National Ag Day 2021: Celebrating U.S. agriculture

<p>Agriculture is the number one industry in Nebraska and beef is the largest sector of that industry. Cows, calves, stockers and finishing cattle far outnumber people in the Cornhusker state. This baby calf was born in early March on the Mark and Haley Miles place near Ainsworth, Neb.</p>

<p><strong>Read more about the beef cattle industry in Nebraska: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-life/young-beef-producers-boost-commun... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Young beef producers boost community</a></strong></p>

<p>One of the most important commodities for U.S. farmers isn’t one that they produce, but rather one that helps them produce. Soil is an integral resource, and the very foundation for any producer’s operation. Healthy soils are necessary for growing cash crops and forages that will be sold or fed to livestock herds.</p>

<p>Today’s producers have learned that Mother Nature knew what she was doing for centuries before modern agriculture felt the need to turn over the native prairie. More and more U.S. farmers are turning back the clock on soil health, rebuilding soil nutrients through implementation of minimum tillage or no-till practices along with adding diversity through multiple crop rotations as well as integrating livestock. Rather than watching their topsoil drift away with winds common on the prairies, or wash away after a rain, these practices ensure the soil will stay where it is, all with the goal of sustainability of the soil and, maybe more importantly, for future generations.</p>

<p>Read more about restoring the soil:</p>

<p><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/3-farmers-share-why-they-switched-til... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">3 farmers share why they switched tillage practices</a></p>

<p><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/soil-health/change-management-boost-soil-he... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Change management to boost soil health</a></p>

<p><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/soil-health/becoming-no-till-believer" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Becoming a no-till believer</a></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:black">Here at the Delta Farm Press, the main crops we cover include cotton, corn, soybean, rice, and peanut. Corn is one of Mississippi’s staple crops, which our farmers love to grow as a rotation for cotton and soybean. This picture was taken in August 2020 on Steve Skelton’s&nbsp;farm in Shaw, Mississippi.</span></span></p>

<p><strong>Read more about corn production in the Delta area: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/corn/technology-farm-trials-keys-corn-produ... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Technology, on-farm trials keys to corn production</a></strong></p>

<p>Michigan, which has 42,000 acres in commercial Christmas tree production, ranks third in the nation in the number of Christmas trees harvested, supplying approximately&nbsp;3 million fresh Christmas trees&nbsp;to the national market each year.</p>

<p>To balance that demand, for every Christmas tree harvested, farmers plant three new trees for future harvests.</p>

<p>Michigan’s climate and soils allow the state’s Christmas tree growers to produce a wider variety of trees than any other state.</p>

<p>This photo shows Christmas trees grown and harvested by Dutchman Tree Farms, based in Michigan’s northwestern county of Missaukee. While waiting to be transported to markets, the trees are stored below an overgrowth of trees to help keep them cool on an unusually warm fall day. The farm is Michigan’s largest wholesaler of Christmas trees, selling upwards of 900,000 annually throughout the U.S. and Canada.</p>

<p><strong>Learn more about Christmas tree production: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-business/michigan-christmas-tree-farm-... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Michigan Christmas tree farm supplies U.S., Canadian markets</a></strong></p>

<p>When you live in a rich agricultural state like Minnesota, one is hard-pressed to choose the top or favorite livestock or crop. It’s like asking a parent to name their favorite child. Thanks to the state’s progressive farmers, Minnesota lays claim to numerous national rankings in ag production. Based on 2019 USDA data, Minnesota ranks first in the U.S. for production of turkeys, dark red kidney beans and sugar beets. The state is among the top 10 in the production of hogs, dry edible beans, green peas, sweet corn (2nd); corn silage, oats, soybeans, spring wheat, sunflowers for oil (3rd); canola, corn (4th); milk goats (5th); cheese, red meat (6th); barley, milk cows (7th); milk, cattle on feed, number of USDA certified organic farms (2017), honey, wheat (8th); potatoes and vegetables (9th); alfalfa hay and number of farms (10th). For National Ag Day, we’ll give a special shout-out to Minnesota dairy farmers. Given our record-setting days of consecutive sub-zero temperatures in February, they’ve earned the spotlight. With daily milking and other routine chores, they are on call 24/7/365, caring for their animals and producing high quality milk. Thank you, dairy farmers—and all livestock and crop producers across the North Star State!</p>

<p><strong><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/farmer" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Read more about agriculture in Minnesota.</a></strong></p>

