Here are 6 tips to help get your farm or ranch ready for the cold. 

The fall/spring equinox is almost here and for those of us in the Northern hemisphere that signals that winter will be here soon. Winter brings a lot of challenges for you and your herd. Here are 7 ways to get ready for old man winter.

1.) Test feed supply for adequate protein and nutrients. 
The energy needs of your herd change during the winter. They grow a long coat, store fat as well as their mothering needs. Make sure they have adequate feed and salt is vital to their health this winter.

2.) Bedding or rotation 
If you're keeping your cattle confined this winter it's time to stock up on bedding but you can also do a daily pasture rotation. This gives them a new place to bed down each day away from the mud, manure and ice. Plan your winter grazing map now.

3.) Check your shelters 
Staying dry is key to staying warm. Create shelters from the wind and cold. The more your herd shivers the more calories they burn. The more stress they feel the less they will thrive. Now is a great time to look into this on your pastures.

4.) Water access 
Your herd will need extra water for the coat their growing, the extra feed they're digesting and healthy rumen activity. Often they won't want to leave their shelter to get a drink. So, it's vital that you make this easy for them during the winter.

5.) Get yourself ready to be out in the cold
Winter brings a time of frozen buckets, cold, slippery and wet conditions. Get your equipment and ranch prepared for what you will need before you need it.   

6.) Check in on your herd now 
Make sure your herd goes into the winter with a healthy BCS. Look for optimal body scores of 5-6. 

7.) Stock up on feed.
Feed requirements go up 10%-15% in the winter. Be prepared to feed your herd the nutrients to keep up their energy and keep them healthy this winter.

Winter can be a tough time. Good preparation will make your winter a little easier this year. What else do you think is vital during this time?

The U.S. is coming out of a multi-decade prohibition of hemp and cannabis and it has the agricultural industry jumping. A new hemp based product appears almost daily on U.S shelves. It has the many asking, what can't we use hemp for? Hemp is being used all over the globe for human consumption, for our pets, but, what about our livestock? The answer is debated but many are finding that hemp is absolutely safe, and as well as beneficial, to both people, their pets and livestock.

Hemp's reintroduction into the industrial market has moved it from nowhere to be found to cash crop status in the U.S. in a very short time. Starting in 2014 and increasing at the end of 2017 after it regained it's federally legal status in the U.S. Not only do you see hemp growing in demand for it's pharmaceutical properties, such as CBD oil, but it has another 50,000 (and growing) uses. Just a few to name a few top sellers are fiber, bio-fuel, textiles, and food - for humans that is. With all these uses it has many people asking what can't this plant do, and with good reason.

Those people are finding new uses for hemp everyday, from clothing, structural building materials, protein powder, to pain, anxiety and muscle spasticity relief for both humans and their pets. But strange as it sounds with so much use for humans and our pets, as of today it is still not approved in the U.S. as an ingredient for use in livestock or animal feed. As of April 2019, no hemp or hemp products have been approved or defined through available regulatory processes for use in animal feed or pet food. Therefore, hemp and hemp products may not be lawfully used in animal feed or pet food at this time within the United States. New studies in the industry are starting to be conducted in the area. Such as the one started in 2017 in Colorado. This ongoing study should help us see the positive and negative long term effects of using hemp in livestock feed. 

What's holding us back?
The hold up is THC. The Food and Drug administration views hemp as an altering substance. THC is the psychoactive compound found in hemp. Although it already starts with a very low THC content, .3% or lower as apposed to Cannabis - which is about .5% or higher, the question is how much THC will be transferred into the livestock as they ingest it? At this point there haven't been enough tests to say for sure what the effect would is - good or bad. But there are many individuals who already use hemp in their livestock feed and would like to see it become more widely used so they can also sell it as feed. In other countries they claim adding hemp to their livestock feed has greatly benefited the milk production, digestion/weight gains and final flavor.

Let's take a more in depth look at the hemp by-product that would be fed to the animals. Hemp grain is the raw materials chopped up and used to extract the seeds and oil, hemp seed meal or hemp seed cake is the by-product of cold pressing the hemp seeds to extract oil. Although the oil is taken out the product what remains still retains a very high amount of omega-3, omega-6 fatty acids, protein, fiber and other beneficial amino acids. This is ideal for animal feed, and at this point, just thrown away as a waste product. There has even been one study done on hemp seed cake and the effect of lowering methane emissions in cattle. You read that right. Could we even reduce the carbon footprint of cattle by feeding them hemp? 

​So far we are seeing the benefits of hemp feed cattle in places like Canada, Denmark and Holland where they have been using hemp oil products for years in their livestock feed with reportedly better health of their cattle and higher milk yields. Which makes many say, why are we waiting so long?

Looking forward, there could be many hemp ingredients like hemp protein seed or oil in our livestock feed, specifically for cattle, swine, poultry and fish. This could be especially beneficial in industries like aquaculture, since fish obtain all their omega-3 fatty acids from their food - usually seaweed. Interestingly, in a study done by NCSU Prestage Department of Poultry Science, chickens which were fed hemp seed cake saw chickens with greater weight than those fed other forms of feed. An important detail of this study was that the researchers found no residual traceable THC levels. This can only lead us to ask more questions about the benefits of hemp to both livestock and humans. 

