Free Republic

SIERRA VISTA — When Pam Chandler teamed up with Lisa Thompson to start a new farmers market, the duo didn’t expect the vendors at the market’s debut would be all women. Chandler, general manager at the Sierra Vista Co-op, came up with the idea to start the Sierra Vista Food Co-op Community Market with Thompson, owner of Thunder Mountain Alpaca Ranch, as a way to give business owners the chance to reach out to different clientele. The market will launch Jan. 6 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and open the first Saturday of every month in front of the...

CFP Championship 2018 live stream: Early Predictions for Alabama vs. Georgia. Alabama Vs. Georgia: 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship Game Odds And Expert Picks. The 2017 college football season comes to an exciting conclusion on Jan. 8, in Atlanta, Georgia, when the College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship pairs the University of Alabama Crimson Tide against the University of Georgia Bulldogs. The teams officially booked their ticket to Atlanta on New Year’s Day, Jan. 1, 2018, as each won their Playoff Semifinal, the Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual and Allstate Sugar Bowl games, respectively. Critics would hate...

This is a bombshell because the agriculture industry, the governor's office, and the legislature knew the result could be the entire law being thrown out “The Marxians love of Democratic institutions was a stratagem only, a pious fraud for the deception of the masses within A Socialist community there is no room left for Freedom.”— Ludwig Von Mises California Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrat-supermajority State Legislature hold the state Supreme Court’s purse strings. Evidence of this can be found in the Monday California Supreme Court 7-0 decision in the Gerawan Farming case.

Barre, VT - In late November most farmers are getting the winter cover crop in the ground. But, two farmers are preparing crops as if it were spring. Vermont is well know for agriculture, and in Barre a first of it's kind farm is coming to the state, vertical farming. "It's growing horizontally in layers or in our case vertically, and we go up 16 feet," said Greg Kelly. He and Jake Isham are co founders of Ceres Greens. The two men are taking farming to the next level, growing produce indoors, in vertical tubes. "What this industry is able...

HUMBOLDT, Tenn. (AP) — Tyson Foods Inc. plans to build a new chicken production complex in Tennessee, a $300 million project that is expected to create more than 1,500 jobs when the facility begins operations in late 2019, the company said Monday. The new plant in Humboldt, about 85 miles northeast of Memphis, will produce pre-packaged trays of fresh chicken for retail grocery stores nationwide, the Springdale, Arkansas-based company said in a statement before a news conference. The plant will help it meet strong consumer demand for its chicken. The announcement marks the second major economic development project Tyson has...

Is soil an essential element of organic farming? Or can a crop grown in a soil-free container still be considered organic? Since the launch of the National Organic Program in 2000, hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic crop systems have been eligible to use the coveted USDA Organic seal on their products, so long as their operations comply with all other USDA organic regulations. But some organic farmers say healthy soil is the non-negotiable foundation of organic methods, and for years they have objected to the inclusion of hydroponics in organic certification. In recent months, the discussion over organic hydroponics has become...

It’s easy to get lost in the idea of FICO Eataly World, dubbed by many in the media as the “Disney World of food.” The park, located 30 minutes east of Bologna, Italy and open to the public today, is less of a Disney World and more of a industrial showroom and souped-up mall food court with contrasting surprises. There’s a dairy plant and outdoor livestock stalls housing more than 200 cows, goats, and chickens. There’s a mini-plot of forest land that’s home to truffle dogs (aka some of the sweetest Labradors around) who show guests how they can sniff...

Swarms of drones buzz overhead, while robotic vehicles crawl across the landscape. Orbiting satellites snap high-resolution images of the scene far below. Not one human being can be seen in the pre-dawn glow spreading across the land. This isn’t some post-apocalyptic vision of the future à la The Terminator. This is a snapshot of the farm of the future. Every phase of the operation—from seed to harvest—may someday be automated, without the need to ever get one’s fingernails dirty. In fact, it’s science fiction already being engineered into reality. Today, robots empowered with artificial intelligence can zap weeds with preternatural...

As marijuana legalization continues across the country, weed is becoming increasingly mainstream. However, as much as the stoner stereotype has evolved into a broader label that also encompasses CEOs, educated millennials, and the Spicolis of the world, it still has a negative connotation. Industry leaders have quickly learned that destigmatizing marijuana use begins with educating the public, but Adrian Sedlin of Canndescent has figured out that, as with anything, it's really all about branding. Sedlin's luxury cannabis company offers premium flower alongside sophisticated packaging that no other company in the current market rivals. One look and I can almost guarantee...

ATHOL – The town is negotiating an agreement for marijuana growing at a sprawling mill that has been mostly vacant for decades, and it could bring 500 jobs to town. Town Manager Shaun A. Suhoski said recently he is working on the host community agreement after a vote of non-opposition by selectmen last month for a medical marijuana indoor cultivation facility at 134 Chestnut Hill Ave., the former Union Twist Drill Co. mill. The building is owned by Bill Purple, 93, president of the L.P. Athol Corp., which purchased the building in 1986. Mr. Purple has been redeveloping the 365,000-square-foot...

