Agriculture
What a plant-based future could mean for farmers and meatpacking workers – Vox
Agricultural Easements In NYS
Yesterday I posted a map of conservation easements in the Adirondacks. Most of them are timber easements which by definition are quite large. Agricultural easements, which focus on preventing farm land development are much smaller typically as individual farm patcels are much smaller in New York State. Many of the easements are in high development, high tax areas like the Hudson Valley, especially the Taconics but also development rights have been purchased for areas with particularly high quality soils like the Genesee Valley.
Data Source:USGS Protected Areas Database. https://www.usgs.gov/core-science-systems/science-analytics-and-synthesis/gap/science/pad-us-data-overview?qt-science_center_objects=4#
I Hate the Term Landowner
There are few terms I dislike more then “landowner”. This word got a lot of play in New York during the debate over fracking.
“Landowner” in it’s most general meaning is a farmer, a person owning a hunting camp or home in a rural area or other person to who owns land. But for many anti-natural gas activists, landowner was used to describe a greedy individual who wanted to profit and domination over their personally owned natural resources. Many in the anti-natural gas community use the term landowner as negatively as one might use “slaveholder” today.
I would argue that no farmer who works the land, and no hunter who hunts their land is doing it in domination of their land. You can’t stomp into the woods and shoot a deer, you can’t carelessly throw seed in the air and hope it to grow. Natural resources have to be carefully managed and sustainability harvested for generations to come. You can’t exploit the land without limitation and expect to keep it going on. You have to carefully understand the woods and field, observe what is going on, understand the consequences of your action.
Sitting in the woods with a shotgun watching the wildlife can teach you much. You can’t just jump into the woods, you have to prepare and think about your surroundings. You have to understand the science, the risks and rewards. You have to have a deeper connection to the land, you’re more then just a “landowner” out to exploit the land.
Pennsylvania often calls people who lease their natural resources, “farmers”. And indeed many if not most of them are. Even though not every landowner cultivates a field with a tractor or milks and feeds cows and hogs, most landowners are “farming” their land for wildlife to hunt, wood to chop or harvest, and natural resources to sustain themselves.
Fertilizer prices expected to stay high over the remainder of 2021
Most fertilizer prices soared in 2021, particularly phosphates and urea, driven by strong demand and higher input costs. Potash prices remained broadly stable on ample supply. Fertilizer prices are projected to average more than one quarter higher in 2021 than last year, before easing in 2022.? Risks to the forecast include the pace of capacity expansions, geopolitical tensions, and, in the medium term, environmental policies on fertilizer use.
USDA announces changes to cover crop harvest rules | Agweek
WASHINGTON — Agricultural producers with crop insurance can hay, graze or chop cover crops for silage, haylage or baleage at any time and still receive 100% of the prevented planting payment, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Tuesday, July 6.
Previously, cover crops could only be hayed, grazed or chopped after Nov. 1; if they were used earlier the prevented planting payment was reduced by 65%.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency added this flexibility as part of a broader effort to encourage producers to use cover crops, an important conservation and good farming practice. Cover crops are especially important on fields prevented from planting as they help reduce soil erosion and boost soil health.