<p>A staple crop grown in North and South Dakota, over 450,000 acres of sugar beets are grown each year in the Red River Valley. The first sugar beet factory in the U.S. opened in 1890, and today 100% of sugar beet companies are farmer-owned cooperatives. American sugar production provides 146,000 U.S. jobs, and sugar producers generate nearly $10 billion a year for the U.S. economy.&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/dakota-farmer" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Read more about agriculture in the Dakotas.</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:black">These are certified sustainable Pinot Noir wine grapes from the Sunnyview Vineyard in Santa Rosa, Calif.&nbsp;</span></span></p>

<p><strong>Learn more about sustainable grape production: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/grapes/four-fifths-calif-wine-production-ce... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Four-fifths of Calif. wine production certified sustainable</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="color:black">It is not just one single hemp variety growing in the Bootheel of Missouri. Traditional corn and soybean row crop farmer Jeff Limbaugh sourced seed from Ukraine for his first year growing industrial hemp, which became legal in the state in 2020. Each industrial hemp variety has a different look, you can tell the difference in hemp based on the leaves. For instance a Ukraine variety are not as upright as those from a U.S produced industrial hemp plant. Ukraine hemp tends to droop back toward the plant stem. Still most hemp varieties grow to great heights, close to 10-feet at harvest, which occurs in September. Hemp is raised for CBD, seed and fiber. </span></p>

<p><span style="color:black">Read more about hemp in Missouri: </span><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/hemp/look-missouri-hemp-field" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline"><span style="color:#0563c1">A look at a Missouri hemp field</span></a>&nbsp;</p>

<p><strong><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:black">Read more of Jeff’s start in industrial hemp production: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/hemp/hemp-grows-southeast-missouri-fields" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Hemp grows in southeast Missouri fields</a></span></span></strong></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:#333333">Wisconsin is home to more than 14,000 beef producers and about 7,000 dairy farmers who are producers of beef. Eighty percent of the beef raised in Wisconsin comes from dairy animals. Beef cattle contribute more than $2.1 billion to Wisconsin's economy each year and over 35,000 jobs in the state. According to the Wisconsin Beef Council, Wisconsin is one of only a few states with a growing beef industry.&nbsp;</span></span><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:black">Since the pandemic began a year ago, demand for beef grown and processed locally has skyrocketed. Read how the Cates family, who raise beef on their Iowa County farm near Spring Green, are helping meet demand for beef.</span></span></p>

<p><strong>Read more about beef production in Wisconsin: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/beef/consumer-demand-cates-family-farm-beef... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Consumer demand for Cates Family Farm beef skyrockets</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="color:black">Farmers love to grow corn. They like to plant it, raise it, watch it grow, harvest it. Feed it to livestock and send it around the world for export. Nothing puts a farmer in a better mood than a good corn crop, standing tall and producing well, because a good crop means a good livelihood. And another shot at another year. </span></p>

<p><span style="color:black">As a farm editor, our responsibility is to share research, innovation and agronomic advice that helps our readers grow the best crop they can and in the 2021, in the wake of $5 corn, we tackled a special topic: what can you add to your crop to make it even better this year?</span></p>

<p><strong>Read that story:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/whats-right-thing-add" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">What’s the right thing to add?</a></strong></p>

<p>Mark Thornbrough farms primarily dryland cotton near Granite, Okla. He tries not to plant cotton on cotton and rotates with wheat. He also rotates technology, planting 2,4-D cotton one year and dicamba the next. To diversify and try something new, Thornbrough, with the help of area FFA students, planted 750,000 chili peppers in 2020. Farm Press caught up with him as he was harvesting the 2020 cotton crop. His wife Merideth and four sons later joined him, the boys anxiously awaiting their turn to ride with daddy.</p>

<p><strong>Hear more about his story, the family farm and the challenges of 2020 in this video: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/cotton/oklahoma-producer-begins-cotton-harv... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Oklahoma producer begins cotton harvest, diversifies with new crop</a></strong></p>

<p><strong>Read more about the chili peppers: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/ffa-students-help-plant-750000-chile-... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">FFA students help plant 750,000 chile peppers on Oklahoma farm</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="color:black">Farmers routinely think about equipment maintenance. Carter Morgan, Cayuga, Indiana, thinks in terms of routine field maintenance too. He considers tiling if the field isn't already properly tiled as one of those important maintenance items to ensure better future performance and higher productivity. Another equally important maintenance job is establishing cover crops annually to help build soil health and add organic matter. He and his brother Brent and their&nbsp;entire family put this type of thinking into practice to build up and maintain their fields at peak performance levels.</span></p>

