Author: Dave Alexander

At the start of USDA’s 2020 Agriculture Outlook Forum on February 20, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the Agriculture Innovation Agenda, a department-wide initiative to align resources, programs, and research to position American agriculture to better meet future global demands.

Specifically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will stimulate innovation so that American agriculture can achieve the goal of increasing production by 40 percent while cutting the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture in half by 2050.

“We know we have a challenge facing us: to meet future food, fiber, fuel, and feed demands with finite resources. USDA’s Agriculture Innovation Agenda is our opportunity define American agriculture’s role to feed everyone and do right as a key player in the solution to this challenge,” said Secretary Perdue. “This agenda is a strategic, department-wide effort to better align USDA’s resources, programs, and research to provide farmers with the tools they need to be successful. We are also continually mindful of the need for America’s agriculture industry to be environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable to maintain our position as a leader in the global effort to meet demand. We are committed as ever to the environmental sustainability and continued success, of America’s farmers, ranchers, foresters, and producers.”

Read more about the Agriculture Innovation Agenda here.

 

During the week ending February 17, U.S. on-highway diesel fuel prices averaged $2.89 per gallon, 2 cents lower than the previous week and 11.6 cents below last year. Average diesel prices have fallen 18.9 cents per gallon over the past 6 weeks.

A fall in crude oil demand because of the coronavirus and warmer than normal January temperatures in the United States have put downward pressure on crude oil and diesel fuel prices. Inventories of distillate fuel oils, used to make both diesel fuels and heating oils, have fallen each of the past 4 weeks ending February 7, after reaching a more than 2-year high in early January.

New system is ideal for farmers who apply liquid fertilizer during planting and want accurate nutrient placement.

As input costs continue to rise, farmers are looking for ways to enhance their planting equipment to provide precise placement and reduce inputs when possible. To address this concern John Deere has introduced ExactRate™, a factory-installed option that precisely monitors and controls the application of liquid fertilizer during planting.

ExactRate is compatible with select models of John Deere planters with electric drive including the 1775NT, 1795, DB60, DB 44 and DB66 Planters. Thanks to its hydraulic-driven pump, ExactRate can be operated at maximum speeds up to 10 mph (16 km/h), enabling operators to plant up to 5.9 more acres per hour.

ExactRate apps are fully compatible with the John Deere 4640 Universal Display and 4600CommandCenter™ and provide in-cab flow detection and in-field documentation for operators.

John Deere will start taking orders for ExactRate beginning in June, with shipments starting later this fall. For more information visit your local dealer or JohnDeere.com.

New technology pairs with smartphones, laptops to produce results

Foodborne illness hits about one in six people in the United States every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 48 million people in the U.S. get sick due to one or more of 31 recognized pathogens, including E. coli O157:H7, a particularly harsh strain of E. coli.

Researchers at Purdue University have been working to develop new technologies to help stop the spread of foodborne illnesses, which kill 3,000 people a year, by detecting them more efficiently. They have developed a bioluminescence-based assay coupled with a portable device that works with smartphones and laptops to do on-site testing for harmful E. coli in food samples.

READ FULL STORY HERE

BioSafe Systems has announced that OxiDate 5.0, a bactericide/fungicide, has been approved in California. With this approval, BioSafe Systems can now manufacture, deliver and sell the product in California. OxiDate 5.0 is registered to treat and control plant pathogens on a wide variety of crops.

According to the company, OxiDate 5.0 is a keystone chemistry to any successful spray program as it ensures an increased ROI by delivering dependable and compelling results at a competitive price.

For more information, visit www.biosafesystems.com.

By Amanda Ramcharan

If a plant decided to go on a diet, what do you think it would choose to be as healthy as possible? It turns out that plants, like humans, rely on essential nutrients to maintain a healthy and balanced lifestyle.  The Sustainable, Secure Food blog explores the functions of the essential nutrients plants need to thrive.

Blogger Amanda Ramcharan highlights macronutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, as well as micronutrients, such as calcium, magnesium and sulfur.

Plants use nitrogen to create amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Proteins are essential for all human and plant cells. In addition to creating amino acids, nitrogen is a component of the chlorophyll molecule. So, nitrogen influences the photosynthesis process!

Without a balanced “diet” of these nutrients, plants may look sick. Certain processes within the plant can slow down or even stop. For example, sulfur is essential for chloroplast growth. Chloroplast is what makes leaves look green. When a plant doesn’t have enough sulfur, new plant growth will appear yellow.

So why not load on the fertilizer, you may ask? These essential nutrients can still be toxic to plants. For instance, applying too much phosphorus to a plant can cause it to have iron and zinc deficiencies.

