More in Government

Medicare taxes, the health insurance tax and penalties for failure to meet coverage requirements will hurt U.S. farm families....More

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack received a thunderous ovation from a standing room only crowd at the recently completed Commodity Classic when he admonished the U.S. Congress to, “Forget about your party, forget about the people who paid for your last campaign, forget about your next campaign, and just do your job.”...More

The U.S. cotton industry has a lot at stake in the debate over writing a new farm bill, but U.S. cotton producers have more to lose than other U.S. commodity groups if Congress fails to address one overriding issue....More

The policy between the producer and an insurance company isn’t just a standard insurance policy -- it’s federal law. As such, it must be strictly complied with. Every provision has to be satisfied by the producer....More

Starting Feb. 19, producers can enroll in ACRE or DCP for the 2013 crop year. All eligible producers can enroll in ACRE or DCP regardless of whether or not they were previously enrolled in ACRE....More

For much of U.S. post-colonial agricultural history, export markets were seen as a way for farmers to rid themselves of price-depressing surplus production, whether it be tobacco, cotton, wheat, or corn. But beginning with the export boom of the 1970s and the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition issued by the World Food Conference in 1974, that view of the role of exports began to change. Farmers began to wear belt buckles that declared “The American Farmer Feeds the World.”...More

There has been a lot of concern in recent years about agricultural producers having their voice heard by federal regulators. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack says that was the catalyst behind the 2012 Census of Agriculture....More

When the Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station at Prosper, Texas, converted from agriculture to turf and ornamental research about five years ago, Northeast and Central Texas farmers lost a valuable resource that had been geared to the unique soils and climate conditions of their region....More

For more than two decades, the share of farms operated by beginning farmers has been in decline. Beginning farms and ranches accounted for 22 percent of the nation’s 2 million family farms and ranches in 2011 – down from about 38 percent in 1982....More