You've reached the Virginia Cooperative Extension Newsletter Archive. These files cover more than ten years of newsletters posted on our old website (through April/May 2009), and are provided for historical purposes only. As such, they may contain out-of-date references and broken links.

To see our latest newsletters and current information, visit our website at http://www.ext.vt.edu/news/.

Newsletter Archive index: http://sites.ext.vt.edu/newsletter-archive/

Virginia Cooperative Extension -
 Knowledge for the CommonWealth

New Publications

Farm Business Management Update, August 1998

A Primer on Beef Demand (To Fix It You Have to Understand It), Wayne Purcell, author. A basic publication on beef demand has received widespread national attention in recent weeks. It is available on the Internet at http://www.aaec.vt.edu/rilp. If you would prefer, it can be downloaded in either Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat formats. If you have any questions, please contact Wayne Purcell directly through email at purcell@vt.edu or by phone at (540) 231-7725.

Management Practices on Virginia Dairy Farms, Gordon Groover, author, xgrover@vt.edu. This REAP publication summaries the results of a survey of all Virginia Dairy farms and provides baseline information on:

The full report is available on the Internet at: http://www.reap.vt.edu/reap/ or by contacting the REAP office at (540) 231-9443.

Executive Summary of Agricultural Impact Study, Dave Lamie, author. During the autumn of 1997, faculty in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech, in cooperation with the representative from Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, (VDACS) analyzed the size and economic contribution of agriculture in Virginia. In this report, agriculture is described and measured as a four-part system: 1) production of agricultural goods and services, including farm crops, livestock, horticulture, landscaping, Christmas trees, aquaculture, vineyards, and private woodlots; 2) processing of food, tobacco, wine, and cotton textiles; 3) distribution-related activities, such as transportation and the wholesale and retail sale of agricultural products; and 4) input sectors, that is, activities that supply goods and services for production, processing, and distribution activities. Contact the author at lamie@vt.edu.

With approximately one of every ten jobs in Virginia related to agriculture, agricultural activities are major components of the employment base within both rural and urban areas. Agriculture makes significant contributions to Virginia's employment, Gross State Product (GSP), and overall economic well-being. In addition, agriculture provides many non-market benefits to the Commonwealth.

The major farm commodities produced in Virginia are cattle and calves (in the northern, western, central, and southwestern districts of the state), poultry (in the northern and western districts), dairy (in the northern, central, and southwestern districts), tobacco (in the southern and southwestern districts), and soybeans (in the eastern and southeastern districts). The major agricultural manufacturing activities in the state are poultry processing (in the northern district), tobacco processing (in the central district), and meat processing (in the southeastern district).

A summary of the economic contributions of these agriculturally related activities shows:

Visit Virginia Cooperative Extension