20 Strategies That Farmers Can Use in 2020
Which areas of your farm could use a boost?
by Successful Farming StaffDES MOINES, Iowa -- For a lot of reasons, the 2019 U.S. crop season will go down in history. It’s a year that very few will forget. After a challenging planting season, slow growth, inclement crop development weather, and a near record-slow harvest, many farmers are looking forward to putting 2019 behind them and focusing on 2020.
Successful Farming magazine is helping farmers move on.
To do so, here are 20 strategies that you can consider implementing into your operation in 2020.
Though you may not need help forgetting 2019, the experts in the following list of stories want to help you be successful in 2020 and beyond.
1. 8 Ways To Communicate Successfully
The struggling farm economy means that farm transfers from one generation to the next may be happening in a sped-up process, instead of over several years.
Full story here.
2. 5 Reasons to implement a Strip-Till System
If you’re wondering how to get started improving your soil health but aren’t ready to dive into no-till farming yet, consider implementing a strip-tillage system as a sound first step.
Full story here.
3. Affordable Conservation Practices
In 2020, turn your attention to affordable edge-of-field conservation practices like saturated buffers, which can remove 41% to 98% of the nitrate concentration leaving your farm.
Full story here.
4. What to do if ASF Hits U.S. in 2020
This is only a test, but 14 states are pretending that it (African Swine Fever) is already here.
Full story here.
5. Diversifying With Cattle
One way to improve your chance to remain in the business is to diversify the operation with livestock.
Full story here.
6. Alternative Financing: 5 Steps To Becoming a Qualified Candidate for a Farm Loan
If you are experiencing tough financial times, need an alternative for loan assistance, and have been turned away by your regular banker, know that there’s help out there in 2020.
Full story here.
7. Connect With Consumers Using Digital Technology
Yield, of course, remains key to profitable crop production. Then again, quality is also gaining in importance.
Full story here.
8. Be Better Informed In Season
Even before a seed goes in the ground, you make hundreds of calculated decisions.
Full story here.
9. 5 Reasons to Get Involved in Local and State Organizations
The start of the new decade will be a year of fighting to make your voice heard.
Full story here.
10. Stop Thinking About It, Get A Grain Marketing Plan
Full story here.
11. Research Shows That Cover Crops Pay
The decision to plant cover crops in the quest for improved soil health is not an easy one.
Full story here.
12. More Farmland On The Market
If you’re in the mood to buy farmland, you’re likely to see more of it available this winter.
Full story here.
13. Make The Most of Technology When Margins Are Slim
It can be difficult to justify the cost of technology when commodity prices are low. However, experts say it’s actually the best time to invest.
Full story here.
14. Cut a Pass Across the Field
Eliminating a tillage pass this year saves more than fuel (which can cut fuel costs $2 to $7 an acre).
Full story here.
15. How to Manage Prevent-Plant Weeds
So, what separated 2019 from other years when it came to weed management? Prevent-plant acres.
Full story here.
16. Seed Prices Remain Flat for 2020
In a year of bad news followed by more bad news, there’s one bright spot: For the most part, seed companies are keeping prices constant for 2020.
Full story here.
17. How to Wrestle 2020 Corn Diseases
Corn farmers wrestled with old and new corn diseases in 2019 that likely will present again in 2020.
Full story here.
18. The Sandwich Generation Feels the Squeeze
There are more than 12 million people in the U.S. providing assistance with daily living to an older family member while also caring for a child or grandchild at home, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Full story here.
19. Self-Care Is Mental Health Maintenance
The term self-care may bring visions of expensive, self-indulgent shopping trips or hour-long massages at a fancy spa, but it doesn’t have to be extravagant or costly to be effective.
Full story here.
20. Trade in Iron or Sell it Outright? What Makes More Money?
If you need to replace equipment, take time to put a pencil to the differences between trading in vs. selling your old equipment outright and then buying replacements.
Full story here.