http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/ee/index.php en editor@TheRochesterDemocrat.com Copyright 2008 2008-10-13T15:36:04-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/agriculture_obama_vs_mccain/ {summary} Farm Policy What's At Stake: Agriculture


by Jerry Hagstrom
(National Journal Magazine - 10/3/2008)
http://www.smallgrains.org/article.aspx?id=7618


The war in Iraq aside, there may be no other issue on which McCain and Obama differ so starkly as they do on agricultural policy. McCain has opposed farm bill after farm bill; following Bush's veto of the 2008 version of the five-year legislation, McCain said he also would have vetoed it. Obama supported the bill, which Congress passed over Bush's veto with more than 300 votes in the House and 82 votes in the Senate.

Obama says that proper implementation of the new farm bill would be a high priority for his administration, and that's where the biggest differences come into play. Most of the law went into effect on Wednesday at the beginning of fiscal 2009, but it's unclear whether the Bush administration will finish writing the regulations on several new programs or whether those regulations will satisfy Congress. The bill includes an optional new program called "average crop revenue election," or ACRE, that would make payments to farmers if the revenue from a crop declines. Congressional leaders and the Bush administration have been sparring over which years the government should use as the revenue basis for starting the program. The bill also included new aid to farmers who have experienced weather-related disasters; administration officials say they are not sure whether they will complete the regulations for that program by January 20.

Obama would probably implement the farm bill in a generous fashion, given his history as a Democratic senator from Illinois and his backing during the primaries and caucuses from former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and other senators from the Plains states.

McCain's top economics adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has said that the Arizonan would target farm subsidies as a key part of reducing the federal deficit. High commodity prices in recent years, however, have already cut farm subsidy payments to less than half the $20 billion that was common in the late 1990s. If the high prices continue, the only way that McCain could save much money from agriculture spending would be to cut nutrition programs, which now account for 65 to 70 percent of the Agriculture Department's budget. That would be hard to pull off, particularly since the 2008 legislation took several steps to boost nutrition programs.

The first agriculture battle of the next administration will be over the reauthorization of the child nutrition programs, due next year. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has signaled that he wants school lunch and breakfast programs, as well as other USDA spending to emphasize healthy foods; that portends a battle in Congress over what foods are healthy. Harkin and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., may also try to restrict food advertising to children. Obama might be more sympathetic to Harkin and Durbin's arguments than would McCain.

In his statements to farm groups, McCain says he will support agriculture by opening up markets in foreign countries. Obama says he would promote trade, but he also expresses concern about current trade negotiations, which have not gone well. Leaders of farm groups fear that McCain's opposition to government assistance to ethanol programs might translate into a decline in corn and other commodity prices. On the other hand, they expect that a McCain administration would be friendlier to farmers on such issues as the regulation of "confined animal feeding operations," or CAFOs.

The big battle will come in 2012, when the next farm bill is due. One Republican lobbyist said that the congressional override of Bush's veto set a precedent and that farmers could comfortably vote for McCain with the knowledge that Congress could deliver the next bill over a veto. But Democrats say that 2012 is too far off to count on a repeat of that phenomenon.


]]> 2008-10-13T15:36:04-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/iowa_agriculture_secretary_discusses_a_trying_year/ {summary} Farm Economy




DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Like any farmer, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey is eager to put the pains - and the rains - of 2008 behind him.

By any measure, Northey said, it has been a trying year for Iowa farmers - record rain fall, record flooding, fitful weather throughout. The irony is that 2008 was a year that started with great expectations: Inputs, the costs that go into farming, were higher than ever but prices for corn and soybeans lingered near record highs.

"When you go into a year like this one, you look at it and you think, 'This is one of those years when you're going to have a good enough year to help yourself through the next 10 years,' to some extent," Northey said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Most Iowa farmers still have a good chance of finishing with a good year, but the state's first-term agriculture secretary lamented that it still was, "one of those years." One where everything and everyone, led by Mother Nature, seemed to be conspire against farmers.

