Departments

• By Bruce Schultz • An Louisiana State University AgCenter and Louisiana Sea Grant agent is studying the effects of crawfish production following a second crop of rice. Mark Shirley is conducting the study requested by farmers who want to know to what extent harvesting a second rice crop will affect their crawfish. “These days, rice farmers are trying to ... Read More »

The United States and Korea have reached an agreement on market access for U.S. rice, according to a recent announcement from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue. Under the agreement, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2020, Korea will provide access for 132,304 tons of U.S. rice annually, with an annual value of about $110 million. Korea also agreed to protocols to ... Read More »

Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture recently honored recipients of the 2019 Sustainability Leadership Awards on the eve of the fifth annual Sustainable Agriculture Summit. The awards are given to farmers, organizations and individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership through efforts to advance continuous improvement in the sustainability of U.S. commodity crop production. For the first time, the ... Read More »

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to begin making the second round of 2019 Market Facilitation Program payments the week before Thanksgiving to help farmers suffering from trade retaliations by foreign nations. Producers of MFP-eligible commodities will be eligible to receive 25% of the total payment expected in addition to the 50% they already have received from the 2019 ... Read More »

After a mild weekend of sunny skies and temperatures in the high 50s, much of Arkansas found itself dealing with widespread rains and falling mercury throughout Monday. Tuesday, Nov. 12, the state awoke to a morning that declared itself as “winter” in no uncertain terms. The National Weather Service described Little Rock’s post-sunrise temperature as “22, feels like 9” degrees ... Read More »

To support their farmer-customers, Horizon Ag has partnered with BASF and John Deere Financial to offer fixed 0% APR financing on Horizon Ag seed and BASF crop protection products for the upcoming crop year. Eligible products include: Select Clearfield varieties such as CL111, CL151, CL153, CL163, CLL15, CLM04 and CLJ01, followed by Clearpath herbicide or Newpath herbicide. Select Provisia varieties ... Read More »

The U.S. Department of Agriculture currently projects farm income in 2019 to reach $88 billion — the highest net farm income since 2014’s $92 billion but still 29% below 2013’s record high. In addition, nearly 40% of that income — some $33 billion in total — is related to trade assistance, disaster assistance, the farm bill and insurance indemnities and ... Read More »

• By Whitney Brim-DeForest • Similar to the disease survey we did last month, University of California Cooperative Extension will be surveying rice weeds this fall. The survey implementation was funded by the Rice Research Board in 2019, and pending the results of the survey this year, we plan to repeat the survey every five years, similar to the ongoing ... Read More »

Rice is the largest global staple crop, consumed by more than half the world’s population. But new experiments from Stanford University suggest that with climate change, production in major rice-growing regions with endemic soil arsenic will undergo a dramatic decline and jeopardize critical food supplies. These experiments exploring rice production in future climate conditions show rice yields could drop about ... Read More »

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service will showcase its newest aromatic rice variety at Downtown on the Farm from 12-6 p.m., Oct. 27, at the River Market Pavilions and First Security Amphitheater in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas The free event, hosted by Arkansas Rice and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, will highlight Arkansas agriculture and ... Read More »