Morning Ag Clips • 11th April 2024

Field Hands: The Bracero Program and Its Legacy

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Migrant workers constitute a large segment of the American agricultural workforce. Many of these workers come from Mexico, and the Bracero Program is an important marker in the history of American agricultural labor. The Bracero Program was the largest guest worker program in United States history and several of its legacies are still felt in American agriculture

Morning Ag Clips • 14th March 2024

Royal Gift: George Washington and the American Mule

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Few figures loom quite as large in American history as George Washington. As general of the Continental Army, president of the Constitutional Convention, and first president of the U

Morning Ag Clips • 12th March 2024

UHMPA Celebrates the Maple Season with Tapping Ceremony

BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. — On Friday, March 8, 2024, the Upper Hudson Maple Producers Association (UHMPA) celebrated the maple season with its annual tree tapping ceremony.

Morning Ag Clips • 29th February 2024

Sugar Season: Maple Making Then and Now

GREENWICH, N.Y. — March has arrived, and with it comes the maple-producing season! This annual event is a sign of spring in many places and unseasonably warm temperatures (at least in the northeast) have led to an early start for sugarmakers in many parts this year. Read on to learn more about this rustic tradition.

Maple production, or sugarmaking, is derived by concentrating the sap of the sugar maple tree (acer saccharum). In the late winter and early spring as the seasons change temperature

Morning Ag Clips • 6th February 2024

Cultivating Ag Careers: Iowa Soybean Association's Christie Wiebbecke

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Christie Wiebbecke’s journey in agriculture started with goats. Originally from Traer, Iowa, Christie grew up on a homestead that raised dairy goats. Part of her upbringing involved the regular milking of goats and showing them at local fairs. Christie’s father owned and operated a seed and chemical business. When she was older Christie helped out in the office and

Morning Ag Clips • 2nd February 2024

Marmot Meteorologists: The Origins of Groundhog Day

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Today is Groundhog Day! On this day hibernating rodents reportedly wake up to look for their shadow and predict when the spring will arrive. How did

Morning Ag Clips • 25th January 2024

Tried and True: Overalls on the Farm and Beyond

GREENWICH, N.Y. — One of the farmer’s most trusted pieces of equipment through the years hasn’t been a type of machinery or tool, but a piece of clothing. Overalls have been around in various forms for at least 300 years and have provided protection and usefulness to farmers in their work.

The true beginning of overalls, or dungarees as they are called in

Morning Ag Clips • 18th January 2024

Agriculture’s New Deal: FDR and the Agricultural Adjustment Act

GREENWICH, N.Y. — The Agricultural Adjustment Act was an important piece of legislation that still touches American farmers today. Read on to learn about Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” for farmers.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933 rural America was in a perilous situation. The 1920s were a difficult time for American farmers. Farm p

Morning Ag Clips • 11th January 2024

Millions of Mollusks: America’s Oyster Craze

GREENWICH, N.Y. — One of the many phrases that William Shakespeare coined says, “The world is your oyster.” For the first one hundred and fifty years of the United States, the oyster was very much a part of the world of American cuisine. A delicacy to some and a disgust to others, this p

Morning Ag Clips • 4th January 2024

Helpful Herders: Three Brief Herding Dog Histories

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Dogs are everywhere. From busy cities to sparsely populated towns you can find “man’s best friend.” The farm is no exception. Dogs can be found happily cruising in the back of pick-up trucks, inspecting barnyards, or dutifully protecting the farmhouse. One of the roles th

Morning Ag Clips • 17th November 2023

Fortuitous Fowl: The Presidential Turkey Pardon Through Time

WASHINGTON — Thanksgiving is next week and the plat principal on most tables will be the turkey. A native North American bird, the turkey has been the star of Thanksgiving feasts since the mid-19th century. A somewhat quirky and recent Thanksgiving tradition is the Presidential Turkey Pardon. In this annual tradition the president sp

Morning Ag Clips • 15th June 2023

Heroines on the Homefront: The Women’s Land Army

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Rosie the Riveter is an iconic image and persona from the World War II-era. With her determined expression, flexed arm, and exhortation of “We Can Do It!” she encouraged the women of the Homefront in the new jobs they found t

Morning Ag Clips • 12th May 2023

King Cotton: The Confederacy’s Attempt to Gain Legitimacy Through Cotton

GREENWICH, N.Y. — The Civil War is one of the defining events of American history. Cotton and the production of this lucrative crop was a contributing factor to the outbreak of the war. Once the war started the Confederacy believed cotton was one of their stro

