BUSINESS
As shortages of workers have intensified on Henderson County apple orchards and farms across the country, congressional panels have turned their attention toward proposals to fix the problem.
Florida’s fruit and vegetable growers say their biggest challenge is ensuring they have enough workers to pick their crops and get them onto grocery shelves."The whole immigration reform issue needs to be addressed at the federal level,” said Marie Bedner, whose family owns Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market west of Boynton Beach. “In Georgia, they had no labor to pick the crops. They rotted in the field."Two labor experts told Bedner and other growers at the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association’s 68th annual meeting Tuesday that if E-Verify becomes mandatory, it would be a disaster for domestic farmers. E-Verify is an electronic system designed to prevent the employment of undocumented workers in the U.S. through a cross-check of Social Security numbers and names.
One culture values time and sacrifices relationships. The other fosters relationships over time and productivity.
AUDIE CORNISH: In Kansas, a coalition of conservative farm businessmen and liberal social advocates is pushing for an unusual law, one that would create a state-sanctioned work program benefitting illegal immigrants. Peggy Lowe, of Harvest Public Media, reports that their fiercest opponent is the Kansas politician who wrote Arizona’s tough immigration law.PEGGY LOWE: It’s a long way from Forget-Me-Not Farms to the Kansas state capitol. But T.J. Curtis drove the 300 miles because he needs more workers for his family’s dairy farm in the far western part of the state.
Exit interviews can give you good incite on how to improve employee management.
Dangerous bulls, heavy machinery and treacherous manure pits can all pose hazards on a dairy. Follow these safety precautions.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents to California Farm Bureau Federation survey experienced labor challenges in 2012.
The state’s $43.5 billion-a-year farm industry depends on a shadow workforce of undocumented Mexican immigrants that’s eroding under economic improvements back home and tighter U.S. border controls.
Applications for Farm Labor Housing assistance are due Sept. 13, 2013.
Farm meetings should have both a tactical and strategic purpose.
Consumers who are battling soaring food prices try to stretch their grocery budgets.
Shortages reduce efficiency and ultimately reduce revenue.
Oregon authorities are investigating the deaths and mutilation of five bulls on the Silvies Valley Ranch about 20 miles north of Burns, Ore.
Each $1 invested in the national beef checkoff returns $11.91 to producer profits, according to research conducted by Cornell University professor Harry M. Kaiser.
Farmers in California’s Central Valley, the world’s most productive agricultural region, will get none of the water they requested this year from a federally controlled system because of the drought gripping the state.
USDA is making investments of more than $21 million in energy projects nationwide.
Grants up to $5,000 are available to farmers in the Animal Welfare Approved program.
Program includes expedited review for drought-related loan requests, support for affiliated associations’ local drought-assistance efforts.
SAN ANTONIO - The searing drought has forced members of the largest livestock association in Texas to reduce their herds by almost 40 percent, but it has not shaken their confidence in the future of the industry.
FORT WORTH - This week, rancher Donnell Brown will do something he never thought his family’s spread would consider.The 106-year-old R.A. Brown Ranch will ship hundreds of beefcows, bred heifers and bulls 1,300 miles to Montana.Like a latter-day version of the 19th-century cattle drives by Charles Goodnight and Jesse Chisholm, tens of thousands of dogies are moving north.
Cattle and sheep herds are being culled or completely liquidated on West Texas ranches as drought and heat bake away vegetation on the rocky hills and once fertile valleys.
Hay Hotline to offer hay pricing, listings for donated forage, transportation information and available grazing lands.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: Now we turn from politics to food prices, specifically a noticeable rise in prices. They’re way up in some cases, and the experts who watch these things say they’ll keep going up over the coming months as farmers struggle with bad weather and lousy harvests as a result. But is there any relief in sight?
A record amount of corn was planted in Ohio this year, providing a sharp turnaround from a month ago when many farmers thought the entire season might get washed out by weeks of heavy rain.Some excellent weather in early June and increasingly advanced growing methods are credited with the change in fortunes.The amount of corn produced per acre isn’t expected to be at record levels because of the late start, but farmers and experts now think yields could at least be average.
The 2011 wheat crop has resulted in mainly low yields as harvest winds down for another season throughout the Lone Star State. Because of extreme drought conditions, the Kasberg Grain Co. in Miles, 73 miles southwest of Abilene, handled approximately 25 percent of normal volume compared with years with adequate rainfall.
Texas’ farmers and ranchers are coping with their eighth drought in the last 13 years, and this one, while still young, has a chance of slamming producers with their biggest losses ever, officials said.
Tips following several reports of farm buildings going down in western Wisconsin.
Current law would have a ‘devastating effect’ on farms and ranches
For years, American taxpayers have subsidized ethanol production in a bid to boost the nation’s energy independence.Now a boom in ethanol exports is drawing fresh criticism of that tax credit, which cost taxpayers $6 billion last year.The United States this year became a net exporter of corn-based ethanol, exporting more than it imports, as a spike in the price of sugar-based ethanol made by Brazil has given U.S. ethanol a leg up on prices.