Touch the Soil News #2028 (photo – Potato Field) ( Public Domian, USDA NRCS) This quote comes from an article in Farm Journal Magazine, which gives awards each year to farms that achieve a “Top Producer” recognition. The story features short quotes and statements from Top Producer awardees from past years. One of the Top…
Touch the Soil News #2027 (photo – Gardening next to Oxidation Ponds in Zimbabwe) (Sustainable Sanitation Alliane, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic) The small African nation of Zimbabwe has about 17 million people, but its agricultural sector has suffered declining productivity challenges to the point where the Government is calling on households to start growing their…
Touch the Soil News #2026 (photo – Philippine Agriculture ) (Judgefloro, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International) From the USDA to thousands of local food advocates, urban agriculture interest is growing. It is growing not just from knowing who your farmer is, but nutrition and transportation logistics as well. Former Philippine Agriculture Secretary William Dar says…
Touch the Soil News #2025 (photo – Indoor Farming) (Veeti Davidsson, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International) If you are interested in the business of controlled environment agriculture, AgFunder News recently posted a comprehensive review of the industry and what has evolved over the last 10 years. You’ll see who has been funded by investors and…
Touch the Soil News #2024 (photo Cattle and horses in stockyards, Australia) (Cgoodwin, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported) Australian Financial Review brings the story of one of the world’s largest land purchases. The buyers are represented by one of Canada’s largest fund managers on behalf of a group of institutional investors. The important thing to…
Touch the Soil News #2023 (photo – Healthy Foods) ( Public Domain – courtesy of the National Institutes of Health) The Kansas Reflector is a non-profit News portal that recently published an interesting take on how Federal dollars spent on agriculture that promotes food crops not particularly aligned with our nutritional needs. Paul Johnson of…
Touch the Soil News #2022 (photo – Food Bank Inventory) ( Public Domain) Some estimates are that sixty percent of workers live from paycheck to paycheck. While it is popular to look at each individual case, trying to find the reasons for this high number, perhaps the answers have more to do with the nation’s…
Touch the Soil News #2021 (photo – Quince Fruit, a genetically diverse cousin of the Pear – (CCA SA 3.0 Unported) The Food and Agriculture Organization has put together a comprehensive report and analysis on the crops that feed the world. Of concern is the genetic diversity of the foods we eat. Obesity is becoming…
Touch the Soil News #2020 (photo – Container Fish Farm – (Photo courtesy of Chong Jun Liang and Aqualita ) Called Decentralized Modular Recirculating Aquaculture System, the project is a fish farm in a container. The idea is to boost local food in high density cities where space comes at a premium. Whether or not…
Touch the Soil News #2019 (photo –Wheat Harvest – (Courtesy of USDA ) Trends often times not publicized can be more astonishing that the publicized trends. Take farmland for example. The USDA reports that in 1953, America’s “peak” farmland year, the nation was farming 1,205,740,000 acres. In 1953, America had a population of 160,180,000 people. …
