Just a month ago the State Conservation Commission awarded 29 grants to 20 conservation districts to spend more than $350,000 to plant more shelterbelts. Heck of an idea, right? House Bill 1055 kills that program. The Department of Agriculture is…
Posts tagged as “agriculture”
The South Dakota Department of Agriculture keeps harshing raw milk producers' mellow. SD-DOA sends the Legislature Senate Bill 45. For the most part, SB 45 appears to be clarifying definitions and rules. However, Section 3 includes this rewording: Section 3.…
South Dakota's Congressional delegation may be sticking in the ideological mud on lifting the failed embargo on Cuba, but sensible rural politicians are not. The new U.S. Agricultural Coalition for Cuba has the support of some rural Democrats and Republicans:…
Remember how Mike Rounds told us that Keystone XL would help South Dakota farmers by freeing up rail cars to haul grain instead of oil? Farm and blog friend Don Carr notices that, once Rounds was safely elected, the South…
For some time I have wondered why South Dakota's Republican leadership has consistently favored big ag over small ag, going to great (possibly criminal) lengths to recruit investors for megadairies and meat processing plants and subsidizing big cheese factories while…
A couple of charts in state economist Jim Terwilliger's presentation to the South Dakota Banking Commission last Friday explain part South Dakota's doldrummy fiscal outlook. From 1997 to 2007, farm income averaged about 6% of South Dakota's personal income. When…
Hey, that's my neighbor Charlie Johnson on the YouTube! Actually, it's an ad from the Organic Farmers' Agency for Relationship Marketing. But it's also a great nutshell explanation of the Organic farming philosophy Charlie inherited from his dad Bernard: "What…