Agriculture Blog

As many Austinites relish living a healthy lifestyle, it’s no surprise that Farmers’ Markets are a hit in the city. The markets bring fresh foods from locally grown areas to those looking for an alternative to the goods found in the neighborhood grocery store.

Though many cities don’t have a farmers’ market, Austin has had up to five at one time, with the Austin Farmers’ Market being one of the most popular. Located both in the center of town, at 4th and Guadalupe, and also north-central in Triangle Park, the Austin Farmers’ Market supports local farms, ranches, dairies and nurseries within a 150 mile radius. The central location is open every Saturday and the north location is open Wednesdays year round, rain or shine. The Austin Farmers’ Market is a “Grower’s Only” market, meaning vendors sell only items that they grow, and nothing that has been imported in any way.

The Austin Farmers’ Market began, and is still run, as a project of the local non profit group called the Sustainable Food Center in 2003. With roots dating back to 1975, the Sustainable Read the rest of this entry »

The Government’s plans to focus residential development on Brownfield UK land is fraught with challenges, writes Alex Way.

The Government’s much vaunted commitment to delivering 3 million new homes on UK land by 2021 is considered unrealistic in some circles (given c.13% of UK land is in Greenbelts). Others however regard that target as inadequate for a burgeoning population (pointing out that 3 million new homes reflect not the future but the current requirement). Whichever view is correct, Brownfield UK land will feature prominently in the UK’s house-building programme.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Brownfield UK land is that which has been previously used for industrial or commercial activities, but not residential purposes. Such UK land may or may not retain ‘legacies’ of its former use (e.g. contamination).

It is becoming clear is that the Government’s approach to land use planning on UK land has two dimensions: Brownfield redevelopment and the creation of a number of ‘Eco-towns’. It is Brownfield UK land which is the subject of this article; ‘Eco-towns’ will be considered elsewhere.

Given the strategic importance of Brownfield UK land in ameliorating the UK’s housing shortage, many people involved in investing in Read the rest of this entry »

A UK land investment transaction can be made easier by utilizing the UK Land Registry. The following questions and answers will give you a brief summary of what the UK Land registry offers and how the land investor can use the registry to their advantage:

What is the UK Land Registry?

The UK Land Registry is overseen by the Lord Chancellor and was developed to maintain an efficient and secure system of land registration for England and Wales. The UK Land Register holds official documentation of all registered land in both England and Wales. Each record contains the following five items:

1) A unique number: The title number
2) A description of the property: The property register
3) The location and boundaries of the land: The title plan
4) A statement of who legally owns the land: The proprietorship
5) Information on mortgages, rights, or interests: The charges register

History of the UK Land Registry:

A mandatory land registration system for UK land was attempted several times during the late 1800′s but it was not until 1925 that the compulsory land registration system was successful in mandating Read the rest of this entry »

The face of agriculture has changed immensely in the past fifty years. What was once an activity carried out by local family farmers has morphed into an industrial megalith. Today, your cellophaned 4-pack of tomatoes is more likely to come from a thousand miles away rather than the next county line. Non-renewable petroleum consumption in agriculture has skyrocketed. Oil is gulped by both the mechanized harvesters and meat processing facilities and the trucks and airplanes that haul “fresh” produce around the country. Sustainable farming practices like crop rotation and polyculture have all but disappeared in the quest for getting more food out of every acre. Pesticide and herbicide use has jumped dramatically as companies like Monsanto develop new hybrid seed resistant to toxic chemical application. Seed growers are patenting new hybrids and prosecuting farmers for saving seed from year to year, a time-honored farming tradition. We have gained productivity from most of these changes but it is what we have lost that should concern us all.

What we’ve lost is the connection to the food we eat. Beef comes shrink-wrapped from a grocery store, not a cow. We no longer eat by the seasons: peas in the spring, tomatoes and Read the rest of this entry »

Agricultural insurance or farm insurance saves farmers and those engaging in agri-business from losses sustained by natural catastrophes. Policies under this insurance are structured to protect the basic needs of the homestead. This is particularly important for small farmers because their farms are both home and business for them. Once the farms are damaged or destroyed, the farmers will be left with no home and money. Farm bureau insurance may save them, but there is nothing like a full coverage agricultural insurance.

What are the things that should be covered by a good farm insurance policy? There are several, and a perfect insurance covers them all. However, it is common for most insurance packages to cover only two or three out of the several conditions. The best solution for farmers is to determine what they most need and get the insurance which covers this particular need. It can be crop insurance, homestead insurance, or vehicle insurance. To give you a clue about the possible conditions an insurance provider might offer, below are some ideas of the possible insurance coverage.