Northey said the final verdict has yet to be rendered for Iowa farmers. The weather has clearly wreaked havoc, particularly in northeastern and southern Iowa, he said, though the first frost has held off, giving farmers a needed reprieve.

"Of course you thought, with the year we've had, that of course we'd get an early frost," he said. "But so far that hasn't happened, and that's helping."

Northey said what he's seen this year has sharpened his focus as an agriculture secretary. There are only so many ways farmers can protect against a deluge, he said, but finding better flood protections would be one of his primary goals going forward.

"We've made great strides," he said. "But we need to do more."

On another front important to farmers, Northey said he has been pleased with the state's efforts to pursue renewable energy, including initiatives led by Democratic Gov. Chet Culver.

Last month, Northey spoke out publicly about his disappointment that his party had included a plank in the Republican platform calling for the end of the renewable fuel standard. Northey said any curtailment of the ethanol industry would have a drastic effect on Iowa and the rest of the Corn Belt.

"If we didn't have the market ethanol provided, we might be looking at some pretty bad times," he said. "It would look a lot like the '80s. They were piling corn in the streets and we were producing more than we needed."

Northey said he believes export markets have improved for farmers since the 1980s farm crisis, but they're no match for the demand from ethanol plants.

"It's such an important market," Northey said. "It'd be pretty hard to find a market on the fly for a billion bushels of corn. I'm pretty sure an export market could not fill that."

---

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The overall value of Washington state's agricultural production last year increased 23 percent to a record $8.51 billion, up from $6.9 billion in 2006, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Four of the top five crops - apples, milk, wheat and potatoes - experienced record gains in 2007, as did a number of other foods.

Agriculture continues to be the cornerstone of Washington's economy, particularly when compared to recent downturns in other economic sectors, said Bob Gore, acting director of the state Department of Agriculture.

Apples again topped the list at $1.75 billion, compared with the previous high of $1.41 billion in 2006. Washington is the nation's top apple producer, growing about half the U.S. crop.

Milk, the second crop on the list, for the first time topped $1 billion after declining nearly 18 percent a year before. Rounding out the top five crops were: wheat at $975 million, surpassing the previous record of $756 million set in 1996; potatoes at $685 million, ahead of the previous high of $562 million in 2006; and cattle and calves at $581 million.


]]> 2008-10-07T10:56:50-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farmers_embrace_genetically_modified_beets/ {summary} Farm Economy The sugar beet harvest is starting in the Red River Valley. It's the first harvest of genetically modified sugar beets. GMO crops often generated controversy over the past couple of decades. Some farmers refused to grow them and some consumers fought to keep them out of the food supply. Most farmers are apparently happy with the Roundup Ready beets, but there are some lingering concerns.


by Dan Gunderson,
Minnesota Public Radio
September 12, 2008


Moorhead, Minn. — American Crystal Sugar company director of agriculture Dan Bernhardson guides his SUV down a narrow gravel road, into a muddy sugar beet field east of Moorhead.

Kirk Watt is starting to prepare this field for harvest. He didn't plant the genetically modified Roundup Ready beets this year, but wishes he had.

"We had non-Roundup here and the guy over there has Roundup and I tell you, his look better," says Watt ruefully. "It's not so much now, but boy, in June it was just night and day difference."

This field has large areas where a thick crop of pigweed dwarfs the sugar beets. The weeds are more than a nuisance, they lower crop yield and cost the farmer thousands of dollars.

"I'm sure those spots that are thick with pigweed you'll probably have two, three, four ton less per acre," says Watt.

It's hard to control weeds in sugar beets. Traditionally, the chemicals that kill weeds would also kill the beets.

So farmers applied carefully timed, very low doses of herbicide several times a year to control the weeds without killing the beets. They used migrant farm labor to remove the weeds that escaped the herbicide.

