Other Ag News:
For Immediate Release
Contact: Laura Zaks
National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
press@sustainableagriculture.net
Release: Farmers and Advocates Converge in DC for NSAC Lobby DayWashington, DC, February 12, 2026 – Yesterday, nearly 150 farmers, ranchers, and food system advocates from Alaska to Florida, joined the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) in Washington, DC to press for action on federal agriculture and food policy. Participants held more than 150 meetings with members of Congress, congressional staff, and USDA, nearly doubling farmer participation from recent years and underscoring mounting frustration across farm country.
Farmers and ranchers representing a wide range of regions, production types, and farm sizes met with decision-makers to share firsthand accounts of how they’re leveraging federal programs to build thriving farm businesses and feed their communities.
“We came directly to Capitol Hill to educate lawmakers on issues important to our farm and the farms of our neighbors. We shared personal stories that highlight the impact recent and current investments in conservation and local food systems have made in our community and why continued support for these programs is needed” said Ed Dubrick of DuChick Ranch, LLC and the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, an NSAC member.
Participants emphasized the need for a farm bill that meets the moment by making long overdue, robust investments in farmers and their communities. They called on Congress and USDA to restore stability to and funding for federal food and agriculture programs that support conservation efforts, local food access, and the economic health of farmers and the communities they call home.
“Storytelling has the power to bridge divides, change minds, and inspire real progress. Today, we saw this power in action as 50+ farmers took precious time away from their farms and families to travel to DC and share how federal food and farm policies have hit home. These farmers aren’t just articulating hardships they’ve faced, they are offering Congress a roadmap for practical solutions and opportunities that would benefit all farms,” said Stef Funk, NSAC Grassroots Co-Director.
Earlier in the day, a letter signed by 500 farmers and ranchers from across the country, some of whom attend NSAC’s Lobby Day, was delivered to key members of Congress urging immediate action to address the ongoing financial crisis facing America’s farmers and ranchers. The letter outlined the severe challenges facing farmers, including high production costs, volatile markets, low prices, and overproduction, and warns that without meaningful congressional action, more farmers will be forced out of business, putting rural communities at risk.
NSAC has been a leader in agricultural policy for more than 35 years and has been instrumental in helping to develop some of our nation’s most successful agricultural programs for conserving natural resources, advancing the next generation of farmers, supporting agricultural research, and creating sustainable market connections.
NSAC is grateful to all of the farmers and advocates for taking time out of their busy lives to join Lobby Day, as well as the Senators, Representatives, USDA officials, and staff members.
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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities.
Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net
The post Release: Farmers and Advocates Converge in DC for NSAC Lobby Day appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
Washington, DC, February 11, 2026 – Today, a letter signed by 500 farmers and ranchers from across the country was delivered to key members of Congress urging immediate action to address the ongoing farm crisis.
The letter outlines the severe challenges facing farmers, including high production costs, volatile markets, low prices, and overproduction. Signatories warn that without meaningful congressional action, more farmers will be forced out of business, putting rural communities at risk.
“Farmers want an honest opportunity to build their business while supporting their community. Congress can provide that opportunity by making urgently needed farm assistance investments that build reliable domestic markets and local supply chains for wholesome food, and expanding access to conservation practices that help farmers reduce persistently high input costs. As these investments take root, financial assistance should be designed to stave off foreclosures and reflect a farmers’ expected revenue,” said Mike Lavender, Policy Director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
In the letter, farmers call on Congress to deliver comprehensive farm and ranch assistance that keeps producers on the land, strengthens domestic markets and local supply chains, expands access to conservation practices that reduce costly inputs, and prevents another wave of farm foreclosures. The letter emphasizes that short-term relief alone is insufficient and urges investments that support long-term viability and resilience.
Read the full letter here.
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About the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC)
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition is a grassroots alliance that advocates for federal policy reform supporting the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities.
Learn more and get involved at: https://sustainableagriculture.net
The post Release: 500 Farmers Urge Congress to Act Amid Growing Farm Crisis appeared first on National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
(Washington, D.C., February 3, 2026) – On January 31st, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of State welcomed a new commitment between the United States and Mexico that strengthens implementation of the 1944 Water Treaty, providing greater certainty for farmers, ranchers, and producers in South Texas who rely on consistent water deliveries from the Rio Grande.
Do you want to take your farm business to the next level? Enroll now in this season’s final offering of online courses from the Cornell Small Farms Program to invest in the long-term success of your operation. Learn to expand your scope of production with courses covering season extension with high tunnels, integration of uncommon fruits, and an introduction to orchard management. Prepare and protect yourself for anything that comes your way by learning to write a comprehensive business plan, navigate financial risks, and market your products online to grow your customer base.
By investing in your continued education, you are investing in the long-term success of your farm. Live webinars for this final block of courses will begin in late February.
Our online courses are designed to be flexible and user-friendly. All course materials are stored on our single, easy-to-use web platform, which you can access for life after enrolling in a course. Tune in to weekly webinars to hear from experts and ask questions in real time, and complete all other course reading and assignments when it works for you. We also offer tiered pricing based on household size and income in our effort to make courses affordable, accessible, and equitable for all.
