Northwest Agriculture News Network

American Rancher by

07/03/08 CRP haying and grazing

Keane; I’ll be back right after this with an example. The USDA has announced it will open up Conversation Reserve Program acres for haying and grazing. This is an attempt to help livestock producers in drought areas or areas with inadequate hay supplies. This CRP alteration is for 2008 only, will open up 24 million acres for forage or hay, which could make available 18 million tons of forage worth about 1.2 billion dollars. The CRP acres can’t be used until after August 1, 2008 to give grass...

07/03/08 RBST Hormone

Well, the barn door has been thrown wide open recently and the green activists were standing right behind it! A recent study shows that the synthetic version of an all natural hormone, the production boosting hormone RBST is actually allowing dairy farmers to leave a smaller environmental footprint by increasing milk production with fewer cows. Fewer cows mean a reduction in natural resource usage; such as water, land and fuel. As Dale Bauman, author of the study states, “Sustainability is impo...