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Continued from previous page the rainfall minimized its benefits to the state’s corn crop.

UGA offers a collection of budgeting tools for a variety of crops grown in Georgia at https://agecon.uga.edu/extension/budgets.html.

Adaptive Nutrient Management

In a discussion of plant tissue analyses and adaptive nutrient management in corn, Dr. Henry Sintim pointed out that corn is very sensitive to nutrient imbalances, and symptoms can show up in less than two days.

Sintim, an assistant professor and Extension soil fertility expert, emphasized that soil testing is critical for making decisions on applying nutrients to soil where corn is grown. For a calculator to determine needed nutrient management implementation, click here.

(https://Aesl.ces.uga.edu/calculators/ugfertex)

Spray drones

Dr. Simer Virk, a UGA Extension precision agriculture specialist, shared the university’s research into use of drone sprayers, including the scale of possible use, how to organize aerial passes to achieve full coverage, Federal Aviation Administration regulations and how air disturbs from propellers can be turned into an advantage.

“Spray drone is another application tool for crop protection,” Virk said. “They are not here to compete with or replace ground application equipment.”

Drones currently available have limited battery life and payload capabilities, making them better suited for spot spraying relatively small areas, including those at field edges where primary spray equipment cannot reach.

Corn Yield Contest winners

UGA Extension honored the winners of the 2022 Georgia Corn Yield Contest. The winners were:

Conventional irrigated: First place - Jonathan Hitchcock, Washington County (324.7 bushels per acre); second place – James Hitchcock, Washington County (318.2 bushels per acre).

Strip-till irrigated: First place – James Hitchcock, Washington County (322 bushels per acre); second place – Jonathan Hitchcock, Washington County (312 bushels per acre); third place – Ben Jackson, Johnson County (302 bushels per acre).

No-till irrigated: First place - Jonathan Hitchcock, Washington County (319 bushels per acre); Second place - Steven Wischmeier, Bleckley County, (306.5 bushels per acre); third place - Mark Ariail, Franklin County (244 bushels per acre).

Conventional non-irrigated: First place – Wallace Anderson, Gilmer County (273 bushels per acre).

Farmers Generally Hesitant To Dive Into Carbon Markets

There is a strong case that agricultural soil is a viable tool for storing, or sequestering, carbon. It can be done. On the question of whether doing so can be used to generate income through carbon markets, farmers aren’t yet sold.

A pair of Purdue University professors, Dr. Shalamar Armstrong and Dr. Nathanael Thompson, presented current information on field crops’ relationship with U.S. carbon markets during the 2023 UGA Corn Short Course, held Jan. 17 in Tifton.

Armstrong, an associate professor in the Purdue department of agronomy, reviewed how carbon sequestration works and offered research showing the potential carbon storage yield in the United States.

There are three general components in the short-term global carbon cycle: Pools, which have the capacity to store, accumulate or release carbon; sinks, which absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release, and sources, which are natural or artificial producers of carbon or carbon-based compounds.

Soils are one of the main pools, and in agricultural situations they can be sinks with certain production practices, primarily through reduced tillage and double-cropping, Armstrong said. Tillage disturbs the soil, prompting microbial organisms to metabolize carbon in the soil release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Reducing tillage leaves carbon in the soil.

Carbon is captured through photosynthesis, so increasing the time that plants are photosynthesizing increases the amount of carbon captured.

“If you’re growing corn and then you come back and you grow rye behind it, you’ve just moved from a single-cropping carbon system to a double-cropping carbon system,” Armstrong said. “Two different crops, two different plants, two different sets of roots in the ground, multiple periods of time, causes greater photosynthetic capture of carbon. Then the potential increase in soil organic carbon, the conversion from those plants into some semipermanent pool of carbon .... that generates what we call a carbon credit.”

Nationally, U.S. agriculture has the potential to store as much as 187 million tons of carbon.

It's the credits that can be bought and sold. A company can buy a carbon credit from the government, allowing that company to generate defined quantities of CO2 gasses. Or, the company can buy carbon offsets from other non-governmental entities. A farmer who is generating carbon credits can sell them as offsets to an entity looking to reduce its carbon footprint.

Thompson, an associate professor of agricultural economics at Purdue, said that farmers to this point have been slow to enter the carbon markets. He cited data from the Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer, a survey of 400 farmers about their sentiments regarding the farm economy. Thompson noted that the survey pool is generally representative of U.S. agriculture, and it shows that between February 2021 and August 2022, less than 9% of respondents had discussions with companies about receiving payments for capturing carbon. And less than 1.5% entered into contracts to sell their carbon as offsets.

“These markets are in their infancy,” Thompson said. “There are a lot of unknowns, a lot of details that need to be figured out.”