To learn more about what nutrients do for plants, read the entire blog:

https://sustainable-secure-food-blog.com/2020/01/22/what-do-nutrients-do-for-plants

 

Originally published on Sustainable, Secure Food, a blog of the American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America

BioSafe Systems has hired Swaraj Lavande into their engineering team. Swaraj is joining BioSafe Systems as the new Controls Engineer. Swaraj received his bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation & Controls Engineering from the University of Pune in Maharashtra, India. He came to the United States in the Fall of 2016 to pursue his Master’s in Electrical Engineering – Control Systems from Wayne State University, graduating in 2018. Prior to BioSafe Systems, Swaraj worked at Omaha Automation as a Controls Engineer – Weld Automation Engineer. While pursuing his master’s degree, he worked as a Controls Engineer Intern with ID Engineering & Automated Systems in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

With the new increased Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) going into effect January 1, 2020, a dozen ag groups have joined with Agriculture Workforce Coalition (AWC), calling on the U.S. Senate to take up legislation to solve the agricultural labor crisis and address the AEWR.

“With some states experiencing unpredictable double-digit AEWR increases in recent years, this flawed government-mandated wage rate calculation is harming American farmers and our international competitiveness,” said Kam Quarles, National Potato Council (NPC) CEO. “NPC applauded the House for taking the first step in providing a solution to the ag labor crisis. We now urge the Senate to protect American growers and the consumers they serve by acting to solve the ag labor crisis and in the process creating a predictable alternative to the fatally-flawed AEWR.”

The AEWR is the required wage rate for farmers who use the H-2A program to procure legal workers from other countries. Late last year, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the new AEWR for 2020 would increase by an average of six percent across the nation, and up to 10 percent in some states.

In a letter to the U.S. Senate, the AWC, a diverse group of organizations representing the needs of agricultural employers across the country, argued that the AEWR’s new increase will make it difficult for some farms to continue operating, coming after a year of natural disasters, trade disruptions, low commodity prices and declining farm income.

Over the last five years the AEWR has increased nationwide by 17 percent on average. AWC’s letter states that “While American farmers are required to pay their H-2A employees more and more each year, the U.S. continues to import more and more produce from Mexico and Central and South America, where workers are paid a fraction of U.S. wage rates.”

The full text of the AWC letter is available here.

List of Adverse Effect Wage Rates by State for 2020

A new publication from Washington State University Extension is available for free download.

Understanding organic matter’s role in soil can be critical to any agricultural operation: learn the emerging methods of measurement in this publication.

Here are the Key Points in the publication:

• Soil organic matter provides numerous functions in soil. Understanding its composition and how it interacts with clay, plant nutrients, other compounds, and the soil microbial community is key to improving soil management.

• Soil organic matter has long been studied using an alkaline extraction which produces humic substances: humic and fulvic acids. This tool has allowed researchers to separate organic matter from soil minerals to study the structure of the organic molecules present in soil.

• The term humus has been used for more than 200 years to describe organic materials produced through decomposition of crop residues and other organic inputs to soil. A portion of soil humus was thought to be composed of material that was stable and resistant to further decomposition because of large size or lack of digestibility to microbes.

• New tools have allowed soil organic matter to be studied in conditions closer to the natural environment and have also shown that the soil environment, not inherent properties of organic molecules themselves, greatly affects decomposition of organic molecules. Terms, such as humus, humification, humic and fulvic acids, which are tied to the alkaline extraction procedure, have changed through time, and are not descriptive of soil organic matter functions or stability. The concept of large, stable, older organic molecules resistant to decomposition is no longer valid.

• Smaller organic molecules that are products of decomposition may behave like oil in water to form larger conglomerates (known as supramolecules) with a hydrophobic interior and a hydrophilic exterior.

• The location of organic matter affects its reactivity in the soil. Organic matter can adhere to mineral particles, be protected in aggregates, be dissolved in the soil water, or remain as organic particles. Organic matter that is associated with mineral particles is thought to be more stable in the soil, but interactions with root exudates can mobilize mineral-associated organic matter and associated nutrients.

• Measuring soil organic matter has also advanced. Although there are many soil health indicators related to soil organic matter, research has started to narrow the number of tests that are both useful for management and commercially available. Two such tests are active carbon and carbon mineralization representing both the accumulation of soil organic matter and its use (loss) as an energy source by soil microbes.

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has released the 2018 Pesticide Data Program (PDP) Annual Summary. The summary shows more than 99 percent of the samples tested had pesticide residues well below benchmark levels established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA sets these benchmarks to ensure that pesticide residues remain at levels that EPA has determined to be safe in or on foods for human consumption.

Each year, USDA and EPA work together to identify foods to be tested on a revolving basis by the PDP. AMS partners with cooperating state agencies to collect and analyze pesticide residue levels on a wide variety of domestic and imported foods, with a special focus on foods that are consumed by infants and children. For over 25 years, USDA has tested a variety of commodities, including fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, dairy, meat, poultry, grains, fish, rice, specialty products and water. In 2018, tests were conducted on fruits and vegetables as well as rice, wheat flour and heavy cream. EPA relies on PDP data to conduct dietary risk assessments and to set its benchmark residue levels for pesticides in or on foods.

Carrots were last tested in 2014.

The 2018 data and summary can be found HERE.