Range fires’ impact on grazing felt long after the blaze

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistic Service released the 2012 Census of Agriculture, which confirms the trend of the 2007 census of a slowly declining number of small and mid-size operations. The report shows that 33,330 farms and ranches (or 1.6 percent of the total 2.1 million) accounted for half of all farm-product sales.

Don’t expect climate-change stress to settle down anytime soon. In a report recently released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, climate disruptions to agricultural production are projected to increase over the next 25 years.

During February, all was quiet at the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky. The racetrack was covered with snow with nary a hoofprint in it. But across town at the National Farm Machinery Show, the race for precision agriculture was heating up.

It was the summer between my seventh and eighth grades when I went to Rex’s funeral. Rex was a year older than me, popular at school, athletic and charismatic. He had been helping his father farm when his tractor rolled. It was closed casket.

“My wheat is gone! How am I going to get more chicken feed made?” If I hadn’t paid so much for that tablet with gaming apps, I’d have tossed it across the room.

Few people have heard of the Battle of Taranto, which took place at the beginning of WWII before the U.S. entered the conflict.

I’ll never forget my gray-haired neighbor Emily, who had grown up during the horrors of World War II in Germany. Emily’s grandmother had taken on the job of raising Emily and her sister, while their father was drafted into the army and their attractive mother was purportedly imprisoned for – how do I put this delicately? – being less than cooperative with a German officer.