120 MILLION EURO STATE OF THE ART TOMATO FARM OPENS IN AUSTRALIA.

A high-tech sustainable tomato farm with its own desalination plant and 23,000 mirrors to harness the sun’s energy, has opened in South Australia.

The AUS$200m (£120m) investment by Sundrop Farms is reported by Australian news service The Lead to be the first of its kind in the world. It will produce 15,000t of tomatoes a year for the Australian domestic market.

This produces steam that drives onsite processes and heat to run the desalination unit, which churns out 1m litres of fresh water a day.

Eight trucks a day are currently leaving the farm to freight tomatoes to supermarkets across the country and Sundrop Farms has a 10-year contract with Australian retailer Coles.

Pilot project

The high-tech project has been years in the making and has included a five-year pilot project, followed by 18 months of construction.

Sundrop Farms describes itself as “a global leader in sustainable agriculture, growing fresh fruit and vegetables using renewable inputs”.

Its founder and CEO, Philipp Saumweber said the Port Augusta development was aimed at benefiting people, the planet and generating long-term, sustainable profits.

“With growing resource constraints, our innovative model harnesses renewable inputs such as seawater and sunlight to decouple food production from the finite inputs of freshwater, fossil fuels and land,” he said.

Global private equity firm KKR has invested more than $100m (£60m) into Sundrop Farms’ expansion and the Australian government supported the projected with a $6m (£3.6m) regional development grant.

More about Sundrop Farms

The company uses coconut husks instead of soil in high-tech climate-controlled greenhouses.

According to its website, it does not use GM technology, fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides. Instead, it employs workers to weed and pick by hand and uses biological controls, such as carnivorous insects.

It has offices in London and Adelaide and is currently developing farms in Portugal and the US. BY JEZ FREDENBURGH.

FARMERS REVEAL DIFFICULTY OF HOUSING POULTRY IN FACE OF BIRD FLU THREAT.

Concerns have been raised by free-range producers about chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbens’ decision to introduce a blanket prevention zone across England to help protect poultry from a strain of avian flu in Europe.

There have been suggestions that Defra and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha) could instead have brought in a regional housing order based on risks linked to wild bird migratory pathways.

Producers are also concerned about what the government will do after the end of the 30-day restriction period, particularly if the situation in neighbouring European countries has not improved.
John Widdowson, who owns Exe Valley Eggs, Devon, said that while he understood Defra’s decision, he questioned the blanket approach.

“I think the risks are significantly higher for producers on the east coast and for those under migratory wild bird pathways, which I’m not.

“Of course, it is better to have this restriction than having a case of avian influenza but it would be good to know if a regional approach was considered.”

Ability to range

Mr Widdowson, who runs five flocks totalling 20,000 birds, said he had one flock at 19 weeks that would have gone out this week and he was concerned the longer they were housed indoors the greater the impact on their ability to range.

He added that he was wondering whether the 30-day order would be rolled over.
He said his birds’ behaviour had already been affected. “We’ve always encouraged our birds to range far and wide. Their welfare is being maintained but they’re not very happy and we are seeing higher stress levels because the pop-holes aren’t open.

“We’ve put down more finely chopped straw in the litter area and they have a range of environmental enhancements, including string hanging from the sheds and footballs in the scratching area,” he said.

Other producers were more resigned to Defra’s decision. Rose Rowley, spokeswoman for Blackdown Hills Westcountry Eggs, said the firm’s 26 producers recognised the need for the housing restrictions.
“Generally, they were OK about it – some quite happy – but they all understood the reasoning behind the decision and the fact that it was protecting their livelihoods.”

Concerns over hobby farmers

Alaistaire Brice, who runs Havensfield Happy Hens, Eyre, Suffolk, said he was relieved by Defra’s decision but concerned that small-scale and hobby farmers would not to house their birds.

Mr Brice, who owns 20,000 laying hens and has 110,000 contract layers for the East of England Coop, anticipated few problems particularly as there were only eight to nine hours of light a day at this time of year.

One small farm, Millcroft Poultry, Dawlish, Devon, said it had noticed some behaviour change among its 200 birds: “They are a bit confused and want to come out first thing in the morning but are coping OK,” said a spokeswoman.  

Mark Gorton, director of Traditional Norfolk Poultry, told the Guardian that the order to keep birds inside was sensible and that it was fortunate the situation had not occurred earlier in the run-up to Christmas.

