Crops & Plants
This "Big Three" row crop, grown across the Midwest, is used for feed, ethanol, and sweeteners.
What is corn?
A young female cow that hasn't yet had a calf.
What is a heifer?
Products with this USDA label are produced without synthetic pesticides and without GMOs.
What is organic?
The loss of topsoil to wind or water.
What is erosion?
This major piece of legislation, renewed roughly every five years, sets federal farm and nutrition policy.
What is the Farm Bill?
Planting different crops in the same field in different seasons improves soil and reduces pests.
What is crop rotation?
Raising animals on grass and forage rather than in confinement is known as this type of system.
What is pasture-raised (or grazing)?
Named for a French scientist, this heat process kills harmful pathogens in milk.
What is pasteurization?
Drought and poor farming practices led to this 1930s disaster on the Great Plains.
What is the Dust Bowl?
A tax on imported goods.
What is a tariff?
This soilless growing method delivers nutrients to plant roots through water.
What is Hydroponics?
Since 2017, this document from a veterinarian is required to use certain antibiotics in feed.
What is a Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD)?
This bacteria, commonly linked to raw poultry and eggs, is a leading cause of foodborne illness.
What is Salmonella?
DAILY DOUBLE:
Fertilizer runoff causes algal blooms and low-oxygen "dead zones" through this process.
What is eutrophication?
Government payments to farmers meant to support income or stabilize production are called these.
What are subsidies?
Planted between cash crop seasons, these crops protect soil from erosion and add nutrients
What are cover crops?
This California ballot measure set minimum space requirements for egg-laying hens, breeding pigs, and veal calves.
What is Proposition 12?
This federal agency regulates the safety of most foods other than meat, poultry, and egg products.
What is the FDA?
This approach uses GPS, sensors, and data to apply inputs only where they're needed.
What is precision agriculture?
DAILY DOUBLE:
This 1862 act created land-grant universities.
What is the Morrill Act?
Many GMO crops produce a protein from this soil bacterium, abbreviated Bt, to resist insect pests.
What is Bacillus thuringiensis?
Freedom from hunger and thirst, discomfort, pain, fear and distress, and the freedom to express normal behavior make up this animal welfare framework.
What is the Five Freedom?
HACCP is a preventive food safety system. These words are what it stands for.
What is Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points?
Planting seeds directly into last season's residue without plowing is called this.
What is no-till farming?
This 1914 act established the Cooperative Extension Service.
What is the Smith-Lever Act?