When Tom Klatka looks across Buchannan’s bottom at Virginia Tech’s Kentland plantation, he sees more than an orderly agricultural testing center. He sees the beginnings of North American agriculture.
In his mind, Klatka conjures the dozens of known and unknown Native American villages hugging Montgomery County’s Fertile Crescent, the floodplain of a horseshoe bend in the New River, [...]

This just in from Virginia Tech’s public information department:
“Virginia Tech’s funding for research and development in the agricultural sciences jumped nearly $8.8 million in 2006, according to the most recent figures from the National Science Foundation. This raises Virginia Tech from the No. 11 to the No. 10 ranking for agricultural research expenditures in the [...]

For those who choose their meat sources carefully, the federal government is enacting a new “grass-fed” certification program for meat growers. But some think it doesn’t go far enough.
“Until now, said Martin E. O’Connor, the department official who oversees regulation of livestock feed, use of the grass-fed label was unregulated. Early proposals during five years [...]

Blacksburg Farmer’s Market and craft vendors, music by The Porch Loungers, guess the weight of a big pumpkin and other fall food-related fun on Saturday (Oct. 27)  from 8 a.m.-2 p.m., corner of Roanoke Street and Draper Road in Blacksburg. More info at bbfarmersmarket.org.
Also, Historic Smithfield Plantation will celebrate heirloom apples and dedicate its new [...]

The news of the late-night robbery hurts, and I don’t even depend on those tomato and bean plants to pay my bills.
“Went down this morning to find a dastardly deer had entered the greenhouse through the side flap and had a delightful feast of my bean and tomato leaves,” Gwynn’s e-mail says.
“Oh. My. God,” I [...]