Agriculture Blog

UK land represents some of the best investment land
available. These eight facts, presented by a land planning and land investment expert, will tell you what wise investors already know about investing in land.

1) Investing in UK Land is a real asset

You can see, use, and most importantly, build on investment land. You hold the legal title deeds to your investment land as surety. There are no complicated concepts in land investment, just a burgeoning demand for a finite amount of UK land.

2) Investing in Land yields strong returns

A finite supply of UK land partially explains its historically rising value, and implies it is unlikely to depreciate. Mark Twain said, “If something is unable to be manufactured and the underlying demand for it is constant, then its value will tend to rise.” Demand for UK land is, at the very least, constant. The property market increases reflect soaring demand for houses from an ever-growing population. Therefore, investing in UK land offers strong returns. It is reasonable to achieve the equivalent of 30-35% annually in a 5-year land investment project. This equates to Read the rest of this entry »

The United States covers 1.9 billions acres of land (excluding Alaska). 907 million acres are used as croplands, pastures and rangeland. In 2007, 13.1 billion bushels of corn, 2.6 billion bushels of soybeans, and 1.52 billion bushels of wheat were produced in the United States in 2007. (Consult the USDA website at http://www.nass.usda.gov/ for more information about crops planted and harvested across the United States). The people of the United States consumed 28.1 billion pounds of beef in 2007. USDA reports that the American population consumes an average of 50 pounds of pork per person per year. In addition to grain and livestock, American farms produce a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, poultry and fish.

Agriculture has always played a key role in our American heritage. Farmers have historically tilled the soil and planted and harvested crops for human consumption. As our population grew, so did the demand for food. Food production on the farm was originally intended to feed the immediate family, but with the increased demand for quality food, the small farm grew – and grew – and grew.

Exports of meat and grain to foreign countries began and continued to Read the rest of this entry »

Early in the morning, Mary Kanyaire, 33, collects water and firewood, and then prepares a meal for her two school-going children before she heads out to the fields, approximately 3 kilometers away from her homestead.

Alone, under the hot sun, she weeds groundnuts in a sandy field with a hoe. Although she knows she will not get a good yield, she strives on, buckets of sweat pouring down her face.

For Kanyaire and millions like her, subsistence farming is the only source of survival and is practiced with absolutely no support from the government.

In recent years, climate change, which has resulted in an inconsistent rainfall pattern, has dealt a heavy blow to the prospects of subsistence farming.

Yet in Zimbabwe, as in many parts of Africa, the government offers little or no support to subsistence farmers, leaving them to the vagaries of the elements and economic and political shake-ups.

Agriculture in Africa is primarily a family activity, and the majority of farmers are smallholders who own between 0.5 and 2.0 hectares of land, as determined by socio-cultural factors.

Women provide about half of the labor force and produce most of the food crops consumed by the family.

Many of the men leave for urban areas in Read the rest of this entry »

Unprecedented Growth of Indian Economy

Vs

Disastrous Decline in Agricultural Growth

India felt genuinely proud to record GDP growth rate 9.4%, and to be fastest growing economy next to China. There are reasons to be happy, as the growth is little higher than what was expected and it is at a hand shaking distance of double digit. Manufacturing sector grew at 12.3%, more than 3% over last year and per capita income, without taking inflation in to account grew by 14.3%. During the first quarter ending June 2007-08 the growth profile has shown improvement. Economists have cheered the growth because of high rate inflow from foreign institutional investors (FII) and inspiring growth of Manufacturing and Service sectors. Though there are issues related to higher interest rate and management of cash reserve ratio, but these are lesser worries and are manageable as probably, a part of the growth.

Then where is main worry?

Worry is Disastrous Decline in Agricultural Growth. During the current year it has touched practically rock bottom. The contribution of agriculture to GDP stood Read the rest of this entry »

Farming is a massive operation. Having farmer insurance is most necessary when you consider all the risk involved in owning and running a farm. Farm insurance can help protect you from the loss of a bad crop or the unforeseen disaster of the loss of a heard. Tragedy strikes at inconvenient times, but thankfully there is protection available.

Regardless of whether you inherited your farming business through your family, or decided to take the plunge and start a farm, the costs involved are enormous and the loss of a crop due to frost or hail can be devastating. Farmer insurance acts as protection against complete financial ruin if the unforeseen happens. Not only are crops and animals at risk, but the equipment needed for operation is also very costly. The term ‘farming’ encompasses many types of farm operation; thankfully there is farmer insurance available for each source of revenue.

