More than four out of every five U.S. soybean farmers reported using at least five different types of sustainable farming practices as part of a recent informal survey conducted by the soy checkoff.
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This demonstrates farmers’ willingness to meet end users’ demands for sustainably grown products an increasingly popular opportunity to increase U.S. soy sales.
Crop rotation was the most popular answer, with 93 percent of farmers reporting using it. Nutrient management and reduced tillage came next with 87 and 85 percent, respectively. Conservation and pest management also came in from more than 81 percent of the respondents.
The great sustainability record of U.S. soy also provides U.S. soybean farmers a competitive advantage as end users are increasingly developing a preference for purchasing U.S. soy.
Globally, food companies and other soy end users, such as Wal-Mart and Unilever, have committed to sustainability.
Their ingredients must be produced in a sustainable manner, and U.S. soybean farmers must be able to prove that their products qualify in order to maintain soy demand.
Once a nuisance for soybean farmers in the Southeast, kudzu bug populations appear to be declining in the U.S.
“We can’t positively say it’s due to their natural enemies, but kudzu bug populations are decreasing,†said Ian Knight, a graduate student in the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The decline began in 2014 and is believed by Knight and Michael Toews, UGA research entomologist, to have been brought on by two of the kudzu bug’s natural predators: a fungus and a wasp.
The fungus, Beauveria bassiana, affects insects of all types throughout the Southeast. However, the wasp, Paratelenomus saccharalis, was found in America after the kudzu bugs were discovered here, Toews said.
By laying its eggs inside the egg case of the kudzu bug, the wasp has stopped a large number of kudzu bugs from developing and producing a new generation, Knight said. ■