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1 week ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
BLACKSBURG, Va. — The heavy metal gods have spoken — and they want fresh vegetables. Glade Road Growing, a small sustainable farm got an unexpected call last month — not directly from Metallica, but from the assistant to their longtime private chef. The band, in town for a concert, was looking for high-quality local ingredients to fuel their meals backstage, and they found them at Glade Road. “They wanted vegetables from us,” the farm wrote in a May 8 blog post still buzzing with excitement.
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2 weeks ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
ST. MICHAELS, Md. — It might be easy to idealize agricultural drones as a quick, easy and relatively frictionless tew tool. That may be true for the farmer who hires a drone company, but for the operator, the work resembles the rapid precision of a NASCAR pit crew, said Jesse Hammett, owner of Chesapeake Ag Drone. When using two drones to spray farmland, one returns every four minutes.
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2 weeks ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
A devastating new fungal disease and relentless spring rains have dramatically cut into strawberry yields across the Mid-Atlantic, leaving many growers scrambling to recover losses from one of the most challenging seasons in years. Strawberry plants across Maryland and nearby states have been hit hard by Neopestalotiopsis — referred to as NEO-P — a relatively new pathogen that surfaced in Florida several years ago and made its way north in recent seasons.
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3 weeks ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
BUCHANAN, Va. — After nearly a decade of providing healing and connection for veterans and rescued horses, New Freedom Farm will close its gates on July 31, as founder and director Lois Dawn Magill steps into retirement.
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1 month ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland farmers and agricultural haulers will soon have greater flexibility once again to move their products more efficiently, thanks to a new state law signed this month by Gov. Wes Moore. A bill, approved by the General Assembly in April, revises the state’s exceptional hauling permit program to allow heavier trucks carrying farm products to use more direct routes and simplify their operations.
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1 month ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
GEORGETOWN, Del. — Fruit growers across Delaware are beginning to see the consequences of a hard freeze that swept through the region on April 9, leaving behind varying levels of damage to peaches, plums, apples, pears and strawberries.
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1 month ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Funding for the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission has been restored after regional lawmakers pushed back against a proposal to phase out the agency’s state support over the next four years. The budget originally submitted by Gov. Wes Moore’s administration included steep cuts to SMADC, slashing $250,000 annually from its $1 million allocation through fiscal year 2029.
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1 month ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
STAFFORD, Va. — A Virginia beekeeper is recovering from the loss of nearly half a million honeybees after a suspected act of sabotage left his 5-acre property littered with dead pollinators and locked behind a heavy steel chain. Jerry Mattiaccio, owner of Rock Hill Honey Bee Farms, discovered the chain and padlock sealing off his gate on April 13. By the following morning, after cutting his way through with help from his staff, he found a grim scene: bee carcasses carpeting the grass.
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1 month ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
BALTIMORE — A New Jersey-based transmission developer is seeking a federal court order to access more than 100 private properties, including farms and other agricultural operations, in northern Maryland for environmental fieldwork tied to a controversial high-voltage power line project. PSEG filed a motion this week for a preliminary injunction that would allow it temporary access to farmland, woodlots and rural properties along the planned 67-mile Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project.
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1 month ago | 
americanfarm.com | Jonathan Cribbs
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — As lawmakers scrambled to pass a $67 billion state budget before the General Assembly’s April 7 deadline, Maryland’s farming community left Annapolis with guarded optimism after months of budget brinkmanship and policy fights. Faced with a $3.3 billion deficit, the legislature passed a budget loaded with more than $1.6 billion in new taxes and fees — changes that drew sharp criticism from Republicans but allowed lawmakers to avoid deep cuts to many state programs.