In large part, farmers have been slow to enter the carbon market because the money being -continued on next page

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Continued from previous page offered falls short of offsetting the cost of adopting carbon-capturing practices. Current prices, he said, range between $10 and $20 per metric ton (2,205 pounds). The cost to convert from conventional tillage to conservation tillage is about $40 per acre. Thompson said that if a farmer is capturing 0.5 metric tons per acre, that farmer would have to sell at a price of $80 per acre to cover the cost of conversion.

“It all relates to economics in terms of cost vs. benefits,” Thompson said. “There’s quite a bit of work left to be done on the price side.”

REVIEW YOUR BROADBAND OPTIONS; STATE GRANTS AWARDED

Rural homes are beginning to see expansion of internet services in their areas, however many are not as fast as homeowners would like or as accurate as what information is being shared. A variety of internet providers claim to service particular areas without ever offering actual data to support that claim.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released what it is calling a “draft broadband coverage map.” This map offers Georgia residents an opportunity to review their home address to see what broadband and cellular services are available to them, while also challenging the map should they see invalid information.

It is important to take action to ensure that your information is being counted correctly. Georgia Farm Bureau encourages each family to take a few moments to view the FCC map.

(https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov/home)

Once you have entered your address, it will show you the providers that service your area, if any. If the reported information is not correct, you can submit your information immediately for review, once you have challenged the information listed.

As policymakers continue to prioritize expansion of rural broadband, they need the most accurate information to do so and this map will allow them to see real time, accurate information from the homeowners themselves.

For more information or to check your broadband services, please review the map. It will be a great assistance to those working toward improving the state of Georgia's rural options.

Meanwhile, on Jan. 4 the state announced more than $234 million in 29 preliminary grant awards for broadband internet expansion through the Capital Projects Fund Grant Program. These awards will improve connectivity for communities, households, businesses, and anchor institutions in 28 Georgia counties. When combined with significant capital matches from the awardees, almost $455 million will be invested to serve over 76,000 locations in communities with some the greatest need for high-speed internet access.

The Capital Projects Fund Grant Program, created in August 20220, utilizes funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The Governor’s Office of Planning & Budget and the Georgia Technology Authority worked together to identify the most unserved and underserved counties in -continued on next page

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Continued from previous page the state and establish a competitive grant program.

The 29 awardees include 12 different internet service providers comprised of EMCs, large telecommunications companies, and local Georgia-based companies. The state will open a second round of the Capital Projects Fund Grant Program for the five eligible counties that did not receive an award this spring (Calhoun, Echols, Johnson, Miller, and Webster Counties).

To view the entire award list, click here. (https://gov.georgia.gov/sites/gov.georgia.gov/files/202301/Broadband_Awards_Jan._2023.jpg)

Usda Announces Additional Pandemic Assistance For Dairies

On Jan. 23, the USDA announced details of additional assistance for dairy producers, including a second round of payments through the Pandemic Market Volatility Assistance Program (PMVAP) and a new Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program (ODMAP). The update to PMVAP and the new ODMAP will enable USDA to better support small- and medium-sized dairy operations who weathered the pandemic and now face other challenges.

PMVAP assists producers who received a lower value due to market abnormalities caused by the pandemic and ensuing Federal policies. As a result of the production cap increase, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will make PMVAP payments to eligible dairy farmers for fluid milk sales between 5 million and 9 million pounds from July through December 2020. This level of production was not eligible for payment under the first round of the PMVAP.

Payment rates will be identical to the first round of payments, 80 percent of the revenue difference per month, on fluid milk sales from 5 million to 9 million pounds from July through December 2020. USDA will again distribute monies through agreements with independent handlers and cooperatives, with reimbursement to handlers for allowed administrative costs. USDA will contact handlers with eligible producers to notify them of the opportunity to participate.

As part of the first round, PMVAP paid eligible dairy farmers on up to 5 million pounds of fluid milk sales from July through December 2020. The first round of payments distributed more than $250 million in payments to more than 25,000 eligible dairy farmers. These dairy farmers received the full allowable reimbursement on fluid milk sales up to 5 million pounds.

More information about the PMVAP production cap increase is available at www.ams.usda.gov/pmvap

The new ODMAP, to be administered by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), is intended to help smaller organic dairy farms that have faced a unique set of challenges and higher costs over the past several years that have been compounded by the ongoing pandemic and drought conditions across the country.

Many small organic dairy operations are now struggling to stay in business and FSA plans to provide payments to cover a portion of their estimated marketing costs for 2023. Final spending will depend on enrollment and each producers projected production, but ODMAP has been

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Continued from previous page allocated up to $100 million.