Registration is open now for all courses. Explore the full array of course offerings on our website and secure your spot for live webinars, which begin the week of February 23.
BF 103: Taking Care of Business
Mondays: February 23 – March 30 at 7 p.m.
This course helps early stage farmers assess and manage a variety of risks that they will face. Throughout the six weeks of the course, we will discuss topics essential for operating a viable farm business, including insurance coverage, business structures and tax information.
Tuesdays: February 24 – March 31 at 6:30 p.m.
The health and productivity of the soil forms the basis for any farm’s success, profitability, and ecological sustainability. Successful farmers need to develop a holistic approach to preserving and building soil health and fertility. Stewardship of the soil is arguably the most important job of any farmer or gardener.
BF 123: Growing Uncommon Fruit
Tuesdays: February 24 – March 31 at 6:30 p.m.
Do you want to learn more about lesser-known fruit? This course will help you determine whether incorporating uncommon fruit into your operation is the right decision for you. We’ll walk you through all aspects of this decision, from possible fruits and appropriate site selection to marketing and profit potential, plus the advantages to including woody perennials into your farm plan. Many of these fruits can be successful in a forest farming setting, so are attractive to people with an interest in agroforestry. Expand your understanding of these promising crops and how they could improve your farm’s ecosystem while possibly also supporting your bottom line. Note: This course is designed as a companion to the BF 122: Berry Production course, but you do NOT have to take BF 122 before taking BF 123.
BF 202: Writing a Business Plan
Mondays: February 23 – March 30 at 6 p.m.
Whether you intend to borrow money or not, heading into a farm venture without a business plan is like setting out on a long-distance journey without a map. Arm yourself with a business plan and you will have a guide to aid your farm decision-making and demonstrate to yourself and your family that your ideas are feasible. This steady-paced course is designed to help you build your plan, including developing financial statements.
BF 205: Social Media & Online Marketing
Thursdays: February 26 – April 2 at 7 p.m.
Are webpages still useful? Does Facebook drive sales in real life? What do hashtags do? What kinds of photos do customers respond to? What are good strategies for low-cost online sales/marketing? What is Square and should I be using it? If you’ve been struggling with questions like these for your farm, this course is a great starting place for you. Taught by farmers and other ag professionals, you’ll get real-life, practical ideas and explanations to help you build a successful online presence, grow your customer base, and sell more product.
BF 220: Season Extension with High Tunnels
Wednesdays: February 25 – April 1 at 7 p.m.
Adding weeks to either end of your growing season can mean attaining a premium for having products available well before (or long after) other local growers. But the structures that make this possible–unheated plastic-covered “high tunnels” or “hoop houses”–can cost a lot of money, and they bring special management considerations that need to be understood in order to be profitable for year-round production.
BF 223: Introduction to Tree Fruit Production
Thursdays: February 26 – April 2 and Mondays: March 16 – March 23, all at 6:30 p.m.
Tree fruit are an important component of the agricultural and homeowner landscape. Planting and management of apple and other tree fruit orchards is a rewarding hobby and business, but you cannot simply plant trees and expect good fruit. There’s a lot that goes into successful orcharding! This course trains beginning tree fruit growers in fundamental concepts in orchard planning and management. Content will include site selection and management, rootstock and cultivar selection, orchard systems, pest management, nutrient management, and harvest considerations for commercial orchards tailored to the northeast region of the U.S.
Tuesdays: February 24 – March 31 at 6:30 p.m.
Grazing is more than simply turning livestock out onto a green pasture and hoping for the best. Sound grazing management is an economical farming practice that helps you reduce your workload, keep your animals happier and healthier, and improve the overall productivity and profitability of your farm. Well-managed grazing systems also provide greater environmental benefits and enhance habitat for many wildlife species. In this course, you’ll learn the key concepts of successful grazing operations that can be adapted and successfully implemented on your own farm. The course focus will be on grazing ruminant livestock, but most of the information will be relevant to non-ruminant animals as well.
In our ongoing commitment to equitable access to education, we have maintained tiered pricing for our courses based on household size and income. We also offer scholarships for eligible farmers in New York who face an entry barrier to farming, and for military veterans in New York State.
You can browse all of our course offerings on our website. You can learn more about our courses, including answers to common questions, on our course FAQ.
The post Grow Your Farm Dreams with Our Online Courses appeared first on Cornell Small Farms.
(Washington, D.C., January 30, 2026) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging farmers, ranchers, families, and small businesses across the Southeast, southern Virginia, and potentially parts of the mid‑Atlantic and New England to prepare for a rapidly intensifying winter storm expected to develop into a bomb cyclone this weekend. USDA staff in regional, state, and county offices are ready to assist communities before, during, and after the storm.
WASHINGTON, January 28, 2026 — Super Bowl parties often feature takeout, delivery and foods that are served over several hours. To help prevent foodborne illness, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is reminding fans to keep food safety in play on game day.
