AGRI-LEARNING LAB

Cover crops might seem like some extra unnecessary farm management work to keep your fields looking green and busy, but there are more benefits to cover crops than you may think… Reducing Erosion When your fields lay empty for months on end, their top soil naturally starts to erode. This depends on the climate and geography of your farm. You could have howling winds and torrential rain battering your farm for weeks on end, or droughts that suck the life from the fields. Some particular cover crops offer shelter to your fields and protect the nutritious top soil you need for growing those desirable crops later in the year. The best crops for this job are ones with a well-developed root system to hold onto that valuable top so

The calendars say 2019, but many of the same headaches and management challenges from 2018 still linger. While always a component of production agriculture, uncertainty has moved to front and center over the last few years. Compounding the issue are difficult farm financial conditions that have continued to erode. While it comes as no surprise, 2019 is shaping up as another difficult year in agriculture. As producers begin planning for the upcoming season, they are likely to find a difficult budget outlook. To help with planning over the upcoming year, we sat down and mapped out the 7 biggest uncertainties facing farm managers and offer a few tips and insights into how to approach them.

What is farm management? Farm management is the collective term for various management strategies and methods that are employed to keep a farm productive and profitable. The process of this type of management is often associated with large commercial farms, although many of the same methods can be used with equal success on a small family-owned farm. Depending on the size of the operation, the management process may require the services of a single farmmanager or a group of managers who oversee various aspects of the overall project. In many respects, effective farm management is similar to the management processes that are employed with any type of business. There are decisions that must be made on a daily basis, as well as operational guidelines that must be observed by everyone who is involved with the operation. Some participants are accountable to overseers or managers, who in turn are accountable to owners.

The challenges foreseen in agriculture as far as the need to double food supply is concerned are now putting agricultural sustainability at par with ensuring food security. There is a need for a resource efficient global food system that takes into consideration the aspect of sustainability. For example, if you are struggling to ensure efficiency in how you use water in your farm, ways of reducing soil erosion and ensuring minimum degradation, or even minimizing energy input, you are not alone. Every farmer all over the work hopes to achieve all these and other goals at the minimum possible cost. However, such goals post some of the highest requirements in agriculture which cannot be achieved successfully through traditional approaches of farming

Agricultural complex has always been one of the most significant propelling forces of the Ukrainian economy. Agriculture provides for 8% of total GDP, covering about 71% of the territory and 17% of working population employment. Meanwhile, in comparison with their foreign peers, the performance indicators of domestic agrarian companies demonstrate disproportion in operating results. Thus, if we scrutinize developing countries with agricultural specialization, Ukraine will demonstrate the highest rate of territory used for crop production (0.71 hectares per citizen) with a relatively small contribution to the GDP (-3−8% to the other countries level).

Those who practise sustainable agriculture seeks to integrate only three critical objectives into their farming operations: Healthy environment; Economic profitability; and Social and economic equity. Every individual who is involved in the food system— be it growers, or food processors, or maybe the distributors, the retailers, and consumers —should play a role in ensuring that there exist a sustainable agricultural system.