The assistance provided by ODMAP will be provided through unused Commodity Credit Corporation funds remaining from earlier pandemic assistance programs. The assistance will help eligible organic dairy producers with up to 75% of their future projected marketing costs in 2023, based on national estimates of marketing costs. This assistance will be provided through a application process based on a national per hundredweight payment. The payments will be capped at the first five million pounds of anticipated production, in alignment with preexisting dairy programs that target assistance to those smaller dairies that are most vulnerable to marketing challenges. This program is still in development.

Information about the Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program will be available and updated at www.farmers.gov as more details are released in a Notice of Funds Availability later this year.

FARMS SUSTAIN DAMAGE FROM JAN. 12 TORNADOES

A series of Jan. 12 thunderstorms produced numerous tornadoes across the southern states, leaving at least nine people dead and a wide swath of damage to homes, businesses and property, including farms.

The National Weather Service confirmed a dozen tornadoes touched down in Georgia on Jan. 12, ravaging parts of Butts, Cobb, Henry, Jasper, McDuffie, Meriwether, Newton, Pike, Spalding and Warren counties

Multiple private farms and the UGA Griffin campus sustained damage to agricultural assets.

On Andy Garland’s family farm in southern Henry County, an 80-foot by 40-foot barn lost about half of its tin roofing, leaving equipment exposed. The barn is a converted poultry house that the family uses to store equipment, work inside and have family gatherings.

Garland said this was the third time this barn has lost roofing from strong winds since the family has farmed there.

“I’ve got tarps over my baler. All my tractors are in there,” Garland said. “It’s not just a building. There’s a lot of history in that building.”

In Meriwether County, cattleman Darrell McCoy lost a mile of fencing, had damage to his barn, had one steer killed and lost a stand of timber. McCoy, who owns Oak Hill Cattle, estimated his total damage at $750,000.

“It definitely could have been worse, because it could easily have moved probably 25 feet and it would have taken my entire house out,” McCoy said. “Or it could have went the other way and would have took our hay barn out that had just been finished this year.”

There were reports of pastured poultry operations in Newton County that were damaged by the storms.

At UGA Griffin, multiple greenhouses and other farm buildings were damaged, and the campus lost numerous large oak trees. Several campus buildings were damaged by falling trees, and the campus was closed for several days while cleanup work was being done.

Uga Study Reveals Difficulty In Seeking Help For Mental Health

Agribusiness is Georgia’s leading industry, but it takes a mighty toll on the mental health of the farmers driving it.

A new study from the University of Georgia, which was published in the Journal of Rural Mental Health, details the norms that make it hard for farmers to seek help when they’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed. The results will be used to develop support programs that are tailored to farmers’ needs.

Owning and managing a farm incurs unique stresses on the farmers’ well-being.

“Farmers are not only physically at risk, but they’re also financially at risk, and the stress associated with both of those things are hurting their mental health, overall. In general, there’s a lot out of their control,” said principal investigator Christina Proctor, clinical assistant professor at UGA’s College of Public Health.

Farmers work long hours performing labor-intensive, repetitive tasks. This work can be dangerous, and accidents can be life-threatening. Then there’s the financial burden farms take on at the start of their season to grow crops or raise livestock. If there’s a bad year or an unforeseen disaster, like a major storm that wipes out crops or an outbreak of avian flu, there’s little aid to help farmers recoup losses.

“Having to count on everything lining up for you is a highly stressful kind of work environment,” said Proctor.

To cope, some farmers turn to alcohol or other substances, and suicide rates are on the rise. Yet, farmers tend to be overlooked in conversations about mental health.

This paper, led by public health doctoral student Noah Hopkins, investigated the cultural factors and norms in rural farming communities that create unique barriers to care beyond the health care access concerns that have been plaguing rural areas across the U.S.

They conducted in-depth interviews with 15 full-time farmers living in 10 rural counties across Georgia and identified four main themes that may prevent farmers from accessing health care: 1) cultural norms in the farming community, 2) normative beliefs about health care in the farming community, 3) stigma around mental health in the farming community, and 4) formal health care concerns.

All the farmers reported feeling immense stress in their work, and many of them experienced anxiety and some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Yet, reaching out for help, even to a neighbor, is perceived as a sign of weakness.

“Masculinity was a massive influence on the farmers that we spoke to and their intentions to even have a conversation about mental health care with their peers. We’re a long way away from somebody sitting down and talking to a therapist or a psychiatrist or anything like that,” said Hopkins.

The participants had watched their parents and grandparents deal with stress over the course of their lifetime.

“And so that reinforces this belief that if you’re a farmer, well if you’re a man in general, you are supposed to just take it on the chin and carry on and weather the storm in the face of tremendous -continued on next page