“Most of the Christmas turkeys are done. They’re safely packed and in cold stores ready for Christmas dinner,” he said. BY JAKE DAVIS.

2016 FARMERS WEEKLY AWARDS: SPECIALIST CROP PRODUCER FINALISTS REVEALED.

The Farmers Weekly Awards celebrate the very best of British farming by recognising and rewarding innovation, hard work and passion for agriculture.

To successfully produce specialist and high-value crops requires professionalism, precise management and technological innovation. Our three finalist deliver on each of those levels.

Joe Cottingham

Hill Farm, Kent

A constant quest for new lucrative market opportunities has seen Kent-based Watts Farms expand its product range to a dazzling array of fresh produce since the start of the millennium.

In 2000, the business was confined to just 70ha at Farningham, just south of Dartford.

Now the diverse enterprise is spread across 10 sites in three different counties, comprising 600ha of outdoor, protected and glasshouse production.

Keeping track of the 60 lines of brassicas, herbs, baby leafs, legumes, onions, asparagus, courgettes, spinach, chards and more recently chillies is no mean feat.

Charged with that task is managing director Joe Cottingham – who works alongside fellow directors Mike, Avril and Ed Gray – and he has been instrumental in the recent success.

It is easy to see why, with Joe showing tremendous passion and enthusiasm for the business as he talked the visiting Farmers Weekly judges through their innovative marketing strategy.

“We are always looking for new and interesting crops with nutritional value and also growing them here in the UK helps the environment by cutting food miles.

 That’s where we differ from other traders,” he explains.
The perfect example is the farm’s now-thriving chilli production, which started off as a few plants in a polytunnel in 2012 and one year later was shifted to a 2.5ha glasshouse in Bedfordshire to extend the growing season and increase yield.

The enterprise now supplies 5,000kg of a number of varieties of chillies to various outlets and end users and this year Joe is trialling 110 new varieties – the largest trial of its kind in Europe.
“I want an edge, so we have done a deal with a breeder to carry out their trials.

“We get to help develop new varieties and if we like them, we get exclusive access,” he adds.
Pushing for other new markets, Joe and his team managed to successfully grow a commercial sweet potato crop and this season, production is increasing 300% in an attempt to reduce reliance on foreign imports.

Joe also has his eyes on expanding the farm’s legume range and is developing a market for UK-grown borlotti beans, with the intention of pre-shelling and selling in ready-to-eat packs for the booming health food trade.

And the innovation doesn’t stop with product development – the farm recently developed a machine that allows mechanical harvesting of fresh cut herbs, with 50% expected to be cut this way during 2016.

“It won’t necessarily save us money, but it will take out the difficulty of finding staff and cut the amount of time it takes to get the herbs from the field to packhouse.

“We also hope to add refrigerated trailers to the harvesting operation to ensure that the herbs arrive in the packhouse in the best condition possible,” says Joe.

Walking into the packhouse, the first thing that hits you is the powerful aroma of freshly cut herbs and you see further evidence of investment in technology to optimise the company’s offering.

A “high-care” unit with high-tech washers and driers enable ready to eat products such as bagged baby leaf salad to be offered and an optical sorter to grade leaf lines ensures top quality with least labour input.

Software is also becoming increasingly important to the Watts Farms operation in an age where traceability is paramount.

Muddy Boots taking care of all cropping information from seed to the packhouse door, where a bespoke version of Produce Star takes over, which has been rolled out over the past 12 months and will be working to its full potential in the near future.

“It allows every minute detail of every bunch, box, tray and pallet rolling through the various packing lines to be recorded to ensure it reaches the customer in tip-top condition,” says Joe.

Nathan Dellicott

Sefter Farm, West Sussex
By taking the decision to put soil health at the core of its veg-producing business, Barfoot Farms hopes to continue intensive but sustainable production across its land for generations to come.

The farm produces predominantly sweetcorn, brassica, legume and cucurbit crops across 2,430ha from Bognor Regis in West Sussex to the north western edge of Southampton in Hampshire.Producing these high-value vegetable crops can often be hard on the grower’s most precious natural resource, requiring intensive cultivations and operations such as harvesting in sometimes less-than-ideal conditions.

This can lead to significant soil structure issues that have a negative impact on production, and it’s this symptom of intensive modern agriculture that prompted farm director Nathan Delicott to make a significant change.

The farm had been using a traditional plough-based system to work its soils, which vary from gravels to silt loams, and sometimes required two subsequent passes before planting, leading to 65% of the field area
being trafficked.

