience to climate change.

That’s because in order to protect people, 81 percent of whom live in urban areas, we’ll need to protect what’s around where they live, too. It’s largely rural areas, like the farming town of 1,100 people where I grew up, whose working lands and farms provide valuable services to urban areas. These services include food security, flood and drought protection, recreation and water storage. Agriculture can also play (and is already playing) a big role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The more resilient we can make agriculture, the better off we’ll all be. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged adaptation, agriculture, Air Resources Board, American Carbon Registry, climate change, compost protocol, farmers, GHG mitigation, green infrastructure, mitigation, ranchers, USDA, wetlands | Read 3 Responses

Meet Brent Bible, state trooper turned farmer and mentor

By Suzy Friedman / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 14, 2015

A new Purdue University study released this week found that agriculture will create nearly 60,000 jobs each year for the next five years. But to meet this growing demand, more students will need to graduate with agricultural degrees. And as the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a recent interview, the farming sector must do more to work with students and the educational system as a whole.

That’s where growers like Brent Bible come into play. Brent is inspiring the next generation of farmers, scientists, researchers, and agronomists through his work with Purdue students who help him operate his 3,000-acre grain farm in Indiana. He’s also promoting soil health, nutrient efficiency, and sustainable agriculture through changes in on-farm practices.

I asked Brent, a former Indiana state police officer, about his transition to the agricultural world, his work with the Soil Health Partnership, and what gets him out of bed every morning. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, farmers, farms, food production, nitrogen, nutrient efficiency, Purdue, Purdue University, soil health, Soil Health Partnership | Comments are closed

Why the food movement is alive and well

By Maggie Monast / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 11, 2015

Mark Bittman’s recent New York Times op-ed, “Let’s Make Food Issues Real,” is a grim assessment of the current state of the food movement – in fact, he questions whether a food movement exists at all.

Bittman states that the lack of major change to government food policies means the food movement is not winning. “I’ll believe there’s a food movement when Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush are forced to talk directly about food issues,” Bittman writes.

I’ll take that bet. With the drought in California threatening the nation’s produce and the other impacts climate change pose to our food supply, I think it’s likely that the next group of presidential candidates will discuss food issues on the campaign trail. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, California Air Resources Board, Carbon Offsets, climate change, drought, farmers, farms, food movement, food production, Mark Bittman, nutrient efficiency, USDA | Read 2 Responses

Water risk: Which food companies are managing it and how can they do better?

By Rebecca Shaw / Bio / Published: May 8, 2015

Credit: Flickr user phphoto2010

Unreliable water supply and quality is a source of enormous risk to the agricultural sector. That was the key takeaway of a new report from Ceres that evaluated 37 of the world’s leading agriculture, beverage, meat and packaged food companies to see how they are managing risks from diminishing water supplies and water quality.

In a nutshell, companies need to improve their performance.

Companies use huge amounts of water in the production of crops, which also affects water quality when nitrogen fertilizer not absorbed by plants runs off into waterways. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged agriculture, climate change, drought, farmers, food production, sustainability, water, water deficit, water quality, water use | Comments are closed

Action by California farmers necessary to reach state’s new emissions target

By Robert Parkhurst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: April 30, 2015

Robert Parkhurst was in Los Angeles yesterday speaking at a conference on Navigating the American Carbon World. His panel is discussing the “Future Offset Supply.”

Robert Parkhurst was in Los Angeles yesterday speaking at a conference on Navigating the American Carbon World. His panel discussed the “Future Offset Supply.”

California Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order this week ramping up the state’s already ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goal, setting a new target to reduce emissions by 40 percent over 1990 levels by 2030.

“With this order, California sets a very high bar for itself and other states and nations, but it’s one that must be reached — for this generation and generations to come.” – California Governor Jerry Brown

This new target is a timely and significant step in securing a more resilient future for California, which is currently experiencing one of the most severe droughts in the state’s history. But it’s a tall order – and one that will require an array of aggressive strategies across all sectors.

Fortunately, crop-based farmers are well-positioned to help. Read More »

Posted in Agriculture / Tagged california, California agriculture, carbon credits, Carbon Offsets, climate change, comport, emissions target, executive order, governor jerry brown, greenhouse gas emissions, Navigating the American Carbon World, rice farmers | Comments are closed