This year, rain kept Kirk Watt out of the field when the weeds were small. By the time he could spray, the weeds were too big to be killed by the low dose of herbicide, and it was too costly to hire laborers to hoe the weeds. So the weeds rise about the beets in thick clumps.

But in his neighbors field of Roundup Ready beets, there's not a weed to be seen. That's because the beets are genetically modified to be immune to the broad spectrum weed killer Roundup. So farmers can easily kill weeds any time without worrying about damaging the beet plants.

American Crystal Sugar Director of Agriculture Dan Bernhardson, says just over half of the sugar beets planted this year were the Roundup Ready variety created by Monsanto. He says farmers who planted the modified sugar beets have a clear advantage in weed control.

"The other advantage we see is less cultivation of the field, less passes across the field. Also, the number of times you have to spray. Most conventional varieties have four applications of spray where roundup varieties we expect two applications. So, less trips across the field, less diesel fuel being burned," says Bernhardson.

So the farmer saves money on labor and fuel. But that doesn't mean the GMO beets are cheaper to grow.

Monsanto charges a technology fee for the seeds, about $60 per acre, which offsets much of the savings. Tests this year show the GMO beets overall don't produce higher yields than traditional varieties. That's expected to change as the GMO seed is improved over the next couple of years. Kirk Watt has weighed all the costs and variables and says he's almost certain to plant all GMO beets next year. "One of the variables is increased yield. They say it might be a two-ton increased yield. If that's that case it will definitely make it more profitable," says Watt. "Hopefully the tech fee doesn't keep increasing every year. Because once we have Roundup, that's all we have. We might be limited to that seed. That part concerns me a little bit."

Next year American Crystal expects about 90 percent of sugar beets to be the Roundup Ready variety.

That means seed companies will quickly stop producing traditional seed varieties. So within two or three years, Roundup Ready will be the only choice.

Red River Valley Sugar Beet Growers Association Executive Director Nick Sinner, says people are concerned about that because farmers don't want Monsanto, the creator of the Roundup brand, holding all the cards when it comes to buying seed. "We want to have a good working relationship with Monsanto because they hold the rights to that technology," says Sinner. "We also think competition is a great thing, so if there are other technologies that come along that will work for weed control and keeps everybody honest in the long run, that can be a good thing."

Farmers are also concerned about a pending lawsuit challenging the government's decision to allow the use of GMO sugar beets.

It's unclear how that case could affect next year's planting, since the seed for next year has already been produced.

But despite lingering questions, it appears the benefits of the herbicide-resistant sugar beet plants have farmers ready to embrace the change.

]]> 2008-09-12T09:45:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/hot_dry_weather_worries_michigan_vegetable_farmers_michigan/ {summary} Farm Markets


Michigan Ag Connection - 09/03/2008


Seven days were suitable for fieldwork during the week ending Sunday, according to the USDA, NASS, Michigan Field Office.

Through Labor Day, precipitation varied from 0.02 inches in the northwestern Lower Peninsula to 0.26 inches in the central Lower Peninsula. Average temperatures ranged from 3 degrees below normal in the east central Lower Peninsula to 1 degree above normal in the western and eastern Upper Peninsula and the northwestern Lower Peninsula. Abnormally dry conditions remained in most areas as very little rain fell in the past seven days.

A farmer in the west central noted, "In the last week we have had only a trace of rain and for the month of August we have had 0.95 inches of rain. Corn, soybeans, and hay are being hurt due to the dry weather." Crops were suffering from lack of moisture, but some normal ripening was taking place. "In many cases, when viewing the fields, it is difficult to determine if much of the change in the fields is due to 'true maturing' or 'premature maturing' being caused by the extremely extended dry period throughout the area," a grower in the south central reported.

