The Gardner Agriculture Policy Program is funded by the Leonard and Lila Gardner/Illinois Farm Bureau Family of Companies endowment. This generous gift is dedicated to the memory of Len Gardner, a leading voice on agricultural policy for decades. The program will coordinate and prioritize analytical and outreach efforts for farm, conservation and international trade policies, elevating the University of Illinois’ voice in the national debate.
The cover crop project seeks to provide farmers with a practical web-based decision support tool designed to help manage cover crops in their fields. The project makes use of existing research to demonstrate the potential for cover crops, as well as providing useful information for decision making and management of this practice. It will also seek to apply future research on cover crops as results are incorporated into updates and new iterations of the tool. This remains a work in progress with a goal towards adapting with the science.
Latest in Gardner Policy Series
2020 Commodity Program Payment Dashboard
This article discusses payments made by ARC (Agriculture Risk Coverage) and PLC (Price Loss Coverage) commodity programs for the 2020 crop year. USDA, FSA (US Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency) recently released these payments for all covered program commodities…
The 2022 PLC and ARC Decision
Farmers will again have until March 15 to make commodity title program selections. Given the current high prices, commodity title payments are not expected from any program option for the 2022 marketing year. If a change in conditions resulted in…
IFES 2021: Policy Update for 2022
Net farm income in the U.S. reached nearly $95 billion in 2020 and is projected at nearly $117 billion for 2021 after averaging just under $76 billion from 2015 to 2019. The share of farm income coming from government payments…
Pandemic Assistance to Illinois Agricultural Producers in 2020 from the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP) and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)
In response to market disruptions and economic harm caused by the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the U.S. federal government initiated a series of relief programs for U.S. consumers and businesses, including farmers and ranchers. Of these programs, the two rounds of…
Farmdoc 20 Year Retrospective on Agricultural Trade (In Chart Form)
For some of us, 1999 doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. We were two years into the Asian financial crisis, and commodity prices were in the dumps. We were watching the release of the Matrix, living la vida…
It’s Pumpkin Patch Season and Agritourism is Booming—But What Exactly is Agritourism?
As methods of agricultural production evolve, so too do our connections to the sources and understanding of where farmed products originate. Agritourism operations offer a unique opportunity to both producer and consumer to participate in local and regional food systems…
Introducing Further Updates to the Cover Crop Decision Support Tool
The Gardner Agriculture Policy Program, farmdoc and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) announce further updates to the Cover Crop Decision Support Tool introduced last October (farmdoc daily, October 1, 2020; February 4, 2021). This first-of-its-kind web tool to…