When people reminisce about the way life used to be, one topic that often comes up is door-to-door milk delivery. Although most dairy processing companies stopped home delivery years ago, some dairy farmers are finding that on-farm bottling is a value-added venture worth developing. David Stoner is ...

Trent Loos talks about ag with just about everyone he encounters, and wants every farmer and rancher to do the same. “What we’re talking about is getting everyone in the food business, from food producer to food consumer, in the right frame of mind,” he said. “Not to be defensive and reactionary, bu...

RIDGEWAY, VA — Blue Ridge Aquaculture (BRA) is already the world’s largest sustainable indoor fishery — yet it’s poised to get even bigger. BRA is looking to add a facility somewhere in the western U.S. to reach markets in that part of the country in addition to the eastern markets it already serves...

Supplementing the diet of organic dairy cows can be costly. Certified organic grain is expensive. While highly-managed pasture is the best defense, providing adequate nutrition year-round can be challenging. One source of supplemental feed which came to the attention of Dr. Kathy Soder, of the USDA-...

Bob Nutter started out in Maine as a fifth generation dairy farmer, but a better milk market and a climate that would accommodate double cropping drew him to North Carolina. In 1963, after selling his milking herd and bred heifers, Nutter relocated his family, farm equipment and calves to an Orange ...

Though retired, Penn State Extension Specialist Tom McCarty is still the go-to guy for solving water problems involving pesticides and other potentially dangerous potables. A case in point, chronicled by a Penn State magazine, showed how McCarty successfully solved the plight of a woman who was bein...

OLD HICKORY, VA — In the sandy soils of eastern Dinwiddie and western Sussex Counties, at the upper reaches of the Coastal Plain, Robert Spiers practices conservation tilling. His motivation? To build up his soils and improve their water holding capacity as well as reduce equipment hours. Spiers was...

“Making silage is like making wine. An excellent winemaker cannot make fine wine from bad grapes. And a bad winemaker will certainly make bad wine from good grapes.” That was the opening gambit and theme setter from presenter Robert Fry, DVM, at a breakout session at Pennsylvania’s 2013 Dairy Summit...

Silvopasture is the managed integration of trees and livestock, utilizing the land both to produce a tree crop and to graze livestock. This multi-tasking can result in diverse income streams, with money from timber, nuts, syrup or other tree by-product, plus income from livestock production. Silvopa...