Mississippi Business Journal » farm

State’s blueberry farmers fighting weather, insects

MBJ Staff — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:56:01 +0000

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — Late-spring cold snaps and untimely freezes have delayed harvests and reduced yields for Mississippi’s 2013 blueberry crop. George Traicoff of Hernando runs a family owned and operated you-pick operation in DeSoto County. He started Nesbit Blueberry Plantation with 6,000 plants in 1984, and today his family tends 16,000 plants. “We are running [...]

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Late soybean planting leaves crop vulnerable to storms

Associated Press — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:50:55 +0000

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — Heavy rains in early April delayed soybean planting in Mississippi and Louisiana. Farmers said the optimal time to plant soybeans is early to mid-April, but excess rain caused area farmers to plant in late April and May. “We had to wait for our fields to dry up,” local farmer Noble Guedon told [...]

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Senate passes Farm Bill; Cochran touts $4B in savings

MBJ Staff — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:31:44 +0000

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate has passed a new farm bill. The Senate yesterday approved the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2013 (S.954), major legislation that reforms and extends programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through 2018. The bill was approved on a bipartisan 66-27 vote. U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, ranking Republican [...]

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Late cotton planting could boost pest species

Associated Press — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 20:18:14 +0000

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — Farmers are finally catching up on cotton planting, but experts are worried that the late start could expose the crop to more insects than if wet weather hadn’t delayed planting. Mississippi farmers had intended to plant corn on many acres in hopes of cashing in on high prices. But winter and spring [...]

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Program rewards growers for safe food-handling practices

MBJ Staff — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 11:04:40 +0000

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — The Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce is currently offering a cost-share program to provide financial assistance to Mississippi fruit and vegetable farmers receiving Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Handling Practices (GHP) Certification. Eligible farmers will receive reimbursement for 75 percent of the certification costs up to a maximum of $500. [...]

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Soybean producers take advantage of break in clouds

MBJ Staff — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 20:04:18 +0000

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — Many Mississippi farmers celebrated Memorial Day in their tractor seats as they took full advantage of about a week of good weather to make significant strides in planting. A nearly unbroken string of rains kept farmers mostly out of the fields through the early-spring planting window. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s May 26 Crop [...]

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Sanderson outperforms Wall Street forecast

Associated Press — Thu, 30 May 2013 16:03:24 +0000

LAUREL — Sanderson Farms Inc. said today that its fiscal second-quarter net income rose 2 percent thanks to higher demand for poultry products. Its performance topped Wall Street’s view. Shares climbed in premarket trading. The poultry company earned $24.4 million, or $1.06 per share, for the three months ended April 30. That’s up from $23.9 [...]

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Board releases research videos to help soybean growers

MBJ Staff — Wed, 29 May 2013 16:30:23 +0000

CANTON — The Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board (MSPB) is hoping its research videos will help the state’s growers overcome the challenges they face during the planting season. After facing weather delays earlier this spring, soybean planting is finally well underway in Mississippi. This also means an application of herbicides to crops for many farmers. The [...]

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Bill exempting small farms from fuel storage regs passes Senate

MBJ Staff — Tue, 21 May 2013 12:11:26 +0000

WASHINGTON — Legislation to exempt small farms from Environmental Protection Agency fuel storage requirements has been incorporated into the Senate-passed Water Resources Development Act of 2013 (WRDA), according to a release from U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). The Senate passed WRDA legislation (S.601), and with it also approved all the provisions included in the Farmers [...]

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Ag officials say late planting reaching historical proportions

Associated Press — Mon, 20 May 2013 12:43:22 +0000

ACROSS MISSISSIPPI — Planting of Mississippi row crops has fallen behind schedule following a spate of wet weather, according to industry experts and government officials. Ernie Flint, an agronomist at the Mississippi State University Extension Service, says many of the state’s farmers are running about month behind but still have time to catch up before [...]

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