Agriculture is big business in Indiana. The US Census Bureau places the Hoosier State firmly in the top ten farming states with 11.2 billion dollars in annual sales. Farmers, faced with a labor shortage and declining profit, are quickly adopting robotic technology to ensure their family businesses stay afloat. These farms, like Superior Dairy in Garrett, are not your father’s farms. Not Your Father’s Farm Step onto the lot of Superior Dairy in Garrett, and the smell hits you right away. It’s not foul, not like a hog farm. Instead, it’s earthy, with notes of hay, mud and hints of...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- A company that uses fish waste to grow organic baby lettuce and arugula plans to create 21 new jobs in Northern Virginia. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's office announced Friday that Kappa Farms will invest $865,000 to open a new "aquaponics" operation in Loudoun County....

Albany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 10/06/2017 -- The global agriculture robots market features a widely diverse competitive landscape characterized by region-wise dominance of prominent players, notes Transparency Market Research (TMR). For instance, the agriculture robots market in North America was dominated Harvest Automation, Inc., Clearpath Robotics, and PrecisionHawk, Inc., in 2015, while in the same year, Naio Technologies and SenseFly SA led the Europe market. In addition, Shibuya Seiki was one of the leading players in the Asia Pacific market for agriculture robots in 2015. Furthermore, driven by abundant lucrative avenues, the market is witnessing a constant influx of emerging...

LONDON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- In what has been described Friday as a world first, a farm field in Britain has been planted and harvested completely by autonomous vehicles and drones without any farmhands in sight. The hands-free crop farming was delivered in joint project by Harper Adams University in Shropshire and Yorkshire-based Precision Decisions, in an initiative partly-funded by the government agency, Innovate UK. The renowned agricultural university and Precision Decisions announced Friday the successful completion of "Hands Free Hectare", a project to plant, tend and harvest a crop using only autonomous vehicles and drones. A spokesman for Innovate...

Northern Michigan University is offering students the chance to major in a new program called medicinal plant chemistry — marijuana analysis, basically. The program is the first of its kind at a four-year university in the U.S., according to CBS Detroit. Students will take classes in chemistry, plant biology and business entrepreneurship, and the program will also feature a capstone “research experience” involving “experimental horticulture and instrumental analysis of natural products.” As far as hands-on experience? “We’re not going to be actually growing anything on campus,” said Brandon Canfield, associate chemistry professor at Northern Michigan University, to CBS Detroit. “Maybe...

A recent survey of 50 Nobel Prize winners found the smartest among us believe that two of the biggest threats to humanity are climate change and President Trump — and we can’t rely on the latter to help us resolve the former. The President’s swift exit from the Paris accord, rollback of key components of the Clean Power Plan and persistent denial of climate change itself (not to mention his own hot temper) make this clear. People of conscience must tackle this issue ourselves, and one of the single best steps we can take to help fight climate change is...

Legalizing cannabis doesn't just create jobs involving cultivation of the plant; it also creates businesses that aid those cultivations, infused-product manufacturers and dispensaries. Ancillary businesses to the cannabis industry can be in anything from extraction technology to industry consulting, with many, many things in between. Ancillary businesses represent the largest and broadest sector of the cannabis industry, according to multiple industry reports, and many of the top companies are based in Colorado. Of the top 150 ancillary cannabis businesses on a recent list from Cannabis Business Executive, 41 are headquartered in Colorado. By comparison, California had 35 on the list,...

Shumaila Shah knows how to cook her husband's favorite dish the way one might say the Pledge of Allegiance. "Cook onions, tomatoes, garlic and ginger crushed together," she said, articulating something so familiar it didn't need words, English or Punjabi. "Salt, pepper, garam masala. Put meat in and add water to make a gravy. Cook until the meat is soft, not tough." How long? She thinks for a moment. "A half-hour; it depends on the meat," she said. "Then add the potatoes, because they take a shorter time to cook. We eat it with naan." The recipe for her aloo...

MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University has named two new varieties of tomatoes created by school researchers to commemorate the sesquicentennial of the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design. West Virginia ’17A and West Virginia ’17B were developed by Mahfuz Rahman and Mannon Gallegly, a professor who in 1963 created a new tomato for the centennial. From ore than 100 submissions, West Virginia 17A was called Mountaineer Pride and 17B was called Mountaineer Delight. “Though we initially considered the idea of releasing only one variety, it became apparent to me that both varieties were very good — each in...

HIXTON, Wis. (WKBT) - Nestled in the small town of Hixton, Wisconsin, sits a one-of-a-kind farm. Superior Fresh is the first of its kind indoor Atlantic Salmon farm in the country and it's one of the largest aquaponics facilities in the world. The facility combines aquaculture and hydroponics, where waste from fish will be used to supply nutrients for plants grown in water. The 720-acre-farm uses recirculating technologies that collect water and reuse it to grow plants. That water is collected from the aquaculture systems which carry 120,000 pounds of Atlantic salmon. Nutrient-rich water from the fish is then used...