I expect we'll keep seeing a rise in products made with hemp, as well as studies done on it's effects in the coming years. It's exciting to see where hemp will go as it shows itself to be a very versatile industrial crop. 

All the doom and gloom reporting on farming is disheartening. An increasing population, hunger, food waste, crop failures, farmers getting out of farming. Feeding 9(+) billion people in the coming years seems like a daunting task but from the farmers I know and meet through Farmbrite, I believe we're up to the task. 

Instead of getting discouraged by these numbers we should work to be better producers, growers, ranchers and farmers. We have 30 harvests before 2050 and we need to get smarter about our farming practices. My grandfather repeated the old adage to me many times, "work smarter." He was a successful, hardworking businessman and farmer. If we value this kind of thinking we can succeed in any business, farming not excluded. 
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​In an effort to feed this growing world population, small farms get overlooked because they are not producing as much and don't make as much. I think they are an undervalued player in our food resources. These farms feed themselves, their employees, as well as producing for others. The unreported amount of food doesn't get calculated in the amount produced and their hard work is often discounted.

On the other hand, large farms are the powerhouses of farming. They are organized, mechanized, and have coherent processes helping them run a streamlined agricultural business. But those streamlined processes sometimes come at a high cost to natural resources. 

Let's not let this get personal. Why does it have to be one or the other is better? To bring about change we have to take the emotion out of it and work together. Here are some interesting statistics about both large and small scale farming.

Some global farm statistics:

+ One acre of land can grow a variety of crops, including 50,000 pounds of strawberries or 2,784 pounds (46.4 bushels) of wheat-depending on the climate. (We can grow a lot of food on a small amount of land.)

+ The amount of feed (grain, forage, etc.) a dairy cow needs to eat to produce 100 pounds of milk has decreased by more than 40% on average in the last 40 years. (We're getting more efficient.)

+ A staggering 40% of all food grown in the U.S. is never eaten. (We could be much more efficient and reduce waste.)

+ The USDA counted 2.1 million farms in the 2012 census, more than half of which reported farm commodity sales of less than $10,000. (Small farms are out there working hard and could use some help.) 

+ In 2017 according to the USDA, there were over 321,000 young farmers (under the age of 35) in the U.S. up from 2012, when there were 208,000. (More people are interested in getting into agriculture.)

​+ The average farm in China and India is about 3 acres. (Small farms can be efficient and feed many people.) 

+ Large farms in the EU produce 71% of their agricultural ​output, but account for just 6.3% of total farms.
(UK large farms are producing very well.) 

+ Large industrial farms in the U.S. with over $1 million in sales account for 4% of all farms but 66% of sales. 
(US large farms are producing very well.) 

+ Since 1994 the number of farmer markets in the US has grown to 8,720 and increase of 7+% from 2013. (People like supporting their local farmer-large or small.)

It's been said that small farms are less efficient, have a hard time finding land, are failing like many small businesses do in the first 5 years and aren't really "farms" at all because they don't support themselves from farming. Large farms make a bigger splash in the capitalistic pond and so get more press. They also are able to buy better/newer machinery/resources, are sometimes subsidized and often have been farming longer which often means they have efficient processes and possibly inherited the land and don't have to find/buy/or lease land. But don't count out the small farm. Small farmers are on the rise, willing to share their information with others and are often times working for that dream while holding a second job-off farm. 

Down doesn't mean out. 
All this means is small farms need more efficiency in their farming practices. Using more mechanized planting (using DIY options), vertical farming, cover crops, no-till farming practices, better storage, pest and weed control, more efficient tools for planting, weeding and harvesting, and all and all better processes. YouTube is filled with videos helping small producers grow smarter and be more efficient with growing practices. If we spread ideas across 

Another win for the small farmer is that they tend to grow diversified crops instead of one mono-crop on their land and use crop rotation which builds the soil and keeps carbon in the soil keeping the planet cooler.  

Both- and thinking.
Large family farms have more resources, possibly subsidies, better machinery, and own the land which helps them keep their heads above water -even when it's flooding. But it means they often use practices that are harsh on the environment or wasteful; large quantities of pesticides, large scale tilling and leaving food waste at harvest. They also may not be growing food for food-they are growing food for biofuel, animal feed and processed food. It also means they are good at growing a lot of food. Which we're going to need if we're going to feed all these people. We just need to be smarter about how we go about it. But large farms need our help just as much as the small farm. Their costs are high and their risk is greater. They need to support themselves and their families just like we do.  

So, there seems to be a market for both types of farm. The use of crop diversity and smart growing practices is better for our health and the environment but we need the larger producers to continue to grow some types of crops in large quantities.

How about a truce? We can work to find ways to support the small farm grow and be successful and help the large farm have better growing practices.

One tool is our support. Even as farmers we sometimes need to buy food we're not growing. As consumers, when you shop, buy food from local small farms and support the large farms that are working toward sustainable practices in the grocery stores. Do your research and know who you're buying from.

Another way is as farmers we can spread the word about our own practices and what works and what doesn't. We can also be better farmers by using tools and growing practices that are shown to be more efficient.

Lastly, we can think outside of the box and try new things; start a local growing co-op. You're produce and your neighbors produce can be sold together. Let's get innovative; I'm not talking about expensive gadgets but things like vertical farming, aquaponics, aeroponics and more innovative ways of growing food. 

The solution is in the how we work smarter together.
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