As this week marches on, be sure to catch up on the latest news.
From soil testing to celebrating women in agriculture, these are today’s headlines.
Livestock
Avian influenza cases were reported in three states today, Editor Madelyn Ostendorf reports. They are: Iowa, South Dakota, and Maine.
To date, 13,553,395 reported birds have been affected by HPAI.
Merck Animal Health has announced a new training module from Dairy Care365, Creating a Culture of Care, to help dairy owners and managers improve on-farm cultures to put animal care first, year-round.
“Merck Animal Health provides these online training modules as a value-add to our customers at no charge, to help protein producers provide the best in animal care and welfare,” says Tom Schad, Merck Animal Health director of communications.
Women in Agriculture
March 24 is proclaimed as Women in Agriculture Day in Iowa. But every day is an opportunity to celebrate the work women do, globally, in the industry that feeds the world.
One way to do so now is to read Successful Farming interviews with women across multiple sectors in agriculture.
Editor Laurie Bedord interviews Sheryl Wallace, president of Cargill North America grain, about the grain industry and the importance of a diverse workforce, among other topics.
“As I reflect on my different work experiences, it’s like I’ve had five careers, but they’ve all been within Cargill. I’ve worked in our agriculture, oilseed processing, edible oils, flour milling, and financial services businesses, including leading our corporate risk management function,” she says.
In this Q&A, Editor Megan Schilling interviews Revital Kremer, chief technology officer of SupPlant, a precision ag-tech company.
“When I came to SupPlant in 2020, I felt for the first time I have a chance to not only develop software, but to create something that has an impact on the world,” Kremer says. “My mission is to develop cutting-edge technology in agriculture; sophisticated solutions enabled in a simple way.”
On the Land
Responding to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission approved a $550 million aid package for its farmers on Wednesday and said they could grow food and feed crops on fallowed land without losing any of their so-called greening payments.
Meanwhile, U.S. farm and food processing groups asked Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to allow growers to plant crops on 4 million acres now idled in the long-term Conservation Reserve Program.
GROWERS and Arva Intelligence are joining forces to provide ag retailers with a seamless solution for its producers to sell carbon through GROWERS Rally platform and Arva’s Carbon Ready program.
A sales enhancement platform that captures critical data like crops, products, rates, and practices on a field, GROWERS Rally is also a sales planning and tracking tool for ag retailers.
One word that seemingly sums up everyone’s goals in agriculture this year is optimize. Optimize your inputs; optimize your valuable time; optimize your crops’ performance.
One strategy to implement that can help you optimize the health of your crops in the long- and short-term is soil sampling and testing.
