Farmers and ranchers have long acted as stewards of the environment, with the majority taking care of the land, air and water to the best of their abilities and current knowledge. However, agriculture has come under attack on a variety of fronts from people with an alternative agenda to folks who are unknowledgeable when it [...]
It’s an unfortunate reality that agriculture and wildlife do not always coexist as well as they should. Take, for instance, the case of a 2006 outbreak of E. coli in bagged spinach grown at a California farm. According to an NPR piece, the spinach was contaminated on the farm, and about 200 people were made [...]
The results from a recent study conducted by the UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education in Agriculture and Natural Resources are in: Floridians care about the endangered species in the Sunshine state. Nearly 90 percent of people surveyed support imposing fines on those who harm endangered species. Another 88 percent maintained that damaging habitats and [...]
In this day and age of billions of mouths to feed (and counting!), Agriculture and technology go hand-in-hand. Technology helps farmers to grow more with less, it tracks data and conditions and it can keep everyone and everything connected. The USDA and Microsoft are teaming up and challenging App developers with the “Innovation Challenge” contest to combine [...]
Science is a beloved aspect of Agriculture, as it has long influenced Agriculture in such a positive way. A shining example of Science’s positive impact would be all the research that is ongoing on curing Citrus Greening. From Biology to Chemistry to Earth Science, Science has helped Agriculture to grow and raise more food with [...]
It’s National Pollinator Week, and it’s an excellent time to take steps to help pollinators in your community. If you haven’t heard, many of our go-to pollinators—bees, butterflies, moths, birds, bats and so on—are declining in number or out-and-out dying in droves. Pollinators help flowers exchange pollen, which in turn allows the plants to produce [...]
USDA Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced that a report on the future job growth in the field of Agriculture shows the industry is poised to offer excellent career opportunities for Ag majors. The report, compiled by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and Purdue University, shows that there is a high [...]
The Alliance for Food and Farming is making headway in the Safe Fruits and Veggies Initiative, which advocates on the behalf of U.S. fresh fruit and vegetable producers. The Alliance was started in 1989 by a group of agriculture associations in response to a 60 Minutes story about a pesticide used on apples. […]
We hear about extreme cold and other climate changes everyday: scorching temperatures in the South, the coldest winter on record in the Northeast and severe drought in the West. While some believe such extremes are a byproduct of man-made global climate change and others believe them to be the natural changes in weather patterns, there [...]
For a quarter of a century, Agri-Fest has introduced Central Florida’s 4th graders to the main sectors of Polk County’s leading agriculture—citrus, beef cattle, phosphate, small farms, blueberries, aquaculture, horticulture, forestry, and water conservation. This year’s event, held April 6-10 and April 13-17 in Bartow, will still show approximately 6,000 4th graders the ropes when it [...]
