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IPR file At the 2018 Iowa Pork Congress in Des Moines, Farmers for Free Trade invited attendees to show their support for trade deals. After harsh and frequent criticism from animal rights activists and environmentalists, many farmers and people who work in agriculture launched an effort to tell their stories to the broader public. A decade on, this effort has worked through several themes. With a new president coming, ag messaging may change again. But let’s begin back in 2013 when, fresh off Barack Obama’s re-election, agriculture groups were hitting their storytelling stride. The Unit...

iStock: Jevtic A lot happened in 2020, both on and off the farm. Here’s a timeline of some of the headlines that caught farmers’ attention over the last year. Catch up on what you missed! January At the beginning of 2020, farmers were looking back on the 2019 growing season and planning for the year ahead. David Hula shared a few of the practices that were key in winning the 2019 National Corn Yield Contest with 616.195-bushel-per-acre yield. Starbucks outraged many in the agriculture community when they announced plans to cut back on dairy products as part of a new sustainabilit...

Amy Mayer / Harvest Public Media file photo Originally published on December 4, 2020 5:32 am Balance sheets for farms may look better at the end of 2020 than they have in years. That’s according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest forecast.  Some expenses have been lower this year, like diesel to power farm equipment, interest on bank loans and livestock.  “We haven’t had a decline in expenses of this magnitude or duration since the farm crisis of the early 1980s,” says USDA economist Carrie Litowski. But in a presentation about the latest data on farm income, s...

By Tom Doran December 14, 2020 at 8:35 pm CST WASHINGTON — A revised outlook of farm financial indicators projected a rise in net farm income for 2020 due to government payments and improved commodity prices, but estimates were not rosy for all sectors. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service projected net farm income, a broad measure of profits, to increase by $36 billion (43.1%) from 2019 to $119.6 billion this year. “In inflation-adjusted 2020 dollars, net farm income is forecast to increase $35 billion (41.3%) from 2019, increasing for the fourth con...

Biden Expected to Nominate Vilsack to Return as Agriculture Secretary Friday Dec 11th, 2020 President-elect Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to return to the post he held for eight years under the Obama administration. The Washington Post, Associated Press and other major news organizations reported Tuesday evening that Biden is expected to announce Vilsack again as Agriculture secretary. Vilsack, who turns 70 next week, was former President Barack Obama's longest-serving cabinet member, leading USDA from 2009 to 2107. He was a two-term gov...