 As a result, Nathan and his team switched to a controlled-traffic farming (CTF) system four years ago, with
RTK guidance technology enabling every machine to work on the same 5m grid on every pass and min-till has made the plough redundant.

As such, no plant root has to push through compacted tractor wheelings, resulting in improved crop yields and in some cases increasing margins by up to 10%.
“Soil health has been the main driver and no seed goes where the wheels have been. Fuel use savings have also been a factor.

“Previously we did what we needed to do to survive as a business, but now our production is spread over more land, so we can afford to look after our soils much better,” explains Nathan.
The company has also been experimenting with overwinter cover crops since 2012, using variations of
radish, vetch, westerwold ryegrass and specialist tillage mixtures to further improve soil health, break compaction and capture nutrients.

A by-product of the Bognor Regis site’s 2.4MW anaerobic digestate plant also helps, with the plant fed by a mixture of hybrid rye grown on the farm and the waste that comes from the neighbouring packhouse.

The facility packs sweetcorn during the domestic season between mid-July and early September and imported corn grown on Barfoot’s farms overseas.

Cleaning, topping and tailing of the cobs generates about 27,000t of waste annually.
Nathan explains with this problem comes a solution, with everything fed into the digester, which in turn powers the whole site with renewable energy and also exports electricity to the grid.

The digestate has helped to cut the farm’s inorganic fertiliser use by about 30%, with the phosphate and potash requirements of every sweetcorn crop supplied by applying the liquid.

At present this is carried out by contractors using 10m dribble bars to fit the CTF system, but eventually the company wants to pump it through their irrigation network and use an umbilical application system.You also get some organic matter and it is absolutely full of microbes and very good for the soil,” adds Nathan.

While sustainable production practices are key in the field, the wider farmed environment is also high on the list of priorities for the business and a number of initiatives have helped to increase biodiversity.

Higher Level Stewardship environmental schemes are in place across the various land parcels and additional margins and other habitats have been created for birds, bees and other species.

Nathan explains that a recent link-up with Brighton University’s department of apiculture (beekeeping) to assess the impact of neonicotinoid insecticide seed treatments has paid dividends.
Neonics have been widely used on the farm’s sweetcorn crops for a number of years and collaboration on the research project and scrutiny of its findings have enabled Barfoot’s to increase bee health on the farm – crucial for the pollination of crops throughout its rotation.

“We have learned a lot from the connection and it has resulted in us getting more pollinators into our crops,” adds Nathan.

Antony Snell

Windmill Hill, Herefordshire
It is said there are no secrets to success – it is the result of hard work and learning from
your mistakes.

And there couldn’t be a more appropriate way to describe the meteoric rise of Antony and Christine Snell from struggling veg growers to high-quality soft fruit producers with a healthy turnover.
With no opportunity to be involved in the family farm after leaving college, Antony’s farming ambitions had to be satisfied elsewhere.

Fortunately, just 12 miles from home, at Harewood End, a general farmworker role cropped up.
Within two years he was part of the management team at the farm, which sits on the north-western edge of the picturesque Wye Valley, producing cereals, grass seed and potatoes.

After the unfortunate passing of the owner, Antony and his wife Christine had the chance to buy 40ha of bare land of their own. They initially grew conventional arable crops and rented a house away from the farm.

With the business haemorrhaging money, they moved to intensive veg growing and then salad crops in an attempt to increase profits, but they struggled to make it work in an increasingly commoditised market.

Antony recalls a meeting with the bank manager, who likening his business to a hospital patient in an intensive care unit.

“We were in financial trouble in the early years and we had to sell half of the land and then rent some more off family and neighbours,” he explains.

Learning from their experiences, Antony and Christine made the brave call to switch to 100% berry production in 1998 – a decision that would lay the foundations for impressive growth into the booming business they run today.

“We put absolutely everything into soft fruit, investing all our time and energy into it over the past 18 years.
“It turned out to be the right thing to do,” says Antony.
Initially planting raspberries, the couple purchased a strawberry farm and has since extended its range of crops to include conventional and organic blackcurrants, blackberries, blueberries and redcurrants for both the fresh and frozen markets.

Production is now spread across 182ha of fertile Herefordshire sandy loam soils, with about 61ha under polytunnels.

“We are not growing a commodity and we are not the biggest producer, but what we do want to do is have a reputation as a quality producer of a specialist crop,” says Antony.

