With more acreage going to corn, there s less acreage for wheat or soybeans, and that constrains supplies of those crops and helps keep prices up. It makes you wonder why producers of the major subsidized crops wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and cotton couldn t somehow also survive without federal handouts. The Agriculture Department predicts that net farm income this year will reach a record of more than $87 billion, nearly 50 percent above the previous year. Today, farmers constitute only...

The original barn and home still stand in the middle of the farmyard, along with modern silos, grain bins, and numerous calf huts. Loren does most of the planting, but Marvin is there to haul grain and help where he is needed. In fact, talking about cabs brought up one of his favorite memories of farming years ago being able to unthaw in the nice warm barn after a cold day in the field on a tractor without a cab. All of the equipment is kept so clean that Marvin and Viola commented on...

Clark has been in the farming business since 1983 and worked in an agriculture consulting business before that. Precision agriculture relies on information, technology and management to help farmers distribute the necessary fertilizer and chemicals in the specific areas that need them. Shannon Norwood, the multi-county extension agent for precision agriculture in north Alabama, said there are two main components of precision agriculture: the global positioning system and geographic...

The company, which is already marketing its products, is a new generation producer cooperative that requires a producer to be a member in order to sell to the plant. The company's primary product will be soybean meal, while biodiesel fuel will be one of the company's byproducts, company general manager John Nelson said during a Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce-sponsored ribbon-cutting ceremony for the business Tuesday at the plant. The company's primary product will be soybean meal,...

The grain is first crushed and fermented, followed by as many as three distillation steps. Are biofuels everything they're cracked up to be? Following the president's proposal, we would need 35 billion gallons of fuel if corn remains the primary source. n The exorbitant price of farm land has risen to a point where new farmers wanting to grow crops other than those for biofuel are squeezed out of the market. Since 70 percent of the corn grown is fed to livestock and poultry, this means...

While August s torrential rains left many flooded corn and soybean fields in their wake, the total impact may not become evident until harvest or even next spring. There are a lot of concerns about nitrogen losses, erosion problems, soil compaction and crop diseases, and we re going to have to wait and see what happens, said Mark Licht, a Carroll-based Iowa State University Extension field agronomist who conducted a crop scouting workshop in Rockwell City on Aug. There are a lot of...