You are more valuable than your farm so make sure that you get an insurance with provisions for farm Read the rest of this entry »

My father left his family farm to go to college and pursue a teaching career because, “there was always shit in the barn to shovel.” He soon realized out in the world away from the farm that there was shoveling to be done everywhere. An essential task of every family farm considering their succession plan will be to expose the next generation to the passion and opportunity not just the shoveling. Additionally, new farmers must find their own niche and be encouraged along the way.

The Future Farmers of America website touts more than 300 career opportunities related to farming and the agricultural industry. With advances in technology, farmers are finding creative ways to build revenue, and the next generation needs to be involved. New generations can help older generations think outside the box with new products, new approaches and new markets. In this area, they can enhance or even renew their passion for farming through conservation, product development or even expansion into other farm services.

Each potential member of a family farm operation must have a sense of ownership in a practial way, beyond their passion for carrying on the family name. Ownership Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had the privilege of eating from my mother’s and also my own vegetable garden. I’ve also been lucky enough to live with someone who worked on a local organic farm and shared the fruits of his labors with me. All of this has taught me that the taste of freshly picked fruits and vegetables is unrivalled. Surely their nutritional value is similarly incomparable. These experiences, as well as the facts I have been able to gather, lead me to support the movement towards local, organic agriculture.

Modern industrial agriculture is beset with problems, many of which have been brought to public attention through efforts of many environmental activists. To review, these include destruction of topsoil, use of harmful chemical pesticides and herbicides, monocultures that increase risk of disease and massive crop failures, burning of fossil fuels to run expensive and polluting machinery. Also, producing for the world market creates inefficiencies such as pollution from shipping, and deterioration in quality as the product is not fresh.

The rewards of local, organic, small scale production are many. Hand tools, for example, have a much lower negative effect on the environment than tractors, crop dusters and other farm equipment. Industrial fertilizers have a tendency Read the rest of this entry »

My father bought a farm when I was little and I have always been fascinated by agriculture and food production. This farm was not his main business being a lawyer although it allowed us to have first-hand experience about how food is being produced. There was very little use of commercial fertilizer then and productivity was equated with good farming methods like seed selection and keeping the land free from weeds.

One of the things that is foremost in the farmer’s mind is to produce more and more and this involves using the best seeds around while protecting against pests which brings us to something which has plagued the agriculture sector. Some developments in the highly developed countries also brought methods and practices like using pesticides, herbicides and commercial fertilizers into mainstream local agriculture methods, as foreign companies found big profits to be made in moving these products into less developed countries. The governments of lesser-developed countries have whole-heartedly embraced these technologies which are now unmasked as bad for the ecology. The use of commercial fertilizer has hastened the demise of the viability of the soil and its ability to renew its nutrients. Crop rotation used to be the Read the rest of this entry »

The Beginnings

State Farm insurance began in 1922, the invention of a man named George J. Mecherle. Mecherle thought that he could come up with a better insurance company than the rest, offering better coverage and great rates. So he did. Something about Mecherle’s vision was right – more than eighty years later, State Farm Insurance is still going strong.

“In just over 80 years, State Farm Insurance Companies® has grown from a small farm mutual auto insurer to one of the world’s largest financial institutions. But despite State Farm’s growth, Mecherle’s original philosophy of insurance coverage at a fair price coupled with fair claim settlement has remained.”
State Farm web site, May 2006

State Farm, Today

With 25 operations centers in 13 zones, these days State Farm employs 79,200 people, including 16,700 plus agents. State Farm actively services 71.6 million insurance policies in the United States and Canada. Many awards have been received by State Farm for their equal opportunity employing methods, and for the number of jobs the company has created. State Farm strives to give back to the community, participating in many programs to further education and safety, including awarding grants and scholarships.

The Read the rest of this entry »

During my younger years as I was growing up in a small town in Illinois, I always could not wait till harvest time in late August. I would go down to a employer and work until harvest time is over, I worked for a place named BUFFALO ELEVATOR COMPANY a member of a CO-OP farmers storage area where all farmers would store their crops in big storage tanks until it was time to sell their crops.

Agriculture is a very important way of growing the crops and feeding the world from this process, with my experience of farmers coming to the elevators and dumping the crops in the storage area for storage, the process of keeping this crop was very interesting from day one.

In my opinion, I would not change the process of agriculture,keep this process going the way it always had been. Farming is hard work from day one, this requires alot of time, machinery, and hard labor to yield good crops. The importance of farming today would be committment, I would remember how my friends would begin the season of planting the crops, to mantaining the crops, to havesting the product and taking it to the elevator.

Growing Read the rest of this entry »