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Two USDA reports say U.S. agriculture and forest management will have to adapt to climate change and that some of those efforts are already underway. "It’s well documented that the climate is changing, that we are seeing changes in temperature and in changes in precipitation patterns, and that those changes are having implications for forests and for agriculture," says William Hohenstein, director of climate change program, USDA. "What these reports actually look at in more detail are the changes that we expect in changes in terms of extreme events. Changes in the probability of droughts, and floods and how that also will have implications for our resources."...More

A USDA economist says the persistent drought in the Midwest will lead to higher-than-normal food price inflation for the rest of the year. Ricky Volpe, USDA Economic Research Service, says, "It had substantial and devastating impacts on the major field crops of the American Midwest. The most important field crop there is field corn. Now, people don’t eat field corn directly, but it’s processed into animal feed and that’s a major input to the U.S. food supply chain so we’re seeing input costs rise for all the meat products and then all of these animal based products that consumers buy regularly. We’re looking at inflation on the order of about three to four percent for beef and veal, pork, poultry, eggs and even a little bit higher for dairy....More

Soil health is the main focus at Wenning Farms, in the rolling hills and tight clay soils of southeastern Indiana. The family operates more than 600 acres in a corn/soybean rotation....More