Agriculture has had a strong year.
We’ve been reading reports of farms prospering for the better part of a year now. In October it was said that Iowa’s corn and soybean crop alone would almost quadruple the state’s budget. Just last month, the USDA announced that farm exports reached a record high of $137.4 billion in 2011.
And now we’re starting to see some of that prosperity make it’s way back to rural America.
Last week, the Agriculture Department announced that farm income was up 28 percent from 2010.
This growth, says Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, is a reflection of the hard work and innovation of the farmers and ranchers who continue to take risks and embrace new methods and innovations that dramatically improve efficiency.
People have tried to predict the weather since the beginning of time. And while we may have come a long way since believing the world is flat or that everything revolves around the planet Earth, we're no closer to understanding all of the nuances that make the atmosphere react how—and more importantly, when—it does.
A leading scientist recently told American millers that U.S. investment in agricultural research is less than 1 percent of the total farm gate value of goods, which must be increased by developing a greater voice for "the science of agriculture" through cross-sector efforts.
