Late-winter U.S. agriculture faces rapid swings: intermittent rain/snow, brisk post-frontal winds, and patchy frost from the Southeast to western valleys. Fieldwork windows are short and regional. Watch West Coast storm-track pulses, Gulf-front showers/storms, and Southern High Plains fire weather. Protect blooming crops and livestock; consult local NWS forecasts.
On-the-go soil sensors mounted on planters map soils in real time, calibrated with lab cores to guide variable-rate seeding, nitrogen, lime, and planter downforce. Fusing EC/EMI, vis–NIR, gamma, and compaction data improves input efficiency, yield stability, and sustainability, with payback in 1–3 seasons despite moisture, residue, and calibration challenges.
U.S. farm policy this week centers on securing funding, negotiating farm-nutrition packages, and clarifying environmental, water, and trade rules. Expect congressional oversight, draft text, USDA and EPA updates, and trade signals. Producers watch crop insurance, conservation enrollments, compliance guidance, biofuels incentives, and export data shaping risk management and planting decisions.
February 23 marks milestones that built America’s farm workforce: the 1917 Smith–Hughes Act embedded agricultural vocational education, spawning FFA and enduring school‑to‑farm programs; the 1927 Radio Act delivered vital rural information; and 1861 Texas secession reshaped Southern agriculture—together proving workforce, information, and policy decisions continually steer U.S. farming.
February 21 repeatedly marks pivotal moments in U.S. agriculture: Nixon’s 1972 China opening that rewired global farm trade; 1979’s Tractorcade amplifying the farm crisis and policy reform; 2021’s Winter Storm Uri exposing infrastructure vulnerabilities; and recurring National FFA Week—together highlighting diplomacy, advocacy, and resilience shaping markets, policy, and on-farm decisions.
February 20 repeatedly marked quiet pivots in U.S. agriculture: the 1792 Postal Service Act knitting rural markets; the 1907 Immigration Act reshaping farm labor; 1933’s Prohibition rollback reviving barley, hops, and grapes; and a 2015 port truce preserving exports—plus legacies from Douglass, Adams, and Glenn—underscoring information, labor, markets, and logistics.
Executive Order 9066 uprooted over 110,000 Japanese Americans, dislodging a backbone of West Coast specialty farming. Their forced removal disrupted crops and markets, spurred wartime labor programs, and accelerated mechanization and consolidation. Postwar rebuilding was uneven, leaving lasting shifts in labor systems, land tenure, and U.S. fruit and vegetable production.
On Feb. 18, 1922, Harding signed the Capper–Volstead Act, granting farmers limited antitrust protection to form cooperatives, coordinate marketing, and build scale under USDA oversight. It transformed agriculture while setting governance limits. Also on Feb. 18: 1930 cow flight/milking, 1939 Golden Gate Expo farm showcase, 1979 D.C. tractorcade snow rescues.
Across U.S. history, February 17 marks turning points in agriculture: Jefferson’s agrarian ascendancy (1801), the Civil War’s blow to plantation economies (1865), ARRA’s rural infrastructure surge (2009), and Winter Storm Uri’s resilience reckoning (2021), together redefining land, labor, connectivity, and risk in the U.S. food system.
Across decades, February 16 brought events reshaping U.S. agriculture: 1938 farm policy and crop insurance foundations; 1899 freeze relocating Florida citrus; César Chávez’s 1968 fast elevating farmworker rights; 2015 port snarls exposing logistics risks; Kyoto’s 2005 ripple effects; and 2021’s Uri freeze—underscoring links among policy, climate, labor, markets, and resilience.
February 15 marks pivotal moments in U.S. agriculture: McCormick's mechanization legacy, the Maine's explosion reshaping sugar trade, FDR's near-assassination preceding New Deal farm policy, and 2021's Texas freeze exposing food-energy fragility. Seasonal tasks also cluster then, underscoring how innovation, policy, trade, weather, and risk management continually shape food systems.