The Virginia Port Authority earlier this year signed a memorandum of understanding with the Cuban National Port Authority to evaluate commercial opportunities between the Port of Virginia and Cuba’s newly opened Port of Mariel Special Development Project.

The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture presented its ninth annual Book of the Year award on Jan. 10 to children’s author Susan Grigsby for First Peas to the Table. The book features a group of children learning about gardens and peas and about Thomas Jefferson’s gardens at Monticello.

Virginia corn growers had good weather and great yields in 2015, according to the latest crop production estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In fact many Virginia growers did better than their counterparts in the Midwest.

Since Virginia launched its Resource Management Plan program in July 2014, 278 plans have been developed for farms in the commonwealth’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Vegetable Growers News in 2015 cited a white paper released at the third annual Indoor Ag-Con that outlined 15 existing commercial-scale rooftop greenhouses and vertical farms in the U.S.

For the first time ever, Virginia Farm Bureau Federation had finalists in all three Young Farmers & Ranchers competitions at the annual American Farm Bureau Federation convention.

Virginia farmers are asserting current state oversight of the use of biosolids as a source of nutrients for farmland is sufficient, though the practice merits an impartial study.

In the past 18 months, Virginia has seen a drop in the number of livestock animals killed by coyotes on Virginia farms, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services division.

Six Virginia localities are receiving fiscal 2016 grants to place working farmland under permanent conservation easements.

Virginia Farm Bureau Federation volunteer leaders will speak with state legislators about issues of interest to the commonwealth’s farmers during the organization’s annual Legislative Day on Jan. 28.