Forest landowners voiced concerns about a lack of mills where they can sell their crop during the Florida Parishes Forestry Forum April 5.
The meeting came as landowners grapple with an overall downtown in the timber market — the effects of which have been compounded locally by the recent partial closure of the Georgia-Pacific paper mill north of Baton Rouge.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the 2017 Census of Agriculture final results today, Louisiana Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain, D.V.M., said.
The Census of Agriculture, taken every five years, is the only source of uniform, comprehensive and impartial agricultural data for every state and county/parish in the nation.
Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain, D.V.M., said the U.S. Department of Agriculture declared two parishes as primary natural disaster areas due to damage and losses caused by excessive rain and flooding that occurred from Sept. 1 to Dec. 12, 2018.
The primary parishes included under the designation are Lafayette and St. Martin.
Rick Zaunbrecher, far right, manager of the foundation seed program at the LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station, tells a group of Africans about the station’s grain storage facilities. Photo by Bruce Schultz/LSU AgCenter
The LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station hosted two agricultural groups on March 28.
The Rice Leadership Development Class made its annual tour of the station, and a group of 11 Africans also visited the facility.
Steve Linscombe, retired director of the AgCenter Rice Research Station, let the Rice Leadership class. This was the group’s first of several tours of rice-growing regions in the U.S.
Wheat producers may fare better than expected from the arctic blast that plunged temperatures into the mid- to upper 20s in early March and threatened the crop across Louisiana.
LSU AgCenter wheat specialist Boyd Padgett said the wheat crop may not have been hit as hard as anticipated in most areas.
“After speaking with others around the state, my gut feeling is we are in pretty good shape overall,” Padgett said.
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