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1 week ago | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
On a warm March afternoon, Casey Cox Kerr looked over the Flint River that caresses her family’s farm in south Georgia and thought about the times she stepped out of her comfort zone and made choices to become one of U.S. peanut’s leading champions. Kerr, 33, is the current chair of the influential National Peanut Board. She’s the first millennial farmer to chair the NPB, which is charged with providing research and promotion for U.S. peanut farmers.
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1 month ago | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
It was the third week of May, and Riley Davis saw the end of his planting season straight ahead and sooner than he expected. The south Georgia farmer, so far, was happy with his crops’ development. “Our oldest corn was planted around the 15th of March. And we’re pushing tassels pretty heavy right now, and ears are coming out.
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1 month ago | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
Our country will grow weak without predictable access to pesticides farmers economically use to turn their hard work into food we economically and safely consume to live prosperous lives. We can’t sustainably grow food or fiber without pesticides that have gone through the rigorously scrutinized, science-based regulatory process. We will lose farms if we lose sound, proven-safe pesticides.
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2 months ago | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
Non-biased agricultural research in cooperation with vital industry partners, and, most importantly with and for farmers, work together to drive necessary innovation, which is now more important than ever to help sustain our farming future. A recent story we shared was about the studies that led to a way farmers can break the fragipan layer. It’s no small thing.
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2 months ago | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
Every planting season matters, but this season will need to go off without a hitch for most farmers to stay above water with current commodity prices below cost of production. And as planters ease into fields across the Southeast, everything needs to work perfectly, including all the little things. Simer Virk is the precision agricultural specialist with Auburn University. “Growers cannot afford to not have a good plant stand to begin the 2025 crop season on the right track,” he said.
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Mar 21, 2025 | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
We’ve been talking to farmers to get their sense of the situation this growing season. None are enthusiastic about it, but they are optimistic about planting and going another year. That may sound like an odd dichotomy to those outside of farming. But ol’ sayings hold true because they are true. “There’s no greater gesture of faith than planting a seed.”You know the situation because you’re living it: Farmer prices for major row crops remain depressed.
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Mar 14, 2025 | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
A dozen large, white-shell eggs costs more than $8 on average. Egg prices have steadily stayed high since the current High Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreak forced poultry producers to reduce layer numbers to control the disease’s spread. Layer chickens lay the eggs sold as table eggs, and the commercial layer houses have been affected most by HPAI. Since the first of the year, more than 20 million commercial table, or shell, egg laying hens have been lost due to HPAI.
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Feb 7, 2025 | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
Starting Jan. 20, the snowpocalypse shocked with beauty and fun, along with a bit of inconvenience. But the record-breaking storm didn’t hurt us like so many other devastating storms and provided a nice, solid reset for us heading into the spring planting season. Across the gulf states, from Louisianna through Florida, record snowfall fell. In south Georgia, we received about 7 inches. The previous record for our part of the world happened in 1973 when about 3 inches fell.
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Jan 5, 2025 | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
Cotton farmers must focus on profitably for 2025 by growing the highest-yielding cultivars and sticking to the calendar for weed control. At a GlanceWithout dicamba in-season, farmers need to “militantly” commit to being pigweed-free at planting. And farmers need to have the layby rig ready. In mid-December, soon after cotton harvest, Drew Wendland sat in his office penciling out 2025’s crop budgets. One variable in the calculations included growing cotton without in-season dicamba.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
farmprogress.com | Brad Haire
Eddie McGriff found out how important 4 inches of water in June can be for corn, cotton and soybean yields, and just how much this year’s high temperatures and drought cost some growers. McGriff is the Alabama Cooperative Extension agent for the northeast region. He has worked for Extension and industry for decades throughout the U.S. Southeast.
