Crops

  • Modern Farmer published an interesting short article last week about how early agricultural practices changed the local and global climate.  Slash and burn techniques caused big changes in land use and injected a lot of carbon into the atmosphere, both as carbon dioxide and as black soot, both of which change the climate in different…

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  • The Packer reported this week that rain and cold weather in Florida and up north has reduced the supplies of cabbage at a bad time for St. Patrick’s Day, coming up in mid-March.  You can read the story at https://www.thepacker.com/news/rain-cold-cut-st-pat%E2%80%99s-cabbage-supplies. They reported separately that “A wild mix of cold, hot and wet weather continued to wreak…

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  • Climate and chocolate

    Chocolate is one of my favorite food groups.  NOAA put out an article this week on how changes in climate are expected to affect the availability of cacao beans, the prime ingredient in chocolate.  Perfect timing for Valentine’s Day!  Surprisingly, it is not the increase in heat that will hurt the beans, but the lack…

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  • BBC News published a news story this weekend discussing the likely changes we are likely to see in US agriculture if warming trends continue.  The story was based on a recently published study of how extreme events like the Dust Bowl of the 1930s would affect agriculture if it happened in a warmer climate in…

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  • While for many farmers, drought causes severe economic hardship, a new study of California farmers shows that some of them are doing very well economically in spite of over four years of drought, according to an article in AgWeb yesterday.  Some of the profits come from the surging value of crops like almonds, while others…

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  • The Packer reported today that the Florida grapefruit season is expected to end earlier than usual this year due to problems caused by El Nino conditions in the state.  USDA reported that the crop was the lowest in three decades, according to the report. Fall and early winter brought warmer than normal temperatures and the…

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  • As part of the celebration of the International Year of Soil, the New York Times published an article this week on the value of planting cover crops between regular harvests.  Among the benefits: increase in soil carbon, decrease in erosion, reduction in compaction, lower fertilizer costs, and improvement in crop yields.  And as I’ve pointed…

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