The majority of the corn crop was in the dough stage and a good deal was in the dent stage. The crop continued to dry, causing some growers to chop their corn for silage. Soybeans have set pods and leaves were turning. Alfalfa harvest continued with a second cutting nearing completion and some growers getting a third cutting. There were reports of a short third cutting, as regrowth has been slow. Dry bean leaves were turning and some were shedding leaves. Harvest of early varieties was just beginning in some fields. Winter wheat growers continued to prepare their fields for planting. Sugarbeet growers were anticipating a very good crop and were looking forward to harvest. Harvest of oats was essentially finished.

The harvest of early season apples wound down, and picking of Galas will begin this week. Elliot and other late season blueberry varieties harvests continued. Anthracnose rot has been a problem. Concord grape vineyards that were damaged by frost still had a lot of green berries, but veraison was otherwise finished in the southwest. Spraying occurred for protection from downy mildew. Peach harvest continued; fruit size of late season varieties was reduced by the dryness. Bartlett pear harvest began, and plum picking continued. Fall raspberry harvest was underway.

High temperatures and lack of rainfall have kept vegetable producers worried about crop conditions and decreased production, especially in the southern and western parts of the State. Celery harvest continued on schedule in the southwest part of the State. Crop experts reported that celery quality was good but most growers were irrigating due to the very dry soil conditions.

Tomato harvest continued, with some producers reporting a disappointing crop.

Harvest continued this week for potatoes, onions, leeks, carrots, peppers, sweet corn and snap beans. Pumpkins and winter squash continued to develop in the fields, while harvest for fall cabbage and other cold crops began in some areas.

]]> 2008-09-03T14:05:03-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/a_minnesota_farmer_checks_his_fields/ {summary} Farm Economy

by Dan Gunderson,
Minnesota Public Radio
July 21, 2008



The most recent crop report shows most Minnesota crops are above average. Crop prices are high, but so are costs like fuel and fertilizer. We last talked with farmer Jeff Mortenson in February, when he was making plans for the growing season and was nervous about rising costs. He's still nervous about the increasing costs of farming, but anticipating a good harvest.

Kennedy, Minn. — Here in the northwestern corner of Minnesota, waist-high wheat and barley ripples in the wind, the soybeans and sugar beets are lush and green.

As Jeff Mortenson wades into a wheat field, he plucks one of the long stalks that are just starting to form kernels.

"Looks like a pretty good wheat crop coming," Mortenson said. "I mean look, nice long heads, seems to be no disease pressure. Knock on wood we don't get a hail storm. But the row crops are behind. Our beans are way behind last year."

The cooler-than-usual summer has been good for wheat, but soybeans and sugar beets need more hot summer days. Mortenson's soybeans are only half as tall as they were at this time last year.

Still, it's been one of those summers when rains come at just the right time.

"It's probably been a month ago just here I got an inch and 3/10 in 35 minutes. Just a mile south of here the road was dry. It just started right here, you know, and that's farming."

But despite the potential for above average harvest and record prices, Jeff Mortenson says he's not turning cartwheels on the front lawn.

Sitting on the front porch of the farmhouse that's been home to four generations of his family, Mortenson pulls out a calculator and lists of numbers.

He's been nervously adding up the increased cost of fertilizer and fuel.

In two years nitrogen fertilizer has tripled. An increase of $410 per ton. That's about $35 dollars extra for each acre of wheat.

"If we have roughly 2,000 acres of wheat an extra $35 in fertilizer, that's another $70,000 we didn't spend two years ago." Mortenson said. "It's frustrating, but there's not a darn thing you can do about it. You need fertilizer. So, that and the fuel. You never really used to think about the fuel price. But now when you fill up a tractor there's $521 for a few days."

And those costs keep going up. Mortenson says this spring he waited to fill his diesel tank, hoping fuel prices would drop. Instead, they went up. That decision cost him $10,000.

Jeff Mortenson is also wrestling with the other side of the farm equation; when to sell the crop.

He's already sold part of the wheat crop, and hopes he didn't sell when prices were too low.

