farming
7 stories26 OctoberMonday
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Asher Valley dairy cooperative builds its own cheese plant
Forty-one family farms have pooled €9.5m to turn part of their milk into hard cheese and butter, aiming to earn more per litre than selling it to large processors.
25 OctoberSunday
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Harvest season: rice pours into a waiting trailer
Paddy streaming from a combine’s unloading auger quickly filled the trailer at the edge of the field.
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Combines side by side in a wheat field: the harvest from above
Drone footage shows two combine harvesters unloading grain into a moving tractor trailer.
24 OctoberSaturday
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Tea gardens: green terraces on the hillsides
From Sri Lanka to Vietnam, Rwanda to Japan, the rhythmic green patterns of tea plantations.
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Pick-your-own pumpkin farm draws families to the Asher Valley in its busiest October yet
A farm that once grew only cereals now plants 14 varieties of pumpkin and squash, and turns its fields over to visitors for four weeks every autumn.
20 OctoberTuesday
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Asher Valley grain growers lock in prices with millers through three-year contracts
A shared online platform run by the growers' cooperative has matched more than 80 farms with regional mills on fixed-price deals, offering both sides shelter from swings in the commodity market.
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Asher Valley wheat harvest beats five-year average despite a wet spring
Farmers in the Asher Valley have brought in a wheat crop well above recent averages, figures from the Growers' Cooperative show, after a dry, warm finish to the summer rescued fields that were waterlogged at sowing.