That quest for quality has been fruitful, as Llysun was the first farm to win a gold award in Marks and Spencer’s own quality-assurance scheme – From Field to Fork. They also produced a class-winning Jubilee strawberry for the National Fruit Show in 2015.

The adoption of new technology has been instrumental in this drive for quality, such as shifting to substrate table-top strawberry production for a proportion of the crop.

The installation of a state-of-the-art irrigation system and using weather stations to support agronomic decision-making has also resulted in quality gains and some of the best yields in the industry.

Co-operation, however, has been at the heart of the business from the start and has helped not only the production, but also opened doors for marketing of the farm’s fruit.

Antony was instrumental in setting up the Hereford Fruit co-op, which subsequently merged with Berry Gardens – now a 56-strong grower group that has forged strong links with all the
major retailers.

As a result, the business now supplies Marks and Spencer, Sainsbury’s and Tesco with its fresh berries, while a new packhouse, complete with a £750,000 blast-freezing and mobile racking system, has allowed them to break into the frozen fruit market.

Outside of the marketing group, Antony also forged links with Ribena and supplies the squash maker with conventionally grown blackcurrants.

A successful meeting with Yeo Valley bagged a contract to supply the dairy with organic
blackcurrants.

“Every berry has a home and we are also experimenting with pureeing and juicing. Two of our landlords have anaerobic digesters that take the minimal waste we generate,” he says. BYADAM CLARKE.

MEET THE WORLDS BEST PIG PRODUCER.

When Bruce Livingston was a child, his favorite day of the week was Wednesday. He eagerly woke at 3 a.m. to ride with his dad to Harbine, Nebraska, to sell feeder pigs, arriving back home in time to catch the school bus.

“I could not wait for the weekends and summer breaks to arrive so I could work with pigs,” says Livingston.


When he was 8 years old, his father, Ed, and an uncle, Cal, gave him two breeding gilts in payment for helping them with their swine enterprises near Mahaska, Kansas. He also won a gilt for placing first in a 4-H judging contest. By the time he graduated from high school in 1987, Livingston owned a 150-sow farrow-to-finish operation outright. He had his mind set on his future in the hog business, so he never considered college. Today, his sow number is 25,000 and growing. This puts Livingston on the Successful Farming® Pork Powerhouses® list for the first time. In the Livingston Enterprises Inc. (LEI) office across from the county courthouse in Fairbury, Nebraska, Livingston opens a thick binder of notes and records. He scans the data, but already knows it by heart.

“Company-wide, the past year we average over 30 pigs weaned per sow per year on 25,000 sows,” he says proudly. In the month of July, that productivity number was over 35 on one of the units. (Most sow farms in the U.S. wean 20 to 25.)
“I don’t know if you could find better numbers in the world on a 25,000-sow system,” says Livingston. “We can be as competitive as anybody.”

How does he achieve high sow productivity?

“First, you have to have a high number of pigs born,” he says. “Second, you have to raise them.”
Sounds simple enough, but, of course, it isn’t.

“It’s the little things,” he says. “We treat each sow as an individual. It’s just like when I was a kid. I knew how many pigs were on every sow. I knew how much feed each sow ate.”

He flips through the binder in front of him and does some calculations in his head, tapping his fingers on the desk. “You can’t measure records you don’t keep,” he notes.

Livingston has his units benchmarked by Swine Management Services in Fremont, Nebraska, which has a database of more than 900 farms and 1.5 million sows. Each of his units is toward the top of the list for many of the productivity and efficiency indexes measured.

Livingston says he has seen numbers from operations many times his size that average 21 pigs per sow per year. He calculates that he produces .25 million more pigs on his 25,000 sows each year than they do on 25,000 of their sows.

“You’ve got to be efficient,” he says.

Expansion Mode

Driving out of town to visit his newest sow farm, a 7,300-sow unit that started farrowing in April, he talks about his company’s greatest challenge: finding and keeping employees, who he refers to as team members. Some of the people he hires have dropped out of school, had substance abuse issues, or trouble with the law.

“Life is difficult,” he says simply. “If you tell them exactly what’s expected, most work out. We can use any kind of person.”

Two of his employees have been with him for 21 years; one oversees farrowing and the other oversees gestation and breeding. He’s always looking for more employees who want to take on more responsibility and have a rewarding career.

“The limiting factor to how big we’ll get is the number of key people we’ll find,” he says.
Livingston’s oldest child, Connor, 19, is now working full time for the company. He is in Lincoln today with some of the farm’s truck drivers picking up four new semis to haul pigs.

