Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that $8.4 million in financial assistance is available to support 23 new partnership projects in several Mississippi River Basin states under USDA’s Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (MRBI). These projects will fund producer activities that will avoid, control and trap sediment and nutrient runoff from agricultural lands, improving water quality throughout their operations. On … Read More
Results in for CRP General Sign-Up
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the USDA will accept 3.9 million acres offered under the 43rd Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) general sign-up. During the extended five-week signup, the Department received nearly 48,000 offers on more than 4.5 million acres of land, demonstrating the CRP’s continuing leadership as one of our nation’s most successful voluntary efforts to conserve land and … Read More
USDA Investing in Mississippi River Basin Water Quality
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and its partners will invest nearly $32 million this year in financial and technical assistance for five water quality and wetlands improvement projects in seven Mississippi River Basin states. When fully implemented, the projects will prevent sediment and nutrients from entering waterways, decrease flooding and improve bird and … Read More
Barcodes Help Track and Control Insects
Barcodes may bring to mind the sales tags and scanners found in supermarkets and other stores. But USDA scientists are using “DNA barcodes” to monitor insects that damage crops as diverse as wheat, barley and potatoes, and to make pest management decisions. In DNA barcoding, scientists sequence a designated part of an organism’s genome and produce a barcode from it … Read More
Soil Erosion Modeling: It’s Getting Better All the Time
About 50 years ago, scientists at the USDA devised the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), a formula farmers could use to estimate losses from soil erosion. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists will soon release a version that integrates models generated by cutting-edge computer technology, an updated soils database, and new findings about erosion processes. Every conservation plan written by the … Read More
First USDA Virtual Office Hours on Twitter
Tomorrow (April 5) at 1:30pm EDT, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack will hold the first “USDA Virtual Office Hours on Twitter.” Most of you probably know how this works, especially if you’ve been a participant in AgChat. I’d recommend using TweetChat, Twubs or an app like TweetDeck or HootSuite to follow along. It looks like these planned monthly sessions will focus … Read More
Ag Day Activities in DC
The annual commemoration of the importance of agriculture is traditionally celebrated on the first day of spring to recognize the start of planting season, but the event in the nation’s capitol is held a little earlier in the month when Congress is in session so lawmakers can attend. This year the date was March 8 and the day in DC … Read More
Vilsack Announces CRP Initiative at Commodity Classic
Before heading back to Washington for a White House conservation conference last Friday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was in Nashville speaking to corn, soybean, wheat and sorghum farmers and announcing the opportunity for them to enroll a total of 1 million acres of land in a new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) initiative to preserve grasslands and wetlands. “By focusing 1 … Read More
New Highly Erodible Cropland Initiative for CRP
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced a new conservation initiative to protect up to 750,000 acres of the nation’s most highly erodible croplands. The new initiative will assist producers with targeting their most highly erodible cropland (land with an erodibility index of 20 or greater) by enabling them to plant wildlife-friendly, long-term cover through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Producers … Read More
Administration Backtracks on Child Labor Rules
The administration is rethinking plans to prevent children from doing many types of farm work. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) this week announced that a proposal which would have barred children from many on-farm tasks will be revised to allow broader exemptions for parents who own or run agricultural operations. The proposed rules would have prevent children younger than … Read More