That's what happened last year. Like most farmers he sold his wheat before prices shot up to $20 a bushel.

"When it hit $5.00 I sold a big chunk," he said. "When it hit $6.00 I sold the rest. But when Joe Public sees on the front page of the paper wheat hits $20.00 they think every farmer has got 100% of their bushels sitting on the farm and they're instant millionaires. That isn't the case."

Still, last year brought a healthy profit, and it looks like Mortenson's bottom line will be strong again this year.

He doesn't want to miss an opportunity to catch up after years of losses. Mortenson scans the news every day for clues to the markets.

Did it rain in Brazil? Is China buying more soybeans? Should he lock in a price now, or wait and hope it's higher at harvest?

In a volatile world market, those decisions can mean the difference between a good year and a great year.

Mortenson says he's not counting his bushels before they're in the bin.

"It looks like we could have a decent crop with our wheat this year and hopefully the beets and beans come around," he said. "But there's so much out of your control. You feel like you're going to jinx yourself. It sounds dumb, but that's the case. You don't want to start spouting off and say, 'Oh, this is great,' and then something will come and bite you."

The day after we walked through his fields one was destroyed by a hail storm.

He's still hoping for a better than average year, but harvest is still a month away. Until then, Jeff Mortenson will spend a lot of time punching numbers into his calculator and nervously watching the sky.

]]> 2008-07-21T12:51:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/food_safety_worries_change_buying_habits/ {summary} Food Safety


WASHINGTON (AP) - Troubled by the tainted tomato scare, nearly half of Americans are concerned they may get sick from eating contaminated food and are avoiding items they normally would buy, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll has found.

Although three in four remain confident about the overall safety of foods, the poll found that consumers overwhelmingly support setting up a tracing system for produce in the wake of the salmonella outbreak first linked to tomatoes and, now, hot peppers.

Eighty-six percent said produce should be labeled so it can be tracked through layers of processors, packers and shippers, all the way back to the farm. The lack of such a system frustrated disease detectives working on the salmonella outbreak. Although federal officials lifted the tomato warning Thursday, the cause of the outbreak remains unknown.

The poll found that 80 percent of Americans said they would support new federal standards for fresh produce. Meat and poultry have long been subject to enforceable federal safeguards, but fruits and vegetables are not, although produce increasingly is being implicated in outbreaks.

Christy Taylor, a first-grade teacher from Sacramento, Calif., said she has all but given up on supermarket produce and is buying most of her fresh fruits and vegetables at the local farmers' market instead.

"I see the same farmers every single week," said Taylor, 30, the mother of 2-year-old twin girls. "You meet the people and you see where the (produce) is coming from."

Her twins love tomatoes, she said, and chomp on them as if they were apples. But until the mystery of the tainted tomatoes is solved, "I feel a little bit more comfortable, a little more safe, doing the local farmers' market," Taylor said.

In addition to the salmonella outbreak, this year has seen the largest ground beef recall in history, raising consumer concerns reflected in the poll.

Forty-six percent said they were worried they might get sick from eating contaminated food and that they have avoided foods because of safety warnings that they normally would have purchased. Twenty-nine percent have thrown out food earlier than usual and 14 percent have returned food to the store.

Such a level of uneasiness among consumers is "very significant," said Michael R. Taylor, a former senior federal food safety official who now teaches at George Washington University.

"When you have almost half the population avoiding certain foods because of safety concerns, that's very significant from the standpoint of economic impact for the people selling the food, and from the standpoint of peace of mind for consumers," said Taylor. Tomato growers say they have lost more than $100 million as a result of the current salmonella outbreak, which has sickened more than 1,200 people in 42 states since April.

The poll also found gender, racial and economic gaps on attitudes about food safety. Women, who do most of the shopping, were more concerned than men. For example, 39 percent of men said they were "very confident" that the food they buy is safe, but only 23 percent of women said they felt that way. However, men and women agreed on the need for better federal oversight.