Farmer insurance covers many potential incidents. Not only does it cover many accidents that may occur on the farm, but it guards against possible litigation. For instance, a consumer could purchase a jar of your jam, get ill and then decide to sue your business. Farmer insurance not only helps cover you in Read the rest of this entry »

Driving through the heartland of the USA will often provide the motorist with views of fields after waving fields. Of amber grain. Of emerald corn. Of.. brown barley. In any case, we can see field after field that is devoted to one crop. This is specialized agriculture: when huge swaths of land are devoted to a single crip. Specialized agriculture is the opposite and nemesis of biodiversity. Let us take a look at the pros and cons of specialized agriculture so that we can take proper action for our world and ourselves.

PROS

There is one: ease. As a part of ease, there is lower cost and convenience. Growing a single crop en masse becomes basically assembly line farming. Creativity, being one with the land, all of this goes out the window with specialization. It just becomes simpler to farm when you only have to think about one crop only.

CONS

That’s right, there is only one pro to specialized agriculture. However the cons are so multitudinous that I will not have space to list and describe each of them in this limited space. But we will hit the biggest ones.

The soil is the first sufferer of specialization. Picture Read the rest of this entry »

Farmers sometimes find it pretty hard to cope up with the consumer demands for farm products like rice, wheat, and milk products, etc. Due to low earnings, farmers are finding it really difficult to get easy finance with respect to getting hold of properties either to support their farming needs or their personal needs. In order to make the process seem simple to the farmers, banks and other financial institutions have come up with many programs to lend the farmers a hand in this respect. However, it is important that the farmers be aware of some of the programs that the institutions have to offer. One of the many programs that these institutions offer is the Rural Housing: Farm Labor Housing Loans and Grants program.

Programs like the rural housing farm labor housing loans and grants program help the farmers get the finance they need with respect to buying homes and properties that helps in fulfilling the farmer’s domestic (household) as well as farming needs.

The rural housing program covers the following aspects:

The Farm Labor Housing Loans and Grants program helps in providing capital loans to the farmers with respect to their housing Read the rest of this entry »

Summary

A mixed technology pack consisting of awareness on generation of total farm income is needed. Our farming is a composite farming comprising crop, fruit, livestock, fish and allied production systems. We need a composite technology pack and not a commodity research end product. Thus a total change and reformation in National Agricultural Research System (NARS) is needed to shape it as farmer friendly. We may name it NFR&ES, i. e National Farm Research & Extension System or simply Indian Farm Research and Business Management System.

Introduction

Future of agricultural extension education lies in its advancement through research, methodological refineness and village–linked mechanization. The disciplines of extension education has to be reshaped, incorporating explorative methods, survey techniques, computing skills, economic and social back ground analysis. An attempt to characterize barriers in transmission of technologies to the baseline farming systems needs a reformation in extension education in India and Asia. A detailed reformation model in the form of Broad Based Agricultural extension has been published (Wani, 1992). The booklet describes a model approach for Kashmir Valley districts. With the establishment of SAMETI in SKUAST-K, as an autonomous Institution, a series of documents for improving productivity in Read the rest of this entry »

When you are purchasing land, it is very important that you are effectively able to choose between good land deals and bad land deals. There is a lot of rural land for sale in Texas and when you are in the process of purchasing this land, it is essential that you are able to distinguish between good land deals and bad land deals. Otherwise, you may end of with a land deal that does not meet your needs, desires, and wants or even worse, a land deal that turns out to be terrible.

Central Texas land is considered to be some of the most beautiful land areas in the United States. Most of the central Texas land is tranquil with lush green pastures, running rivers and streams, rolling hills, and an abundance of wildlife. These beautiful characteristics make the central Texas land in high demand.

Many people make investments every year in the rural areas of central Texas. However, when they made these purchases, they did their homework and were able to identify good land deals and bad land deals; and as a result are completely content with their land deal in central Texas and they Read the rest of this entry »

Growing up with family that owns farm land in Kentucky, I have strong opinions on what it will take for agriculture to grow and expand. It’s no secret that these days farmers often don’t get the recognition they deserve, however one day this may change.

Agriculture is an ever growing industry, because we all need food after all. I’m very proud to live in Kentucky, my friends from out of state have tons of misconceptions about the state being all farm land, I find it quite funny.

What do you think of agriculture?

Personally, I think that as humans we need the farming industry to survive. We have evolved past hunters and gathers, now food is produced in large quantity’s to make sure there is enough for everyone.

Getting involved in agriculture can be very fun, and if your a workaholic like me you will want to start your own garden with vegetables you can eat. Currently farmers may find it hard to stay in business with all the huge retail stores lurking about, but remember consumers look for deals, if they can get the best deals at the local farmers market they’ll go there.

Any way you look at it, agriculture is just an Read the rest of this entry »