The honey month of September provides a chance to celebrate the honeybee. Seventeen states have adopted the honeybee as their official state insect. Why does it hold top honors as the most popular among the 50 states? Keep in mind that one out of every three bites of food we consume has been made […]
With the scary hurricanes and scary tornadoes and scary severe thunderstorms swirling all around us, we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak, and hopefully by the time you read this, we’ll still be waiting.
Amidst all of this, I found a lovely quotation that should give us pause, and to realize […]
There are no super powers out there to magically whisk your farming operation safely into the future, so I gotta tell you: It’s morphin’ time!
“What is holding you back?” A popular statement five years ago when we first addressed this topic in this column.
The seatbelt safety campaign signs can still be found along the roads of rural Ohio urging drivers and passengers to buckle up for their safety. But, if we ask that same question of our dairy businesses, […]
It is a dismal day in U.S. history, a day that we shall never, ever forget. It is and always has been our responsibility as U.S. citizens to pay attention to what is going on in our country, and it seems it is more important than ever.
We are just weeks away from electing a new […]
On Aug. 28, the Thursday before Labor Day, the USDA released its updated forecast of what American farmers and ranchers will earn for laboring in their fields and pastures this year.
The new estimate was a whopper.
Net farm income in 2008 will be a record-shattering $95.7 billion, 10 percent higher than last year’s $86 billion and […]
Hello Again!
The 2008 farm bill was passed late, and because of that, we are late signing producers up for the 2008 DCP (Direct and Counter Cyclical Payment) Program.
Typically, many of you would have signed up in the fall of 2007, or early spring of 2008, to get your advance payment. Due to the late passing […]
On Sept. 7, the nation’s second easy credit party in the last 30 years ended exactly as the first one ended: A fiscally conservative president named Bush put American taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars of bad debt after years of lax lending, lax regulation and lax monetary policy.
The first after-party cleanup, the […]
How has fertilizer prices impacted forage production on your farm? How do you think fertilizer prices will influence your production in the future? Can you afford to spread fertilizer on hay and pasture fields these days?
Are you sure you can afford not to spread fertilizer on your fields? How are farmers going to be […]
Nutritional campaigns promoting good health have become necessary because we are too lazy and spoiled to think about what we are eating. Once upon a time, before phrases like 5 A Day and the eye-catching pyramids that define nutritional guidelines, people sat down to meals complete with servings of fruits and vegetables.
Balancing one’s diet is […]