(Washington, D.C., January 27, 2026) - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins issued the following statement applauding President Donald J. Trump’s support for the nationwide year-round sale of E-15:
(Washington, D.C., January 27, 2026) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service finalized revisions to its regulation governing federal oil and gas resources on National Forest System lands. The revision modernizes and streamlines the process for managing energy development across millions of acres.
On a wintry January day, while the trees and landscape lay dormant, one meeting space on Cornell University’s campus in Ithaca, NY, was alive with vibrant activity. More than 100 committed and passionate advocates for “trees on farms on purpose” gathered on campus for a first of its kind agroforestry summit. The Cornell Small Farms Program hosted “Beyond the Forest: Seeing the Farm for the Trees” to strengthen connections among the producers, service providers, researchers, and educators engaged in agroforestry in the Northeastern US.
The purpose of the day was not only to bring people together, but also to identify the highest priority actions to grow implementation of agroforestry practices. Cornell faculty and staff, faculty from UNH, UVM, and SUNY ESF, state and federal agency technical service providers, non-profit leaders, county and regional Cornell Cooperative Extension and Harvest NY staff, and dozens of producers attended this gathering to learn and engage in passionate conversation about strategies for advancing this movement.
More than 100 committed and passionate advocates for “trees on farms on purpose” gathered for a first of its kind agroforestry summit, hosted by the Cornell Small Farms Program in January 2026.
Kacey Deamer / Cornell Small Farms Program
Agroforestry can look like many different things: thinning forests to graze cattle in dappled shade, planting rows of annual crops between rows of woody perennials, cultivating mushrooms on logs in the woods, and planting multi-storied food forests in urban areas are just a few examples of agroforestry in practice. At the summit participants heard inspiration from three producers describing how they integrate working trees on their farms. Kathie Arnold of Twin Oaks Dairy shared how she is adding trees to pastures to offer shade to her cows during the summer. Garrett Miller of Finger Lakes Cider House discussed planting thousands of black locust trees for shade for a large herd of beef cattle, but also for future timber harvest. And Sara Tyler of Black Squirrel Farms shared how she’s helping landowners find value in mature black walnut trees by building a collection network, a processing facility, and value chains as outlets for nuts and oil.
All three expressed the challenges they encountered in growing their businesses, including a lack of trained technical service providers, a lack of temperate research data to guide decisions and a lack of “perfect fit” with existing economic development and grant programs that make it challenging to take risks and move forward with growing these agroforestry practices.
Participants also heard about Cornell’s 100 years of engagement with agroforestry, which began with Professor MacDaniels’ planting of grafted nut trees in what is now known as MacDaniels’ Nut Grove near Dilmun Hill Student Farm, and continued with the establishment of the Arnot Teaching and Research Forest and Cornell’s Maple Program. Over the decades, agroforestry activity has waxed and waned, and in the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest from farmers driving new projects and research. Check out the Cornell Agroforestry Timeline at cornellagroforestry.org for a more detailed look at the history.
Mike Gold, faculty from University of Missouri, gave the keynote speech. Mike has been involved since the early years of Mizzou’s Center for Agroforestry, and he shared the diverse collaborations the Center has built and the wide-ranging impacts its work has had on the producers and the landscape of Missouri. He offered a very optimistic long-range assessment for the growth of agroforestry in the US as well as some strategic recommendations to build markets, spur peer-to-peer learning, and make research breakthroughs to catalyze growth in the industry.
The Cornell Small Farms Program will be synthesizing all of the notes from the Summit discussions into a report.
Kacey Deamer / Cornell Small Farms Program
During the afternoon portion of the Summit, participants divided into groups of 8-10 to examine a list of known gaps and debate the most important steps to take in the next five years to reduce these gaps. It has taken a century of inspiration, hard work and leadership from Cornell extension and researchers for this summit to happen and be meaningful. The human connections that were forged and the priorities that were debated will have a meaningful impact on how agroforestry dovetails with Cornell’s initiatives in the next 100 years. The participants created a consensus path forward, and it is now up to the Cornell community to navigate us there.
We have launched a new agroforestry-focused quarterly newsletter called Give Trees a Chance, where we will keep subscribers updated on events, funding opportunities, new research, and other relevant announcements for fans of working trees on farms. The Cornell Small Farms Program is building out new agroforestry resources on our website, and we co-lead two working groups on campus that meet regularly to learn together and strategize: the Agroforestry Program Work Team (PWT) and the Silvopasture Program Work Team. If you’d like to join either, please reach out to Connor Youngerman (Agroforestry), czy2@cornell.edu, or Erica Frenay (Silvopasture), ejf5@cornell.edu.
The post Small Farms Program Hosts Agroforestry Summit to “See the Farm for the Trees” appeared first on Cornell Small Farms.
(Washington, D.C., January 23, 2026) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture is encouraging farmers, ranchers, families, and small businesses in the path of Winter Storm Fern to prepare for severe winter weather and be aware of available USDA assistance. USDA staff in regional, state, and county offices are ready to help communities respond and recover.
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