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Farming challenges differ around the globe

dscn7587Farmers from different parts of the world face differing challenges in producing food.  Almost all of the 13 farmers represented at the Global Farmer Network Round Table held as part of the World Food Prize presentation event in Des Moines mention labor challenges.  Grain and horticulture producer Ruramiso Mashumba says farm technology in her native Zimbabwe is about 100 years behind.

“It is a major, major problem,” Mashumba told Brownfield Ag News Tuesday, referring to diminishing job satisfaction among farmers.  “A lot of the operations are still doing [planting] manually.  People who are doing it manually have to plant by hand and people are not enjoying it anymore.”

dscn7612United Kingdom farmer Jake Freestone says Brexit will be a challenge when trade deal deadlines loom in a couple of years, but short term, he tells Brownfield the devalued pound has been an asset.

“Exporting of our products where wheat’s gone up 25 pounds, oilseed rape’s gone up nearly 50 or 60 pounds a ton, so it’s had some really short term benefits,” said Freestone.  “The sheep market has also bounced up quite considerably.”

The bigger immediate challenge for Freestone is to convince his farming colleagues to adopt conservation tillage practices.  The U.K. is behind in that.

“People are only starting to look at zero tillage,” he said, “so there’s traditional resistance.”

AUDIO: Ruramiso Mashumba (2 min. MP3)


AUDIO: Jake Freestone (3 min. MP3)

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