College graduates with no farm experience are turning to careers in agriculture

The number of farms in the U.S. increased by 4 percent from 2002 to 2007, according to the last Census of Agriculture, and recent college graduates seem to be fueling this trend by returning to the land, sometimes learning farming as they go, Natalie Kitroeff of The New York Times reports. Many don't have agriculture-related degrees, but became interested in farming through other means, including working in food service or supermarkets. Several work as farmhands, learning the trade through a workers' perspective.

Hearty Roots Community Farm, which raises vegetables in upstate New York, hired 10 farmhands this past season, none of whom had agriculture backgrounds, and all of whom are young, college graduates. Some such farmhands go on to establish their own farms. The newcomers to farming are helping increase the number of farms, which had been steadily declining since 1920. (NYT photo by Nathaniel Brooks: Hearty Roots farm crew manager Jordan Schmidt harvests beets)

Hiring college graduates with no experience can have drawbacks, Kitroeff reports. "Most of the people here who work for me are here for one season and then move on to other farms, and so that's actually the biggest challenge, Hearty Roots owner Ben Shute said. "Every year it's like training new people." But he added that having such an ambitious staff who want to own their own farms someday is a benefit because they are very willing to learn. (Read more)

New website helps farmers keep agritourism safe

Safe Agritourism photo

Agritourism has become increasingly popular as visitors travel to farms to pick their own pumpkins, get lost in corn mazes or pick their own fruit. Keeping those visitors safe is a top priority for farmers, and now they have access to a website guide that can help them do that.

Farmers can use Safe Agritourism to select virtual walk-throughs that are most appropriate for their property and identify health and safety hazard that could exist. Resources are offered that will help farmers fix these hazards. The guidelines are based on "Agritourism Health and Safety Guidelines for Children" that were published in 2007 by the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety.

Features of the interactive website include: pictures that contrast unsafe practices with best practices and guidelines; review questions and resource information; checklists to conduct customized safety walk-throughs; and a resources pages that provides signs, policies, logs and other ready-to-print items. (Read more)

Hurricane Isaac helps some drought-stricken areas, leaves others behind

Even though Hurricane Isaac re-hydrated much of the very parched Midwest last weekend, meteorologists and agriculture experts say a large portion of the U.S. remains "desiccated with ponds still too shallow to water cattle, fields too dusty for feeding and crops beyond the point of salvage," John Eligon of The New York Times reports.

The drought has actually worsened in some places, shifting the greatest exceptional-drought area to the Central Plains, from South Dakota to North Texas. "Isaac's rains were like Chapter 1 in the drought relief book," said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist David Miskus. "We still need a lot more rain to go here to really eliminate this drought." States including Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota and Oklahoma got very little rain, and conditions could get worse because of a forecast of hot temperatures this week. Miskus said many of those areas will remain in or be upgraded to extreme and exceptional drought. (U.S. Department of Agriculture Drought Monitor map, Sept. 7)

Click map for larger version

Areas from Arkansas through Missouri to Illinois saw anywhere from two to eight inches of rain, which was a welcome sign for farmers preparing to plant wheat, Eligon reports. In Illinois, 72 percent of pastures were rated in poor to very poor condition this week compared to 90 percent last week, and poor to very poor fields in Arkansas dropped 12 percentage points to 72 percent, according to the USDA. (Read more)

Crop insurance companies expect big losses

The insurance industry is expecting its largest-ever loss in agriculture as the Midwest's worst drought since 1956 brings billions of dollars in claims from corn and soybean farmers.

University of Illinois agricultural economists estimate the drought will trigger gross indemnities of about $30 billion, with an underwriting loss of $18 billion, Javier Blas and Alistair Gray of the Financial Times report. The U.S. government will take on about $14 billion of that, and private sector insurers will likely incur a loss of $4 billion. Economists Gary Schnitkey and Bruce Sherrick said some crop insurers are owned by public companies "who may not have realized the scope of losses that their crop insurance subsidiaries could generate." (Read more)

Meanwhile, the corn harvest is at its fastest pace ever because farmers planted early and the drought accelerated corn's maturity. About 6 percent of U.S. corn was harvested as of yesterday, compared to just 4 percent last week and none at this time last year, according to a Department of Agriculture report. About 26 percent of the crop was rated as mature, up from about 16 percent last week. Jeff Wilson of Bloomberg reports the trend increases the risk that wind and rain, perhaps from the remnants of Tropical Storm Isaac, will knock ears off stalks or blow plants over.

Corporate livestock farm takeover making competition disappear in meat marketplace

Over the past 50 years, the number of U.S. has declined by more than a million, but more animals than ever are being raised, slaughtered, and processed. The very largest of the farms on which these animals are raised now account for a huge proportion of production.

Indeed, since 1980, the percentage of the market held by the four largest farm corporations has steadily risen so that today, 85 percent of beef, 65 percent of pork and 51 percent of chicken is in their hands, according to the Pew Environment Group report. That, of course, means that small farmers are responsible for a dwindling percentage of the nation's meat. (Pew photo)

The Pew report concludes that the wholesale corporate farm takeover is resulting is "the disappearance of open and competitive livestock markets." In turn, this transformation in livestock agriculture "has led to concerns about the economic leverage that large corporations hold over independent farmers and ranchers," the reports notes. So much so that "early in 2010, the USDA and the Department of Justice initiated an unprecedented series of joint public workshops around the country to investigate the state of competition in agriculture markets. Hundreds of independent livestock producers attended the workshops, and many testified that it is increasingly difficult to survive economically. They urged the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) to better regulate the anti-competitive practices of large agribusiness."

In 2010, the GIPSA proposed rules, as required by the 2008 Farm Bill, intended to protect independent farmers and help reduce the power of consolidated meatpackers. In August 2010, a bipartisan letter from 21 senators to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack urged speedy adoption of these regulations, but the final rule, released in December 2011, contained only a few of the needed reforms. Some members of Congress are asking for further rescission of some of these intended protections. (Read more)