“He’s learning the business,” says Livingston, proudly. (Bruce and his wife, Trudy, have four children: Connor; Bryn, 16; Ellie, 11; and Lucus, 7.)

Livingston constantly needs new employees because he is in expansion mode. The company is in the permitting process for a new 7,300-sow farm to be built in 2017. Each barn is built by Midwest Livestock, based in Beatrice, Nebraska. Modifications to the design make each one better than the last.All barns are within a 22-mile radius of Fairbury, and Livingston visits each sow unit at least once a week. He works with the breeding stock company DNA Genetics, based in Columbus, Nebraska, to select the most productive sows.


Most LEI pigs are sold as weaned pigs at 20 days old. They are contracted to The Maschhoffs, based in Carlyle, Illinois. He weans pigs four days a week.
The maternal barrows from the multiplier site, as well as the smallest weaned pigs, are fed in a nursery. Livingston retains ownership on up to 10% of the weaned pigs and grows them to feeder pigs.

At the new site, Livingston immediately notices some spilled feed, a tiny amount, around the augers. “I wish they’d get that feed cleaned up. I hate to see spilled feed,” he says. “I will have to talk to them about that.”

Feed, the largest cost for his company, is cheap this year. “I’ve already bought a year’s worth of corn,” he says. “The basis was at a level that I could justify.” He uses a spreadsheet, plugs in the corn price, and buys when it hits the level he sets.

Besides wasting money, spilled feed means rodents. “My two sons and I spent one weekend placing bait stations around each barn and securing them down,” says Livingston.

Around the barns on all sides is a concrete sidewalk, which helps considerably on maintenance. He doesn’t have to spray or mow weeds next to the building, and it is a place to secure the bait stations. Matting material with rock on top is laid neatly between all barns.

This half-section of flat Nebraska land where the barns sit is a prime spot. “I saw the land come up for sale, and I was at the right place at the right time,” says Livingston. He adds that some local farmers were unhappy he got the land. “You can’t make everyone happy in this business,” he admits.
He waves to an employee driving down the gravel road after going off shift in the farrowing house. The next shift has started. “We have someone 24 hours a day in the farrowing units,” says Livingston.

This new 7,300-sow farm is weaning 31 pigs per sow per year “right off the bat,” he says. “We are weaning 12.6 pigs off of gilts.”

Disease issues are low right now, but Livingston is not breathing too easy. “We’ve had our share of PRRS over the years. It’s sickening when it comes through.” He is fairly isolated in southeast Nebraska from other hog farms, so that helps.

To help with disease control, his barns are shower in/shower out, and he has facilities to wash and heat (he calls it “bake”) five hog trailers at a time. “We can house 23 trailers inside buildings.” 

the worst day

You can never quite breathe easy in this business, he says, because there is always something unexpected around the corner. Livingston’s worst day in the hog business was March 22, 2015. It was a Sunday afternoon and he was home with his family. An employee called to say the Stateline sow farm was on fire.

“I raced out there,” said Livingston. “You’ve never seen anything burn so fast.” Nobody was injured, but he lost hundreds of sows and pigs. They never figured out the exact cause of the fire.

Bruce and Connor spent that night in his truck at the smoldering ruins of the farm. “It was a turning point for my son,” says Livingston. “That’s when he decided to stay. Ever since then, he has stepped it up.” They rebuilt that farm and kept growing.

The new barns have a totally different electrical wiring system that makes them less prone to fires.

have to work hard

Livingston drives around the new unit and likes what he sees. The barns have manure pits underneath and two lagoons are east of the barns. He is hoping for an early corn harvest in his area so he can start applying manure. His manure pumping system, operated and managed by Connor, is made by Puck Custom Enterprises in Manning, Iowa. “It’s amazing,” says Livingston. “We can apply up to 4 miles away.”


As he leaves the sow unit, he drives by a 12,000-head cattle feedlot. “When it smells bad [the feedlot], we are blamed,” he notes. “The things people put on Facebook.”

He admires a pen of cattle on the edge of the feedlot belonging to his 72-year-old father, who has a cow-calf operation and grows corn and soybeans nearby. “Dad can’t slow down,” says Livingston.
Like father, like son.

What does his dad think of his growing swine operation? “He’s pretty proud of me,” says Livingston. “At an early age, my folks taught me how to work and that nothing comes easy. I have worked hard for everything I have.” BY BETSY FREESE.

