Tag Archives: missouri

Road Trip to Kansas City: Missouri Agriculture Facts


Image Credit: Missouri Dept of Ag

About the time this blog posts, I’ll be at the airport in Nashville, waiting on a Southwest Airlines flight to Kansas City, Missouri for the 2012 Agvocacy 2.0 Conference presented by the AgChat Foundation. This is a great meeting held to train farmers, ranchers, and others how to better utilize Social Media and online tools to reach out to non-farm audiences. Last year’s conference was held in Nashville, TN.

As with many previous trips, I like to share many facts about agriculture from the state where I am traveling. On this blog before I have shared AgFacts from Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, and Tennessee. Of course, I have AgFacts from almost every state on my project page.

With a quick search from the Missouri Agriculture in the Classroom website, I found these cool facts about Agriculture in Missouri:

Missouri Weather and Climate…

  • Has a wide range of climates depending on the region of the state.
  • Average annual temperatures range from 50 degrees in the NW to 60 degrees in the SE.
  • Average statewide rainfall is 35 inches and Spring is tornado season in Missouri.
  • Menfro is the official Missouri State Soil, which occurs in about 780,000 acres in Missouri.

Missouri Crops…

  • Corn, soybeans, cattle and calves, hogs, and turkeys are Missouri’s top crops.
  • Missouri ranked nationally 5th in rice, 6th in soybeans and cotton, 8th in grain sorghum and 9th in corn production in 2009.
  • The Bootheel (SE MO) is the most intensively cropped area.
  • Cotton and rice are grown in South East Missouri.
  • Missouri produces a variety of fruits, vegetables and specialty crops.
  • According to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, 47% of Missouri’s total agricultural receipts came from crops.
  • Livestock production accounted for 53% of the state’s agricultural receipts.

    Image credit: Wikipedia

Missouri according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture…

  • Ranks 2nd in number of farms.
  • Had $7.51 billion value of agricultural products sold.
  • Ranks 14th in total value of agricultural products sold.
  • Ranks 15th in farm exports.
  • Farmland accounts for 66% of the state’s total land use.

Food and Agriculture holds a strong tie to the history of Kansas City, including one of the largest livestock events in the country, the American Royal, and world renowned BBQ. I can’t wait to get there and learn more about it.

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Farmers and Ranchers Get Social at Agvocacy 2.0


The #AgChat Foundation is headed to Kansas City this summer for the 3rd Annual Agvocacy 2.0 training! I had the awesome opportunity to attend last year’s conference in Nashville. It was an awesome trip and my first to Tennessee. And now I live in Tennessee and am a student at the state’s flagship University! Coincidence? Either way, this conference is a great value for anyone who attends.

Last year’s conference was a real eye opener for me. I had the opportunity to meet so many individuals who I can connected with online, and helped to enrich those relationships. Even though I was a little overwhelmed by seeing so many of these ‘charismatic’ people in one, small room when I first arrived – that’s the introvert in me – I walked right in and was able to pick up the conversation like we were old friends. That is the power of Social Networking. We are able to forge these relationships with individuals across the globe, have familiar faces at any conference we attend, and have great connections to learn about mutual interest though we may have never initially met in real life.

I encourage anyone to apply for this year’s conference if you are willing to learn more about the tools of Social Networking. It’s not only the tools of Facebook, Twitter, or Blogging, but more importantly how to convey a message and reach out there and connect with the people on the other end who are looking to learn more about food and agriculture. Beside, ya never know how the connections you make will impact their life, or your’s.

The third-annual Agvocacy 2.0 application for the 2012 social media training conference is now available. The two-day event will explore how farmers can effectively share agriculture’s message using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, blogs and mobile applications.

The Agvocacy 2.0 conference will be held August 23 – 24, 2012 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Exciting features of the conference include:

  • One-on-one chats with agriculture’s best and brightest in social media
  • Networking with other participants
  • Information about the latest tools and trends
  • Real-world stories about taking the farm to consumers
  • Insights on the human side of being social
  • The tools to tell farming’s story confidently

“Graduates from Agvocacy 2.0 are making a significant impact in telling the agricultural story to consumers in the places where social communities are forming,” says Darin Grimm, President of the AgChat Foundation. “The prospect of equipping more individuals with the skills they need to successfully share their message is really exciting.”

Follow the conversation on Twitter by following the #ACFC12 hashtag! For more information on the Agvocacy 2.0 AgChat Foundation Conference, be sure to visit AgChat.org.

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Photo Friday: Feral Hogs


Thank goodness its Friday! On Fridays I will post a photo from the ranch and discuss the subject. Take a gander and see if you can tell me what we are looking at…

Image courtsey of Wildlife News and Habitat Management

It’s been said that Arkansans go “Hog Wild,” especially during football season, but these razorbacks are no laughing matter. Feral hogs are wild hogs that are aggressive, destructive, and reproduce efficiently. Three things we really do not want to see in an invasive species.

Thursday morning I was checking cattle when the hole pasture started running like something was chasing them. Once I realized what was happening, I saw that they were chasing a group of ferals through the pasture. I counted at least 9 hogs, including a 300-lb boar, and half a dozen pigs. I was so shocked to see em right there, that they were gone before I ever thought to grab the camera from my pocket. Quite a sight to watch black and spotted pigs being chased by 100 aggitated mother cows.

These hogs are destructive animals. Having torn up several acres of pasture by rooting up the ground, we’ve been on the hunt for the past few weeks. A neighbor has some hunting dogs that will tear into those things with no fear, but we have yet to get them all. Pasture rooting is not the only problem. These animals will easily degrade water supplies for livestock and wildlife. Feral hogs have also been known to spread diseases like brucelosis and psuedorabies to livestock and humans. So if you ever find one, do not corner it. They are very aggressive and can injure you easily.

Feral Hog Facts

  • Feral hogs are different from domesticated swine. A mature male is 4′ to 5′ long and weighs 150–300 pounds. Females are slightly smaller. The boar has long tusks. The upper tusks rub against the lower ones and sharpen them. The boar’s body armor of fat, gristle, and tendons can be more than an inch thick. It starts around the neck and extends just past the lower ribs.
  • Hunting feral hogs in Arkansas is legal day or night, year-round
  • Feral hogs an invasive species located in several states including Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri
  • Kansas has been successful in reducing their feral hog population to a manageable 500 hogs
  • An estimated 1,500,000 feral hogs in Texas create $400,000,000 in damage annually
  • Trapping has proven an effective method of population reduction for feral hogs

Be sure to check out this webpage from Texas A&M with updated information about Feral Hogs.

Have you ever had an encounter with feral hogs or has your property received damage from these invasive animals?

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