INDUSTRY NEWS

Facebook's recent privacy breach has made me wonder whether these same missteps could happen to an ag tech provider. I think the answer is most-assuredly yes. An ag tech provider could carelessly walk into the same trap that caught Facebook. What should we learn from what happened?

131 million – that’s 131 million tons. And that’s roughly the weight of 4,367 school buses, which is how much dry hay was harvested in the U.S. in 2017. Add to that corn silage and greenchop, and the forage total would reach the weight of over 8,392 school buses (at 30,000 pounds apiece).

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today issued a statement providing clarification on the USDA’s oversight of plants produced through innovative new breeding techniques, which include techniques called genome editing.

Alfalfa is the third most valuable field crop produced in the U.S., valued at over $9.3 billion, $1.2 billion more than wheat, according to 2017 figures recently released by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). “Alfalfa needs to take its rightful position alongside corn, soybean, wheat, cotton and rice, which are often referred to as the “big five,” said Beth Nelson, president of the National Alfalfa & Forage Alliance (NAFA).

Late winter and early spring are the primary times when brown root rot, also known as snow mold, may be damaging northern New York alfalfa, a highly valued forage crop for dairy cows and other livestock.

And just when ag equipment sales had begun to turn around …

President Trump tweeted in early March that “trade wars are good and easy to win. But every war has casualties,” regarding a proposed 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent tax on imported aluminum.