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Angela Jones, a tenth-grade English teacher at Greenwood High School in Sebastian County, is Arkansas Farm Bureau’s 2018 Ag in the Classroom Outstanding Teacher. Jones received the award during a recent surprise announcement at the school.

Wesley Gwaltney of Batesville (Independence County), a rising senior majoring in creative media production at Arkansas State University, is the 2018 recipient of Arkansas Farm Bureau’s Marvin Vines Memorial Scholarship.

Several hours of subfreezing temperatures the morning of April 8 damaged much of Joey Jamison’s peach crop and likely that of other peach and berry growers in Arkansas. It’s too early to know the full extent of losses, but Jamison says that, while much of his crop was lost, he believes some of his young peaches survived. Watch and listen to learn more.

Karen Rowe, Arkansas County equine enthusiast and biologist with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, visited with our Keith Sutton about the hordes of buffalo gnats wreaking havoc with horses, livestock, poultry and wildlife in the Delta of eastern Arkansas. These blood-sucking black flies are so numerous this year they are killing many animals, and right now there's no end in sight.

Arkansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest agricultural advocacy organization, has set a Measure the Candidate forum for May 9 at the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel in North Little Rock. Candidates for state constitutional offices, the 2nd Congressional district of the U.S. House of Representatives, and state Supreme Court have been invited to be on the program.

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Following up on our podcast interview, we took our cameras to visit Brett Ausley on his family ranch in Hot Spring County. He showed us around and explained why he got into Wagyu beef and began selling it directly to consumers through social media and to local restaurants.

After reaching critically low levels in the 1990s, water table levels in the Sparta Aquifer in south Arkansas are being recharged thanks to a countywide campaign undertaken by the Union County Water Conservation Board, the local Chamber of Commerce and other area organizations. In this edition of Arkansas AgCast, Arkansas Farm Bureau’s Ken Moore sat down with two of the key leaders of the campaign to save the aquifer to discuss their efforts and the results.

In recent years ranchers have begun selling meat directly to consumers and area restaurants, making use of a growing number of local meat processing facilities. One example is Kenny Simon, a University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture pasture and forage specialist and third-generation cattle producer near Saltilo in Faulkner County.