It seems simple enough. What is a farm? The U.S. Agriculture Department defines it as “any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the year.” “Very large farms” are defined as having gross sales of more than $500,000.  more »

Texas Tech continues its pursuit of Association of American University (AAU)-like research university status with the strategic hiring of a respected forage researcher. The newly added faculty member is Charles “Chuck” West, who will serve as the Thornton Distinguished Professor of Forages with the university’s Department of Plant and Soil Science.  more »

A multi-disciplinary team of agricultural scientists from Texas Tech has been awarded a $480,000 grant to study Lubbock area soil microbial communities, looking for key indicators of soil carbon transformations when Conservation Reserve Program land is converted to cropland. The five-year project is being funded under the USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.  more »

Texas Tech’s Cotton Economics Research Institute unveiled a new online database today (Oct. 31) that compiles, organizes and presents information on domestic subsidies and trade restrictions on key agricultural product-producing countries around the world.  more »

A group of Texas Tech researchers is part of a larger compilation of institutions receiving a grant to help beginning farmers and ranchers market their products and businesses. Erica Irlbeck, an assistant professor of agricultural communications in the Department of Agricultural Education and Communications, has secured the $600,000 grant from USDA as part of its Beginning Farmer and Rancher Initiative.  more »

A Texas Panhandle-High Plains conservation project has been awarded a federal grant from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The Texas High Plains Initiative for Strategic and Innovative Irrigation Management and Conservation (the Initiative) will receive a $499,848 Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) to show farmers how to save irrigation water and extend the economic viability of their operations.  more »

A Texas Tech graduate student received a $5,000 grant from the Texas Water Resources Institute, which will help fund the first year of her research investigating irrigation on the Texas High Plains. Cora Lea Emerson, doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant and Soil Science, will investigate possible solutions to the decline in available water resources.  more »