For the past couple of years we have been in the process of changing our home cropland to livestock production and management. It’s something I have wanted to do ever since I bought the farm more than 30 years ago. A few years ago we were able to sign a contract with the Natural Resources Conservation Service or NRCS to implement an Environmental Quality Incentives Program or EQIP plan to fence our fields and install a watering system. The process has taken a long time. In addition…

Continue Reading

In his 30 plus years at Brookside Labs, CEO Mark Flock has turned a lot of test tubes. As reported in the April issue of Ohio Farmer the company's soil and water testing business is booming causing them to build a new laboratory facility. Brookside's business has grown 25% a year for the last 5 years, Flock reports. The company did more than 260,000 tests last year. You only have space for so much in a magazine article. So here are a few of the other things we talked…

Continue Reading

Before last August, you could not ship state-inspected meat across the state border. You could ship federally inspected meat, but not meat that was inspected by the Ohio Department of Agriculture and certified with inspections that were “equal to” federal inspection. You could and can ship fruits and vegetables over the border. You can truck state-approved dairy or grain or honey or maple syrup or about any commodity. However, until an Act of Congress was fully enacted Aug. 8 of…

Continue Reading

NOTE: The date this blog was posted - April 1 - is in indication of the gravity and seriousness readers should have when viewing what follows. Enjoy! It is with a blend of great sadness and shock and even some remorse and also a general dismay that Farm Progress Co. and Penton Media Inc. announce the retirement of veteran farm writer Tim White. White has been far and away one of, if not the, most admired ag-beat writers in the long and proud history of the company dating to 1845. His…

Continue Reading

No season seems to tantalize as much as spring, but I have proof it's here. Spring arrived yesterday with the vernal equinox at 7:02 A.M. (EDT). The temperature on my thermometer read 29 degrees F. For tonight we are expecting flurries with a low of 22. A winter storm is forecast for the weekend. I am not going to be disheartened by this. Spring is getting here. It's just a little slow. Vernal equinox – whatever -- I have seven signs of proof that spring is truly…

Continue Reading

It was pretty well agreed that there was no way the winter blizzard that buried the Twin Cities and the Windy City and the Indy City was going to cause much of a problem for attendance at the 29th Annual Conservation Tillage Conference in Ada this week. As one expert put it, "Most of these guys need their CCA credits too bad not to be here." As expected a crowd of 917 farmers and agronomists showed up for the excellent agronomically-oriented agenda Tuesday and Wednesday. We…

Continue Reading

  Following the late news Saturday night I was about to turn off the television when the “Saturday Night Live” show opening came on the screen. It was an Obama impersonator talking about the sequestration cuts to the federal budget. I held off on pushing the “Power” button to see how they would handle it. The gist of the routine was Obama bringing in the various federal workers who would be impacted by the cuts to give their take. There were some funny…

Continue Reading

  Let’s start this off by acknowledging I wear my shoes and boots until they die – as in hole in the toe, heel fallen off, sole paper thin gone. Tennis shoes especially get extended duty. After they provide a full range of usefulness in the athletic arena, they make their way to the work shoe box and usually end up as wade-around-in-the pond shoes until the smell is too foul to bring them into the house. Then they sit in the barn just in case I need something…

Continue Reading

The January/February copy of Ohio Pork Line, the publication of the Ohio Pork Producers Council, just arrived. It has the most beautiful photo of a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich you have ever seen.  OK it’s lunchtime for me and I need to get this written before I can get something to eat. And right now I am leaning towards a BLT. I don’t see a caption telling who took the photo, probably came from the National Pork Producers Council as part of the overall effort to…

Continue Reading

The Ohio Farmer traces its roots to 1848. I have told the story here before, but that number seems to be an average of the original publishing date of the Ohio Cultivator (1845) and The Ohio Farmer (1851). The two merged in 1861 as The Ohio Farmer. The first mention of an anniversary comes in 1948, when the publication celebrates its Centennial and declares it has been "Serving Ohio Agriculture since 1848." I mention the date because I was recently sent a link to amazing series…

Continue Reading