Here are a few articles the Barstow family was reading this month:
Robotic Milking 101 | Cabot Creamery Cooperative
On robotic milking farms, cows set their own schedule and milking is more efficient, which means cows have more time to rest, and our farmers have more time to care for their herds. #cabotcheese
GMOs: A Recipe for Understanding | Dirt to Dinner
Inserting a gene into a plant’s genome is adding to one of its thousands of genes. Like adding a different ingredient in a recipe, a genetically modified organism specifically targets which gene is needed without changing the structure or integrity of the plant.
What is No Till? | The Farmer’s Life
I think our farm needs to be leaning towards less tillage or none at all in the future, and right now we are headed that way. In recent history we have sold off our ripper, a soil finisher, and traded our disk for that vertical tillage tool I mentioned. We are expanding our cover crop acres which will more than likely be no-till acres as well. Do you think we are headed in the right direction?
What’s Happening in Ag? | Dirt to Dinner
The economic uncertainty in the agricultural sector is doing more than reducing farm income. It’s also affecting farmers’ willingness to invest. The Ag Economy Barometer produced regularly by Purdue University and the CME Group this spring found that 78 percent of farmers surveyed felt it’s a “bad time” to make major investments in farm operations. Continuing tensions over trade with China and continuing weather problems in key producing areas are concerns for investing in technologies and equipment to increase productivity and profitability for farmers.
This also impacts food security for the people who depend upon them. The Barometer measures a monthly economic sentiment with 400 agricultural producers and a quarterly survey of 100 agriculture and agribusiness thought leaders. The latest survey showed the fourth largest one-month drop since data collection began in October 2015.