The USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) announced today that it has published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that would reward farmers participating in the federal crop insurance program for good performance....More

Slowly but surely no-till keeps creeping into more and more U.S. acres every year. It quietly grows at about 1.5% a year. Last month, USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) released new stats on that growth, in part to address no-till’s potential contribution to climate-change efforts. The adoption of less-intensive tillage practices, they claim, could sequester substantial amounts of carbon, which could lead to fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, the numbers look promising....More

Many businesses that deal in pesticides and fertilizers may be missing an opportunity to claim a tax credit, according to two tax specialists, Yair Holtzman and Adam Packer with WTP Advisors, writing in a recent issue of the BNA Daily Tax Report. ...More

University of Illinois (U of I) research has resulted in the development of a novel and widely applicable molecular tool that can serve as a road map for making plant breeding easier to understand. Researchers developed a unified nomenclature for male fertility restorer (RF) proteins in higher plants that can make rapid advancements in plant breeding....More

From huge planters to huge yields, winter weather to the farm bill, there were many topics covered on www.csdigest.com in the past year. In case you missed anything, here’s a list of our 10 most popular articles from 2010.   World’s Largest Planter: John Deere’s DB120...More

The U.S. doesn't have the infrastructure to meet the federal mandate for renewable fuel use with ethanol but could meet the standard with significant increases in cellulosic and next-generation biofuels, according to a Purdue University study....More