Farmers know raising livestock comes with risk. Factors such as weather, consumer preferences, market prices and the ripple effect of domestic and international incidents can seriously impact bottom lines. Jack Field, risk advisor for CKP Insurance, explained federal insurance options for those who ...

In his excellent article titled “ Start Well This Grazing Season ,” Troy Bishopp explained some of the things that go wrong when livestock people put their animals on pasture too early. Bishopp is Madison County’s Soil and Water Grazing Specialist. He explained that paddocks being grazed too early r...

Cows are people too. Well, they’re not, actually, but they still deserve to be treated humanely. Dr. Temple Grandin is a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. The proponent for the humane treatment of livestock in both the beef and dairy industries recently presented the seminar...

Consumers want the products they purchase to be consistent, especially if they’ve paid a premium price. With a stable group of consumers willing to purchase milk from grass-fed cows, product consistency is critical to maintaining customer loyalty. However, there are notable flavor differences in gra...

As most of you have begrudgingly found, the availability of dry cow antibiotic tubes has been drastically challenged due to numerous factors. It appears as though the shortage will continue into the foreseeable future. Dairy producers should consider looking at this as an opportunity instead of a fr...

The sun was totally set on March 19 when lightning flashed to the south of our residence in Hartwick. What caused this electrical storm was the occurrence of the southern branch of the northern jet stream jutting north. This allowed a southern moisture-laden air mass to slam into a drier cold air ma...

The Alliance for Grassland Renewal partnered with several state universities to present several day-long workshops on novel tall fescue renovation. At a workshop held recently in Maryland, Dr. Craig Roberts, University of Missouri, discussed some of the animal health problems associated with tall fe...

by Troy Bishopp, Madison SWCD Grazing Specialist Many livestock farmers are concerned about the effect of high fuel and fertilizer prices on agriculture this season as well as myriad other input and market worries. The situation isn’t anything new. The good news is we have a plentiful resource that ...

It doesn’t matter if you raise the best quality meat around if you lack the market to sell it. That quandary was addressed by “Finding a Niche Market for Your Meat,” a session presented by Courtney Grimes-Sutton of Mace Chasm Farm at the recent NOFA-NY conference. Mace Chasm Farm is an on-farm, nose...

The powerful locomotive that will be the 2023 Farm Bill is finally picking up steam. That’s what House Ag Committee Ranking Member G.T. Thompson (R-PA) told attendees at this spring’s Ag & Food Policy Summit, organized by Agri-Pulse. “The Farm Bill is incredibly important … You never get it absolute...

“Onboarding is much like other tasks. If no one is specifically assigned to help onboard and take control of it, no one is going to know who’s responsible, and it’s going to be passed around,” said Richard Stup. Stup is an ag workforce specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension and the facilitato...

Dr. Tara Felix, beef Extension specialist, Penn State, addressed a group of cattle feeders on the topic of feeding dairy cross animals. She started the discussion with background on why U.S. dairy farmers have been breeding dairy cows with beef semen. “We are unique in the U.S. in that we have a sep...

Managing no-till systems with cover crops to lower herbicide use With the price of glyphosate and other herbicides so much higher than in recent years – and in more limited supply – finding ways to reduce herbicide inputs in no-till systems is on the minds of many in the ag industry. Recently, NRCS ...

We have two early spring monitors in our front yard. One is a half-century old birch tree that I moved to its present location when it was about 10 years old. The other is a sugar maple that was a sapling when the birch became its neighbor in 1990. I examined both trees on April 4 to examine the dev...

Cory Bratland, chief grain strategist with Kluis Commodity Advisors, said he’s often been asked how he sleeps at night with the current grain markets. “My answer is ‘Like a baby – I wake up screaming and crying every two hours,’” he joked. Bratland presented “Successful Farming Talk: Marketing Strat...