<p><strong>Read more about land maintenance in Indiana: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/soil-health/think-cover-crops-and-tile-fiel... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Think of cover crops and tile as field maintenance</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white">Most of the peanuts grown in Virginia and the Carolina are Virginia market types also known as “ballpark peanuts” because they are the in-shell peanuts that fans enjoy at baseball games across the country so “take me out to the ball game, take me&nbsp; out with the crowd, buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks, I don’t care if I never get back!”</span></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white">Virginia peanuts are the largest and crunchiest of all peanut types grown in the United States. More than 90% of these ballpark peanuts are grown in the sandy soils of eastern Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The soil and climate of the region is ideal for producing Virginia peanuts.</span></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white">Also, peanuts are legumes and not nuts and growing peanuts is different than growing any other crop. It’s a challenging crop to grow and is unique because the peanut plant flowers above ground but the peanuts grow below the ground. At harvest, peanuts are “dug” or pulled from the ground by special machinery and then allowed to dry in the field for several days before being harvested.</span></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white">Virginia Tech, North Carolina State University and Clemson University all conduct research and do Extension work to help peanut farmers achieve top yields and maximize profits. </span></p>

<p><strong>Learn more about peanut production: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/peanuts/dial-peanuts-proper-ph-and-other-im... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Dial in peanut's proper pH and other important steps to better profits</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:black">The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic’s farms are as diverse as any region in the country. Lewis Fox and Nikola “Niko” Kochendoerfer started their sheep grazing business, Agrivoltaic Solutions, in 2018. Last year, their sheep grazed 120 acres of solar sites within a 75-mile radius of their farm. The farm was started on a former dairy cow operation.</span></span></p>

<p><strong>Read more about sheep grazing: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/livestock/hungry-sheep-tackle-solar-grazing" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Hungry sheep tackle solar grazing</a></strong></p>

<p>The photographer is often proud to capture beauty in nature, like dew on a bug, but this Japanese beetle chewing on an Iowa soybean leaf is not a pretty picture to the farmer trying to maximize soybean yields. On this Ag Day, it’s good to remember there is beauty in nature, but there are also many natural predators that target the food and feed farmers raise to help feed the world. Practical control of these pests using the latest tools and technology are critical to agriculture’s success.</p>

<p>Jacqui Fatka, Farm Progress policy editor, has been covering agricultural policy for nearly two decades. Her love of policy (not politics!) started in 2002 as an intern for Sen. Chuck Grassley. Since joining the Farm Progress team in 2003, her goal was to offer policy insight without the political slant. Farmers traditionally vote more conservatively and now find themselves trying to reconcile what the future political outlook will be under the Biden administration after four years of President Donald Trump. As she detailed in a five-part series, the sky is not falling, but farmers need to be aware of what could be coming to best navigate the waters ahead. Read her story&nbsp;<a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-policy/what-those-agriculture-can-expe... target="_blank">here</a>.</p>

<p><span style="background-color:white"><span style="color:#222222"><a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/farm-business/farm-policy" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Read her regular farm policy coverage.</a></span></span></p>

<p>Is there a more iconic scene from the Delta region than fields of white against an autumn blue sky? While cotton has lost some ground to grain crops in recent years, this fiber is still tightly woven through the region’s agricultural economy. Delta producers, like Marty White from Poinsett County, Ark., consider themselves cotton farmers first and foremost.</p>

<p><strong>Read more about cotton production: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/change-nets-returns-arkansas-producers" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Change nets returns for Arkansas producers</a></strong></p>

<p><span style="color:black">Lettuce is grown in and around Yuma, Ariz. from September through March. The desert Southwest of southeastern California and southwestern Arizona grows nearly all of the U.S. winter vegetable supply before transitioning back to different parts of California.</span></p>

<p><strong>Read more about lettuce production in the past year: <a href="https://www.farmprogress.com/vegetables/pandemic-labor-woes-challenge-pr... style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">Pandemic, labor woes challenge produce industry</a></strong></p>

<p>Soybeans are grown in 29 states across the U.S. and production in 2020 totaled 4.14 billon bushels. Last year, several states had record high yields, including Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey and Tennessee. The U.S. is also the world's top soybean producer and second-biggest soybean exporter.</p>