Browse General Agriculture Stories - Page 20

It may be a while before robots and drones are as common as tractors and combine harvesters on farms, but high-tech tools may soon play a major role in helping feed the world’s rapidly growing population.

UGA cotton breeder Peng Chee’s groundbreaking research in molecular genetics provides Georgia cotton farmers with root-knot-nematode-resistant cotton varieties. It has also garnered Chee national recognition.

More than 1,000 farmers, gardeners, health advocates and organic food lovers are expected to attend the 2017 Georgia Organics Conference and Expo. This year’s schedule includes farm tours, 10 in-depth workshops, 32 educational sessions, three daylong intensive workshops, two keynote addresses, one-on-one consulting sessions and a trade show. Registration ends on Monday, Feb. 6, for this year’s conference. The two-day annual event, one of the largest sustainable agriculture expos in the South, is set for Feb. 17-18 at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta.

Deadly storms that ravaged much of south Georgia Jan. 20-22 also damaged or destroyed many irrigation pivots that supply needed water to agricultural crops.

In 2017, Georgia row crop farmers will likely devote more acreage to the state’s tried-and-true commodities: cotton and peanuts. This and other agricultural projections for the year were the focus of the 10th annual Georgia Ag Forecast seminar series, held across the state Jan. 18-27.

For decades, farmers who have embraced conservation production have seen increased soil health, reduced irrigation demands and lowered economic risk. For the past 17 years, Georgia farmers interested in adopting new conservation practices for their farms – including those looking to swap best practices with other conservation tillers – have gathered at Georgia’s annual Conservation Production Systems Training Conference.

Relatively unknown outside of health food stores in the United States, millet has served as a staple food for families in Eastern Africa and Asia for thousands of years.

The University of Georgia’s newest pecan variety will be released next spring and has shown good resistance against scab disease so far, according to Patrick Conner, a horticultural scientist at the UGA Tifton Campus.

Thanks to dwindling commodity prices during 2015, Georgia farmers’ produce and livestock were worth about $151 million less in 2015 than they were the previous year.

From the miracle of December tomatoes to the marvel of fresh salad greens in space, greenhouses and growth chambers may play an increasing role in creating hyperlocal or hyperportable food systems.