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The upcoming Farm Bill, innovations in irrigation, and precision agriculture were among several topics discussed by farmers and agriculture experts at the Clemson University Extension’s annual Peanut, Cotton, Vegetable and Fruit Field Day.
The field day, held on September 5, brought agricultural producers, industry leaders and extension specialists from throughout the Central Savannah River Area together to discuss ongoing changes within the agricultural industry.
The Farm Bill is a major piece of legislation passed every five years by the United States Congress that has widespread implications for farmers across the United States; agricultural subsidies, farming loans and other forms of food policy are contained within the Farm Bill. The previous Farm Bill was signed into law in 2018 and would have expired in 2023, however, it was extended in November 2023 until September 30, 2024.
Nathan Smith, Extension Economist, discussed how the Farm Bill will include changes to reference prices, which is the cost at which producers sell their crops; currently, low prices in crop commodities like peanuts, corn, grain and cotton have put pressure on farmers. Since the pandemic, food related commodity prices have fluctuated rapidly, with many commodities crashing in value in the beginning of the pandemic before skyrocketing following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, prices on agriculture related commodities have fallen back to near pre-pandemic levels.
During a field tour, Jose Payero, an Irrigation Specialist and assistant professor at Clemson University, discussed energy and irrigation management. In South Carolina, irrigation primarily requires pulling from groundwater and aquifers, using copious amounts of nonrenewable energy, which increases prices for farmers.
“Most of that water is going to be groundwater, so what does that mean?” said Payero. “It means we’re going to be pumping that water from deep, and the deeper you go, the more it’s going to cost to pump that water. … But we have a great variety of [aquifer] depths all over the state.”
Currently, Payero said, the cheapest form of energy for irrigation is natural gas. However, this may be changing as new solar irrigation pumps begin outcompeting fossil fuels in costs and efficiency, according to reporting by Yale E360. Pump efficiency, Payero said, is a key component of determining irrigation costs.
“The other thing that’s going to have an impact is how efficient your pumping system is,” said Payero. “If you’re pumping with a brand new pump or you’re pumping with a very old pump, that’s not very efficient in converting energy into water pressure.”
Payero said Clemson Extension and other agricultural stakeholders are involved in helping develop applications that can help farmers plan and calculate the cost of irrigation, and its energy efficiency.
“I [can] go and calculate what the cost per acre [is], how the total cost is for your farm, and depending on you will compare the different costs depending on your energy source,” said Payero.
Kendall Kirk, Precision Agriculture Engineer at Clemson University, told farmers that new algorithms can help make better predictions about agricultural practices; at the field day, Kirk helped farmers experiment with a new peanut field drying app.
“We can build algorithms in such a way that we can predict things on a continuous scale, such as pounds per acre of yield,” Kirk said, noting that Clemson’s algorithm is in a developmental phase. “The peanut field drying app gives you the ability to say, if I dig my peanuts today, when am I going to be able to combine them?”
Elijah de Castro is a Report for America corps member who writes about rural communities like Allendale and Barnwell counties for The People-Sentinel. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep Elijah writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today.