SEABOARD FOODS BUYS TEXAS FARM

Seaboard Foods has purchased Texas Farm, based in Perryton, Texas, for an undisclosed amount. Texas Farm, a subsidiary of Nippon Meat Packers, Inc., of Osaka, Japan, has 25,000 sows in production (capacity for 40,000).


The purchase takes Seaboard Foods of Shawnee Mission, Kansas, to 290,000 sows. Seaboard has a hog processing plant in Guymon, Oklahoma, with a second processing facility under construction as part of a joint venture with Triumph Foods, called Seaboard Triumph Foods, in Sioux City, Iowa. That plant will be operational by August 2017, killing 10,000 hogs a day.



Seaboard is aggressively adding sows by acquisition, purchasing 35,000 sows in January from Christensen Farms. BY BETSY FREESE.

CHINA VOWS TO ACCEPT U.S BEEF AFTER 13YEARS BAN.

After 13 years, China has finally lifted its ban on accepting U.S. beef exports. This announcement comes after China’s Ministry of Agriculture concluded a review of the U.S. supply system.
The country will only accept U.S. beef that comes from animals under 30 months of age.


“China is already the world’s second largest buyer of beef, and with a growing middle class, the export opportunities for U.S. cattlemen and women are tremendous,” says Kent Bacus, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s director of international trade.


The U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) is quick to note that the announcement is exciting, but China will still need to negotiate with the USDA to approve export certificates and agree to standards U.S. beef will need to meet to be accepted into China’s market.
China originally halted U.S. beef imports when mad cow disease was discovered in Washington state cattle in December of 2003.

What History and Data Tell Us

In 2003, the U.S. sent 11,500 metric tons of beef to China valued at $27.1 million, according to the USMEF. However, in 2003 China only imported 57,200 metric tons in total, and demand has grown exceptionally since then. In 2015, alone, the country imported 495,000 metric tons valued at nearly $2.4 billion, according to the Global Trade Atlas.


“China’s 2016 imports are running well ahead of last year’s pace,” says Joe Schuele of the USMEF who calls China’s spike in demand for beef from 2012 to 2015 “extraordinary.” In just those three years, China upped beef imports by 424,500 metric tons.


“Our export markets are a great outlet for cuts of beef that are not traditionally popular in the U.S.,” says Dr. Phil Reemtsma, Iowa Cattlemen’s Association president. An example of this is the strong market for beef tongues in Japan.

Check out Beef Is Bouncing Back for an idea of how the U.S. cattle herd and beef markets are holding up.

The announcement to begin accepting U.S. beef was made by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine on September 22.

7 WAYS TO KEEP PORK MOVING.

Hog markets have dropped to unprofitable levels for many producers this fall. “This is a challenging time for agriculture and especially for our producers,” says Jan Archer, National Pork Board (NPB) president and a pork producer from Goldsboro, North Carolina. “Our goal is to help producers during this time and provide consumers with a great value and quality pork.”

Archer shared a few of the things the NPB, using Pork Checkoff funds, is doing to keep pork moving and help producers.
1) Partnering with major grocery retailers.

This fall the NPB is working with the top 10 U.S. grocery retailers, including a holiday promotion for Walmart with on-pack recipe labels, digital marketing, email blasts, and in-store pork promotions. Costco had an October “Porktober” promotion, consisted of in-store pork product demos, instant rebate coupons on featured pork cuts, and advertising in the Costco Connection member magazine. Kroger is driving pork loin, shoulder, and ham sales for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The program includes radio and digital ads and in-store events.

2) Focusing on foodservice.
NPB is working with high-volume restaurants to present a clear message around the opportunity pork presents through versatility, profitability, availability, and customer appeal. To reach the industry at large, the foodservice team will launch a print and digital brand campaign with custom ads from February through May 2017.

3) Keeping pork top of mind via digital marketing and PR.
During the holidays, the Pork Checkoff is encouraging consumers to make every moment – big or small – one worth celebrating. The Make it a Moment campaign is helping pork stand out from the typical holiday messages. "Using social media technology, we connect social media users with great-tasting pork recipes to match their meal plans," says Archer. When people visit the Pork Be inspired Facebook page, they can open Facebook Messenger to help find the right recipe.
4) Maximizing multicultural marketing.

The NPB is promoting budget-friendly pork and building on the success of summer’s Grill For It campaign, which incorporated a Spanish-language component. New promotions showcase the Make it a Moment campaign and feature our Spanish-language site, including new 1-minute videos to help consumers become more comfortable with cooking pork.
 5) Inspiring new trends.

