Agriculture

USDA--NRCS offers voluntary conservation programs to help Caribbean area farmers and landowners secure cleaner water and air, healthier soil and enhanced wildlife habitat while maintaining a vibrant agricultural business.

Importation of food not only leaves the territory susceptible to shortages, but it impacts freshness and nutritional value and increases transportation costs and pollution.

The planned Oct. 16 distribution of USDA commodities on St. Croix has been postponed to 7 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 30, at the St. Croix Educational Complex High School.

I was informed that there are discussions among some legislators who are thinking about exchanging prime government agricultural farmlands with other lands to allow a development to move forward. Act 6836 forbids the use of prime government agricultural lands for non-agricultural uses.

"The increased salaries for these and other positions will greatly assist the agency in meeting its staffing goals and improving the quality of life for the affected employees.”

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program is a voluntary conservation program that provides financial and technical assistance to farmers and ranchers to help install and implement conservation practices on eligible agricultural land.

The Racial Justice and Equity Conservation Cooperative Agreements are available to entities and individuals for two-year projects that expand the delivery of conservation assistance to beginning, limited resource, socially disadvantaged and veteran farmers.

St. Croix filmmaker Ramon Richardson recently released a documentary about the importance of agriculture on his home island.

The panel discussion, "Creating Resilient Food Systems in the Caribbean," will be held at 3 p.m., Monday, July 19.

Chair of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research Stacey Plaskett delivered the following statement at Monday's hearing titled “Supply Chain Recovery and Resiliency: Small Producers and Local Agricultural Markets.”

Do not confine or tie animals during the storm because they can get trapped, injured or killed in the event of building collapse or flooding.

Under this declaration, the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan program is available to eligible farm-related and nonfarm-related entities that suffered financial losses as a direct result of this disaster.

Drought conditions limit people’s ability to refill cisterns and ponds, and, although convenient, buying water is often an expensive proposition for families and farmers.

This designation qualifies the territory for the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) through the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA), which offers payments to eligible livestock producers and grazed forage crop acreage.

Once repairs are completed, the abattoir will update the community on the reopening date, and the St. Croix Abattoir will resume normal operations.

The tropical bont tick, also called Amblyomma variegatum, feeds on horses, cattle, sheep and goats and has the potential to transmit fatal disease to these animals.

It is critical that the taskforce receive input from the public, especially those engaged in the agriculture industry.

The bill expands participation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School Grant Program to preschools, after-school programs and summer food service sites, and increases annual mandatory funding.

Students in grades 7 – 12 are eligible to apply by visiting the University of the Virgin Islands website. There are no registration fees.

The survey is a periodic survey conducted throughout the U.S. that aims to understand how many private forest landowners there are and why they own forested or wooded land.