"We've got to protect our food supply," said Stephan Weiss, 58, of West Linn, Ore., who runs a small engraving and embroidery business. "And if more inspectors are going to prevent people from getting sick and dying, then it's worth it."

People with lower incomes were less confident in food safety, as were minorities. Nearly half of Hispanics had little or no confidence in the safety of the food they buy.

In Congress, a leading advocate of food safety reforms said the industry would do well to listen to consumers on the need for tracing.

"We live in an age of technology where you can bar-code a banana," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "We've got to work this through with the industry and come up with something that's reasonable. The more confidence consumers have, the more goods they will purchase."

While the produce industry agrees that federal standards for preventing contamination are necessary, there is no consensus on a mandatory tracing system. Cost is a concern, especially for smaller companies.

The poll also found that 56 percent of consumers do not believe the government has enough inspectors to scrutinize food imports. If more are needed for imports and domestic produce, 70 percent said the cost should be covered through fees on industry. That echoes a proposal by Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The telephone poll of 1,000 adults was conducted July 10-14 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the overall sample.


]]> 2008-07-18T11:05:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/durbin_harkin_will_examine_cftc_resources_authority/ {summary} MN Farm Union


Thu. Jun. 12, 2008
by Jerry Hagstrom
MN Farmers Union


Senate Majority Whip Durbin, who chairs the Senate Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee, and Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin announced Wednesday they will hold a joint hearing next week on strengthening the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the agency that regulates oil and commodity futures markets.

Durbin and Harkin did not announce a day for the hearing, but indicated they would look at the agency's authorities and staffing level.

"It's time to open the books on the oil futures market," Durbin said in a release. "The agency in charge of regulating oil markets is currently blocked from accessing critical information on trades made on foreign exchanges or on over-the-counter trades. We can't expect the CFTC to properly monitor the market and keep gas prices stable if they don't have the information they need. Congress needs to give CFTC the authority to monitor these trades closely and the staff and IT systems to get the job done."

In recent weeks, CFTC commissioners have testified that while energy and commodity trades have increased dramatically, the number of CFTC staff has dropped, which raises questions about the agency's ability to monitor the markets, enforce laws and investigate possible market manipulations.

Durbin said the number of trades in commodity markets rose from 500 million in 2000 to more than 3 billion in 2007, while the number of full-time employees has dropped from 546 to 437. President Bush requested a 17 percent increase in the CFTC budget for FY09, which would bring it to $130 million.

CFTC commissioners initially said they believed the run-up in oil and agricultural commodity prices was due to market fundamentals but in recent weeks have announced efforts to investigate the role index funds and other institutional investors might play in the price increases.

On Tuesday the CFTC announced the creation of a task force including CFTC staff, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, Energy and Agriculture departments and the SEC to examine investor practices, fundamental supply and demand factors, and study the role of speculators and index traders in the commodity markets.

CFTC Commissioner Mike Dunn said Wednesday the task force was needed to take a broader look at the run-up in prices because the CFTC has only "a half-dozen economists to serve the whole agency."

Dunn also told the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives Wednesday that the commission is particularly concerned that agricultural futures prices and cash prices are not converging when the contracts expire as they have in the past.

The CFTC is considering requiring that swaps, which are futures contracts between two entities, be settled on exchanges, but there is concern that such a requirement would change the nature of these deals. Dunn said the CFTC Agricultural Advisory Committee is expected to meet around July 29 to examine what the staff has learned in its investigations.


]]> 2008-07-11T20:50:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/cutting_out_the_middlemen_shoppers_buy_slices_of_farms/ {summary} Farm Markets



By SUSAN SAULNY
NY Times
Published: July 10, 2008


CAMPTON TOWNSHIP, Ill. — In an environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, growing numbers of people are skipping out on grocery stores and even farmers markets and instead going right to the source by buying shares of farms.

