Michael Scuse, USDA’s acting deputy secretary, came to Ohio last week to stimulate discussion on the Farm Bill and take Ohio viewpoints back to Washington.  Scuse served as secretary of agriculture in Delaware before coming to USDA in 2009. His family still operates 1700-acre farm in Delaware. Scuse met first with the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation for a Town Hall radio interview. Then he toured the Wilma H. Schiermeier Olentangy River Wetland Research Park with Bruce…

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  Roger Wayne Wolfe, from Baltimore, passed away last week at the age 77. He loved farming, his family and sharing his passion for the soil. He was a neighbor, a friend and mentor to me. If Hugh Hammond Bennett (1881-1913) is the Father of Soil Conservation and Louis Bromfield (1896-1956) is Conservation’s Prophet on Mt. Jeez, then Roger Wolfe (1936 -2013) is Fairfield County’s Farmland Evangelist on the Mounds. And what a conversation those three are likely having…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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  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…

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  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…

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