To help bolster pork sales, the Pork Checkoff is working with retail partners to encourage consumers to broaden their options. Along with ham, NPB is promoting pork roast as a holiday meal.
6) Promoting U.S. pork exports.

While the high value of the U.S. dollar and competition from other countries in key export markets has curbed U.S. pork export demand, there are positive signs on the horizon, says Archer. “About 25% of U.S. pork production goes overseas, and we need to keep moving product to keep producers profitable.” Mexico, China, Japan, Korea and Canada are pork’s big five buyers, and the Pork Checkoff, through the U.S. Meat Export Federation, continues to invest in pork promotions overseas.
7) Reaching online consumers.

As consumers search for recipes online for meal planning, the Pork Checkoff’s online ads are reminding them about pork’s great taste and value, says Archer. They are also working directly with food bloggers on PorkBeInspired.com.
“Together, we can get through this time,” says Archer. “Pork producers are resilient. We’ve faced challenges before. We want to help our producers in any way we can.” BY BETSY FREESE.

SCIENTISTS CRACK CODE DETERMINING LEAF SHAPE IN COTTON.

Researchers know that the variation in leaf shapes can mean big differences in a farmer's bottom line. Now, a new discovery gives plant breeders key genetic information they need to develop crop varieties that make the most of these leaf-shape differences.

 

In a paper published Dec. 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, NC State researchers and colleagues from the Danforth Plant Science Center, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Cotton Incorporated describe how they used genomic and molecular tools to find the location of the DNA sequence that determines major leaf shapes in upland cotton.


The researchers also describe how they manipulated the genetic code to alter the shape of a cotton plant's leaves in potentially beneficial ways.


This discovery represents a significant step toward developing cotton varieties that produce higher yields at less cost to the farmers, said Dr. Vasu Kuraparthy, an associate professor with NC State's Department of Crop and Soil Sciences and the project's principal investigator.


Scientists have recognized that cotton plants with leaves that have five deep lobes, like the leaves of the okra plant, offer advantages to farmers over what researchers refer to as "normal" leaves. Dr. Ryan Andres, a postdoctoral researcher who worked in Kuraparthy's lab while he was a graduate student, said the so-called "okra" leaf cottons are less susceptible to boll rot than the stably yielding "normal" leaf cotton varieties.


The okra leaves also allow a spray to be more evenly dispersed across a plant and are associated with higher rates of flowering and earlier rates of maturity in cotton, Andres added.
To determine if they'd found the DNA sequence that controlled major leaf shapes in cotton, researchers infected okra-leaf plants with a modified virus that silenced the target gene. That led to a temporary production of normal leaves until the plants overcame the experimental virus and reverted to okra leaf shape. BY NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY.


Kuraparthy and Andres said they hope that this leaf architecture leads to an ideal cotton cultivar, or ideotype, capable of combining the advantages of the two leaf shapes.
"We were able to create our ideotype but only in a transient fashion. One day we want to able to do it in a heritable manner, and the first step in that is finding the gene and proving that this is the gene and these are the polymorphisms in the gene that cause these changes," Kuraparthy said. "This research does that."

WHEAT HIGHER IN OVERNIGHT TRADING ON EXTREME COLD.

1. Wheat Futures Rise in Overnight Trading on Winterkill Worries
Wheat futures rose in overnight trading after extremely cold weather in the eastern Midwest and the Southern Plains hurt plants that lacked snow cover.

“Winterkill was noted in west-central Illinois, southern Iowa, and northern Missouri over the weekend,” said Donald Keeney, a senior agricultural meteorologist at MDA Information Services. “Very cold conditions yesterday resulted in some widespread winterkill damage in southern Nebraska, much of Kansas, eastern Colorado, northwest Oklahoma, and northwest Texas as snow cover there remains thin.”

Temperatures are expected to moderate as the week goes on, he said.
Wheat futures for March delivery rose 1¼¢ to $4.10½ a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade. Kansas City futures added 3¼¢ to $4.18 a bushel.

Corn and soybeans were lower overnight as investors focus on supply rather than demand. U.S. growers likely harvested record crops this fall, boosting supplies of both commodities. While demand has been strong due to low prices and easily available supplies, it may not be enough to underpin prices, analysts have said.