Morning Ag Clips • 18th April 2023

Cultivating Ag Careers: Emmaline Long, Agronomy Solutions Manager at Yara North America

GREENWICH, N.Y. — “Everyone has something that intrigues and excites them. Agriculture has been that passion for me for as long as I can remember,” said Emmaline Long. Emmaline grew up in Bergen, NY and while she did not grow up on a farm, her father came from a dairy farming family and her uncle operated a large dairy farm which she visited often. She has fond memories of riding on a tractor with her dad when she was a little girl. Through these family connections Emmaline has always felt that

Morning Ag Clips • 14th March 2023

Get a taste of the season at Hop City Maple

BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. — Hop City Maple is an up-and-coming sugarhouse that has transformed from a backyard hobby into a fully-fledged maple business. Located in Ballston Spa in Saratoga County, Hop City Maple is owned and operated by John and Emilia Medick. The business began ten years ago when John and Emilia decided to tap some trees on their property. That first winter they tapped 19 trees and ma

Morning Ag Clips • 12th March 2023

Commissioner Ball celebrates the maple season at tree tapping ceremony

WHITEHALL, N.Y. — On Friday, March 10th NYS Commissioner of Agriculture & Markets Richard Ball helped celebrate the maple season with the annual tree tapping ceremony. This year’s tapping was held at Rathbun’s Maple Sugarhouse Restaurant in Whitehall, N.Y. Commissioner Ball was joined by NYS Assemblymen Matthew Simpson and NYS Senators Daniel Stec and Jacob Ashby.

This year’s ceremony was attended by many local maple producers as well as a large contingent of FFA members from Granville FFA and

Morning Ag Clips • 28th February 2023

Cultivating Ag Careers: SUNY Cobleskill's Easton Murray

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Easton Murray is Outreach Specialist for Agricultural Workforce Development USDA Grant at SUNY Cobleskill. She is originally from Greenwich, NY and attended SUNY Cobleskill, studying Agricultural Equipment Technology.

Easton Murray learned at a young age how to make her way around machinery. Growing up on her family’s beef cattle farm in Easton, NY, she loved helping raise the cattle and horses her family owned. When she got older her favorite part of the farm became driving t

Morning Ag Clips • 27th January 2023

“I never would have been President”: Theodore Roosevelt’s transformation on a Dakota ranch

GREENWICH, N.Y. — The United States’ 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, is remembered for being a great many things. A politician, a reformer, a conservationist, a manly sportsman, the Panama Canal builder, and a host of other things. For a brief period in his life rancher was another title that Roosevelt carried. For three years Roosevelt owned and operated two ranches in the Badlands of what is present-day North Dakota. While he only d

Morning Ag Clips • 20th January 2023

Aftermath: The Farm Crisis of the 1980s

GREENWICH, N.Y. — In continuation of last week’s Hansen’s Histories, the farming boom of the 1970s created a crisis in the 1980s. The decade brought about hardship and chan

Morning Ag Clips • 16th December 2022

Keeping watch over their flocks: The shepherds of the Nativity

GREENWICH, N.Y. — The Nativity tells the story of the birth of Jesus Christ which is celebrated at Christmas. This well-known and important story includes many interesting characters such as Jesus’ humble parents Joseph and Mary, the barbarous King Herod who sought to take the young Jesus’ life, the wise and mysterious Magi bringing gifts from afar, and more. One of these characters are a group of

Morning Ag Clips • 23rd June 2022

Pauline Wayne: The White House’s last cow

GREENWICH, N.Y. — The White House has been home to a menagerie of pets throughout the history of the United States. Many presidents were dog lovers with a few cats here and there. Others were quite fond of horses. Some of the more exotic pets include two bear cubs kept by Thomas Jefferson, an alligator that lived in a

Morning Ag Clips • 10th June 2022

Courting, Cussing Mules, and Common Sense: Harry S. Truman's farm years

GREENWICH, N.Y. — Harry S. Truman became our nation’s 33rd president unexpectedly in 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. But did you know that one of the stops along Truman’s journey to the presidency was on his family farm? For eleven years President Truman worked on and part-owned a farm, and the experience helped mold him into the man who would eventually occupy the Oval Office.

Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri, the eldest child of John and Martha Truman. Ha