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Posts tagged as “agriculture”

Senate Afraid to Study Actual-Use Ag Land Assessment

When I visited Charlie Hoffman last August, the outgoing state representative and passionate prairie grasser said that the current agricultural land tax formula discourages grassland restoration and preservation and drives turning prairie grassland to row crops. Hoffman suggested our property…

Turner County Egg Factory Would Bring 6 Million Chickens and Serfdom

South Dakota chickens are apparently slacking off. About 2.63 million chickens laid 752 million eggs in South Dakota last year, but according to the USDA, that's a 4% drop laying chickens and an 8% drop in egg production. Sonstegard Foods…

Dakota Rural Action: Two Pro-CAFO Bills Down, HB 1201 to Go

Dakota Rural Action does not like concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). Big feedlots pose a greater risk to land, water, and air quality than other forms of agriculture. Dakota Rural Action has managed to knock down two bills promoting CAFOs…

South Dakota Loses Farms, Pays Hired Hands Well

Chuck Clement reads the USDA's latest report on Farms and Land in Farms and finds South Dakota lost 300 farms last year. That's a return to the long-term trend that South Dakota was briefly bucking: fewer farms, bigger operations. 37…

Ag Sec. Lentsch: Federal Regulation Beats Local Patchwork on GMO Labeling

Friend and blogger Don Carr has pointed out the scientific disconnect Senator John Thune and other tools of the plutocracy exhibit in their embrace of scientific evidence to defend genetically modified crops and their rejection of scientific evidence to fight…

Spearfish Meeting Tonight to Discuss Agriculture in the Valley

Our Spearfish neighbors are holding an important meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at Hudson Hall downtown. The Spearfish Ag Land Committee will discuss the preservation of agricultural land in the Spearfish Valley. The discussion will likely revolve around the Runnings'…

Moonshot Teacher Pay Plan Makes Mainstream Press

Patrick Anderson features my moonshot plan to raise teacher pay $10,000, to 34th in the nation, on the education e-pages of that Sioux Falls paper. My plan secures that monumental raise, around $92 million a year spread among about 9,200…

HB 1056 Removes Bond Requirement for Ag Dept Officials

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee includes House Bill 1056 on its agenda Tuesday morning. HB 1056 includes a whole lot of housekeeping, tedious changes like replacing agriculture with agricultural in references to the ag mediation program. Someone must…