Corn futures for March delivery fell 1½¢ to $3.54¾ a bushel in Chicago.
Soybean futures for January delivery declined 5¢ to $10.31¾ a bushel overnight. Soy meal dropped $1.50 to $315.60 a short ton, and soy oil fell 0.07¢ to 36.67¢ a pound.2. Speculators Lower Bets on Higher Soybeans, Lower Corn Second Straight Week

Speculative investors lowered their net-long positions, or bets on higher prices, in soybeans and were more bearish on corn for a second straight week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said in a report.

Investors were net-long 121,859 soybean futures contracts, down from 124,758 the prior week, the second consecutive decline, the CFTC said in a report on Friday. Speculators raised their net-short positions, or bets on lower prices, in corn futures by 5.5% to 69,050 contracts, according to the agency.

Bearish factors – including ample supplies after record corn and bean harvests along with improved weather in parts of South America, which could add to the glut – have investors concerned that prices will decline as the new year approaches.

U.S. growers likely produced 15.2 billion bushels of corn on yields of 175.3 bushels an acre and 4.36 billion bushels of soybeans on yields of 52.5 bushels an acre, all record highs, according to the Department of Agriculture.

The bearishness, however, comes amid strong demand for U.S. supplies. Exporters in the week that ended on December 8 sold more than 1.5 million metric tons of corn and 2 million tons of soybeans to overseas buyers.3. Extremely Low Temperatures Have Wheat Farmers on Winterkill Watch
Extremely low temperatures in parts of the Southern Plains have winter wheat growers watching their plants for winterkill.

Temperatures in Guymon, Oklahoma, in the state’s panhandle hovered at about 3˚F., while Amarillo, Texas, was at 6˚F., according to the National Weather Service.

Winterkill occurs when plants that lack a protective layer of snow are expose to temperatures that stay below freezing for more than a few hours. The so-called polar vortex has left the weather much colder than normal, though temperatures are expected to moderate as the week progresses, the NWS
BY TONY DREIBUS.

said.
Wind chills this weekend from -20˚F. to -30˚F. in much of the Upper Midwest.

SIGNIFICANT COST SAVINGS WITH USED PRECISION AG EQUIPMENT.

The solution to Kory Schafer and Adam Babl’s problem of finding an affordable guidance system for their sprayer presented itself at their local dealership.

“The sprayer [a John Deere 4710] wasn’t equipped with either guidance control or rate and section control,” says Schafer. He and Babl co-own GKS Farms of Albion, Nebraska. “We farm in 20-inch rows and spray across the rows, and we wanted to run in previous tracks on a second spraying. So guidance was a must.”

Schafer (pictured above, left) and Babl turned to a used monitor and receiver that were being sold by Green Line Equipment in their Albion, Nebraska, outlet. “We priced a new unit. With the price of corn and soybeans, we needed something more affordable,” Babl says.

The used Deere GreenStar 1800 display, loaded with guidance and sprayer control, and a StarFire iTC receiver were purchased for 35% to 40% less than a new display and receiver by the farming team. “We also had the activation fee for RTK,” Schafer adds.

GKS Farms joins a growing list of farmers who are capitalizing on the savings gained by purchasing used precision equipment. “Our business started taking off around six years ago,” says Jon Bickel of Used Precision Ag. “I notice there are now quite a few websites such as ours that are listing equipment.”

Bickel began buying, selling, and consigning used precision 12 years ago. The equipment he sells is reconditioned (which includes removing old data and upgrading firmware) and includes a three- to five-year warranty. “The big change since then is, besides a growth in business, now farmers realize that the used monitors or receivers in their equipment have value.”

The latest and fastest-growing category of used equipment at John Deere’s dealer site, machinefinder.com, is precision ag. At press time, that site had nearly 1,000 listings of displays, controllers, receivers, cabling, and activations.

Dealerships like Green Line Equipment have begun removing precision gear from trade-ins and listing the items on their websites.

“We noticed that lots of monitors and displays were being stored on shelves never to be used again, both on farms and at our dealerships,” notes Ashley Babl of Green Line (wife of Adam Babl). “We saw the potential in repurposing that equipment, especially now that commodity prices are lower. Farmers are looking for values.”

The advantage for a dealership, Ashley feels, is the opportunity to give farmers – who couldn’t afford that new precision equipment – a way to “maximize the bottom line and to cut input costs,” she says. “If we can help by selling a used sprayer section control, for example, and that saves money, then we’re providing a much-needed service in today’s economy.” BY DAVE MOWITZ.
GKS Farms’ first purchase has already whetted Schafer and Babl’s appetite for similar equipment. They’re now looking for used guidance gear for their primary tillage tractor.