By Sarah Fielder
U.S. Loses 8,000 Farms and a Million Acres of Farmland. A report released this week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that the number of farms in the country has fallen by 8,000 from 2015 to 2016 and total land in farms decreased by a million acres during that year. To read the full story click here: https://go.umd.edu/qp5
Food Safety Modernization Act (Produce Safety Rule) Training at UMES March 6, 2017. Register by March 1st online at https://go.umd.edu/qpq For more information contact Carol Reynolds at 410-841-5769 or Carol.Reynolds@maryland.gov.
Registration is Open for the Appalachia Grows: Small Farms Conference The Conference is on March 17-18, 2017 at the Allegany College of Maryland, Cumberland. Sessions will include technical information for growers, legal education and marketing tips. To see more information click here: http://www.appgrows.com/
Farmers Encouraged to Attend Trainings on Food Safety Modernization Act The Maryland Department of Agriculture, in partnership with the University of Maryland and University of Maryland Extension, is offering three trainings for food safety: 1) FDA-approved training curriculum for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Rule, 2) FDA approved training curriculum for FSMA Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule, and 3) Basic GAP training. For more information click this link: https://go.umd.edu/qia
Reminder Crop Insurance Deadline Approaching Crop insurance sales closing date and last day to make changes to existing policies for spring-planted crops is March 15. Coverage is available in Maryland for corn, cucumbers, forage seeding, fresh market sweet corn, fresh market tomatoes, grain sorghum, processing beans, processing sweet corn, processing tomatoes, soybeans, spring oats, and tobacco. You can find out more on how crop insurance can be used in your risk management plan, see http://go.umd.edu/CropIns. To find a crop insurance agent, see http://www.rma.usda.gov/tools/agent.html.