Top Agriculture News

More people have been asked to leave their homes in the North Carolina and South Carolina mountains as wildfires spread and the forecast for the rest of the week isn’t encouraging. A half-dozen large fires are burning in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Millions of fallen trees from September’s Hurricane Helene are both providing fuel for the wildfires and blocking the logging roads and paths firefighters use to fight the blazes and create fire breaks. The forecast for this week is dry and windy. There’s a chance of rain over the weekend, but forecasters say it isn’t likely to be the kind of downpour that can knock a fire out on its own.

Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced USDA is issuing up to $10 billion directly to agricultural producers through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program for the 2024 crop year. That’s welcome news to American farmers challenged by low prices and high costs, but uncertainty remains. In a Farmers for Free Trade webinar, Jordan Dux, […]

Cattle producers face a complex market as economic signals and drought conditions create uncertainty. Ben Brown, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri, says they are closely watching consumer economic signals and are concerned about potential declines impacting meat prices. “Quite a few people are nervous that some of the consumer and macro-economic signals […]

Dry conditions, wind and trees downed by Hurricane Helene are fueling wildfires in North and South Carolina. Officials say evacuation orders are in effect Tuesday in some parts of the states while they continue to monitor the blazes. Three fires are burning in a rural North Carolina county about 80 miles west of Charlotte. At least one of the fires was caused by a downed power line. In South Carolina, two fires are burning in a mountainous region and both have no containment so far. A forestry professor says trees downed during last year’s Hurricane Helene dropped tons of fuel on the ground for the fires.

This is the SFN Market Report with Brooks Schaffer of Palmetto Grain. Reach him at [email protected] or 843-540-4540. Today, Tuesday March 25th, is only 6 days away from the all important Prospective Planting and Quarterly Stocks Report that USDA will release Monday March 31st at 12 noon. I will be able to include all the […]

We know agriculture is a cornerstone of the American economy. But on National Ag Day last week, we got some specifics. Tell us about this, Commissioner. We are members of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), which works with 35 other groups to commission the annual Feeding the Economy report. This report […]

Every March, we join N.C. A&T State University to celebrate the 39th Annual Small Farms Week and the contributions small farms make to their communities and the state. North Carolina is a small farm state with over 81 % of farms being 200 acres or less and 50 % being under 50 acres. Many of […]

Firefighters in North and South Carolina are battling multiple wind-driven wildfires. The fires are burning in rugged terrain that is complicating efforts to contain them. North Carolina State University forestry professor Robert Scheller says millions of trees knocked down by Hurricane Helene last fall have dried out and are helping fuel the blazes. Burn bans remain in effect in both Carolinas and mandatory evacuations continue in parts of North Carolina’s Polk County. Hundreds of miles north in New Jersey, the state Forest Fire Service says a wildfire in the Pinelands region was 100% contained on Monday morning.

Wildfires forced a mandatory evacuation in one North Carolina county as emergency crews fought separate fires in an area of the state still recovering from Hurricane Helene, while South Carolina’s governor declared an emergency in response to a growing wildfire. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety issued a mandatory evacuation Saturday night for parts of Polk County in western North Carolina. The agency warns residents could be trapped, injured, or killed if they remain in the impacted areas. In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster has declared a state of emergency as part of an effort to stop a blaze in Pickens County called the Table Rock Fire that started Friday in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said her agency is issuing up to $10 billion directly to ag producers through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program (ECAP) for the 2024 crop year. ECAP will help agricultural producers mitigate the impacts of increased input costs and falling commodity prices. “Producers are facing higher costs and market uncertainty, and the […]