by North Carolina’s Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler from his March column “From the Tractor” for the department’s monthly newsletter the Agricultural Review:

This is one of my favorite times of year as preparations for a new growing season get under way. There’s always equipment to get ready and planting decisions to make. We are seeing that at our 18 state-operated research stations as well as plans for this year’s research efforts taking shape.

I have talked many times about the importance of ag research and how every dollar invested in research returns $20 on average. With a growing global population, we need research to figure out how farmers can produce more food with fewer resources – whether that is improving yields, developing better production practices or using new technology and equipment to improve efficiencies.

Across the state, our research stations have updated some equipment, including tractors, sprayers, skid steers, excavators and other pieces. Irrigation platform upgrades are also being made, including adding new linear irrigation, traveler irrigation and updating some old control systems. Drones have also been added to the research stations and some stations are working to install fiber optics to increase internet capabilities.

Three of our research stations will be using a new Vytelle Sense livestock feeding system. When these three are fully operational, we will have a total of four of these systems engaged in livestock research across different stations.

They are located at the Mountain Research Station in Waynesville, the Upper Mountain Research Station in Laurel Springs, the Upper Piedmont Research Station in Reidsville, and the Umstead Research Farm in Butner.

This technology will passively collect feed, water and weight data on every cow or small ruminant to track the growth of the animals and see which ones are the most efficient at converting feed into muscle.

The system uses an individual radio frequency tag that is read when a cow comes up to the feed trough and water trough. The system can track the amount of food the animal eats and captures its weight when it drinks water.

This technology saves labor by collecting data automatically, and the biggest return is expected to be its ability to help producers identify livestock that can more efficiently and quickly be ready to market.

And that is important if we are going to be able to produce more food with fewer resources to meet the growing global demand.

I am grateful for the continued support of the N.C. General Assembly in funding improvements and additions to our research stations.

Investing in research will pay off for producers in the long run and will help North Carolina remain competitive in the global marketplace.

And finally, as of press time, I am continuing to work on disaster recovery funding with the N.C. General Assembly. We have nearly $5 billion in uninsured losses in agriculture and in using a formula we put together following Hurricane Florence to figure what it will take to get farmers back to where they can borrow money for this season and get growing again, we are looking at $357 million for Western N.C. for recovery from Hurricane Helene and $174 million for other areas of North Carolina for recovery from the drought, Hurricane Debby and another unnamed storm that created wet conditions.

I am hopeful that proposed legislation passes that will help us get funding out to growers for crop losses in 2024.