What’s the most effective way to communicate with your farmworkers? Is it early morning meetings? Flyers posted in a break room? Videos that take valuable work time out of the day? Have you considered texting? Building a food safety culture requires repeated reminders about farm policies and procedu...

Fire blight’s causal agent, the bacterium Erwinia amylora , has shown resistance to the antibiotic streptomycin, which is one of three antibiotics utilized to control this destructive pathogen. While most commonly known as a pest of apple trees, fire blight also effects pears and other plants in the...

Per a very educational poster presentation at the last Great Lakes Expo , grape berry moth (GBM) remains a major pest management challenge for grape growers across eastern North America, causing economic losses and driving many of the insecticide applications in the region’s vineyards. There is an u...

I believe that the early researchers, Extension and industry personnel and growers involved with plastics were visionaries, though they didn’t really comprehend at that time that they created “The Agricultural Plastic Revolution” or the tremendous impact that plastics would have on agriculture – par...

Perhaps you have been invited to market your product through a specifically orientated program or a socially responsible product aggregator. Now you must decide if this marketing opportunity will align with your mission and vision statements and the goals you have set for the future of your business...

In a decade-long look, from 2007 to 2017, researchers at Penn State found more and more farmers are participating in agritourism – but overall, fewer than 1.5% of farmers are involvedin the enterprise today. Claudia Schmidt, assistant professor of agricultural economics at Penn State, spoke about ag...

After several career changes, Christine and Seth Terramane started farming together about 10 years ago. Prior to working together, Seth realized that his educational degrees weren’t sparking joy and he found a seasonal farm job. Christine had already started farming through a community farm. “We had...

If you’re going to farm lavender, what is your end goal? This was the central question Wendy Jochems, co-owner of Hope Hill Lavender Farm in Pottsville, PA, posed during her presentation, “Adding Lavender to your Farm.” Jochems, alongside Michele Capron from Lavender Essentials in Derby, VT, spoke o...

In 2019, the Pennsylvania Agricultural Business Development Center (ABDC) was created by the commonwealth’s legislature. The ABDC’s goal is to safeguard the long-term vitality of Pennsylvania farms by focusing on providing support for sound business planning, efficient transitions of farm ownership,...