Displaying items by tag: farming

RALEIGH — Hemp growers and retailers in North Carolina may be helped by a provision in a Senate bill that was discussed in Senate’s Agriculture, Energy, and Environment Senate Standing Committee meeting Tuesday.

RALEIGH — With the arrival of spring and warmer weather, strawberry farms are opening for shoppers and, undoubtedly, strawberry lovers are ready for local berries.

WIND BLOW — In the early 1920s, Charlie Howard Bynum and his wife, Onis, made the roughly 100-mile trek eastward from Lincoln County to the Sandhills of Northern Richmond County to start a new life.

RALEIGH — Farmers across the country, including North Carolina, are “taking it on the chin” when it comes to diesel and fertilizer prices, which have risen to unprecedented levels. The U.S. is dependent on and a major importer of foreign fertilizer. Factors driving costs up include Russia’s war with Ukraine, a limited supply of the relevant minerals and high energy costs, high global demand and agricultural commodity prices, reliance on fertilizer imports, and lack of competition in the fertilizer industry.

As the dire worldwide climate emergency makes ever clearer, humans have much urgent work to do when it comes to dramatically reducing fossil fuel emissions. Even with rapid and ambitious action, the effects of global warming will  worsen in the decades ahead and the best-case scenarios will be largely about minimizing harm.

While she’s spent the past month highlighting the successful women of Richmond County, Tourism Director Meghann Lambeth is a leading lady in her own right.

RALEIGH — A commercial turkey operation in Johnston County has tested positive for High Path Avian Influenza. The positive sample was first identified by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Raleigh and confirmed by the USDA APHIS National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames, Iowa.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has clarified the definition of a spot market sale and hog eligibility under the Spot Market Hog Pandemic Program, which assists producers who sold hogs through a spot market sale from April 16, 2020, through Sept. 1, 2020. Hog producers will also now be required to submit documentation to support information provided on their SMHPP application. USDA’s Farm Service Agency will accept applications through April 29, 2022, which is an extension of the April 15, 2022, deadline previously set for the program.   

DERBY — Richmond County farmer Jim Lambeth was recently nominated to his second term on the N.C. Board of Agriculture.

RALEIGH — Spring is a busy time on the farm with growers preparing equipment, working on lime and fertilizer applications, and making cropping decisions even as commodity prices are fluctuating daily.