On one of the farms, here about 35 miles west of Chicago, Steve Trisko was weeding beets the other day and cutting back a shade tree so baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr. Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the four-acre Erehwon Farm.

“We decided that it’s in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,” Mr. Trisko said.

Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilized on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture. About 150 people have bought shares in Erehwon — in essence, hiring personal farmers and turning the old notion of sharecropping on its head.

The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming. But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.

“I think people are becoming more local-minded, and this fits right into that,” said Nichole D. Nazelrod, program coordinator at the Fulton Center for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa., a national clearinghouse for community-supported farms. “People are seeing ways to come together and work together to make this successful.”

The shareholders of Erehwon Farm have open access to the land and a guaranteed percentage of the season’s harvest of fruit and vegetables for packages that range from about $300 to $900. Arrangements of fresh-cut blossoms twice a month can be included for an extra $120 — or for the deluxe package, $220 will “feed the soul” with weekly bouquets of lilies and sunflowers and other local blooms.

Shareholders are not required to work the fields, but they can if they want, and many do.

Mr. Trisko said his family knows that without his volunteer labor and agreement to share in the financial risk of raising crops, the small organic farm might not survive.

“It’s very hard for them to make ends meet,” he said, “so I decided to go out and help. We harvest, water, pull weeds, whatever they need doing.”

Under the sponsored system, farmers are paid an agreed-upon fee in advance of the growing season, making their survival less dependent on the vicissitudes of the market and the cooperation of the elements. The arrangement involves real farms and real farmers and is distinct from community gardens and other forms of urban farming, where vacant or public land is typically put to agricultural use by residents.

The average share price is $500 to $800 a season across the country, Ms. Nazelrod said, though community-supported agriculture seems most popular on the coasts and around the Great Lakes region. The states with the most farms, she said, include New York, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and California.

“The C.S.A. provides a base that’s certain, and we get the money when we need to spend the money,” said Beth Propst, who farms the fields at Erehwon, using the abbreviation for community-supported agriculture. “Having the money upfront and guaranteed, that gets us through at least the beginning of the season.”

The operations are as diverse as they are numerous.

Erehwon — the word “nowhere” spelled backward — started with two shareholders, reached its goal of 140 last year, and now has raised its target to about 200 members. Another farm in the Chicago area where the community sponsors the crops, Angelic Organics, makes weekly deliveries to more than 1,400 families in Illinois and Wisconsin.

At least 24 vegetable farmers serve an estimated 6,500 members throughout the five boroughs of New York City, said Paula Lukats of Just Food, which connects farmers with residents there. In 2005, there were 37 C.S.A. groups in the city; today, there are 61.

The Golden Earthworm Organic Farm, on 80 acres on the North Fork of Long Island, grew from 10 members in 2000 to about 1,300 this year, according to Matthew Kurek, one of the owners. About half of the members live in Queens, he said, and the farm delivers their weekly shares to six different sites there, mainly churches and community centers, 26 weeks a year. The farm grows arugula, strawberries and sugar snap peas in the spring; watermelon, eggplant and tomatoes in the summer; and broccoli, potatoes and carrots in the fall.

At the Cattleana Ranch in Omro, Wis., Thomas and Susan Wrchota offer grass-fed meat and organic produce through a community-supported arrangement. They have 55 members, and a seven-month meat membership costs $715.

Mr. Wrchota developed a taste for grass-fed beef while working for the Peace Corps in Costa Rica in the 1970s. When he returned home, he said, he was at a loss for that particular flavor and eventually decided to raise animals himself, starting with just one cow.

“We don’t do millions in revenue, but we make a living, which is rare,” he said. “Our goal is to provide a full portfolio of products for folks who want sustainable products. Up until about five years ago, we had to do a tremendous amount of guerrilla marketing. The consumer who is interested now, they’re doing their homework. They know the health and taste benefits.”

Teresa Crisco is one such consumer in Little Rock, Ark. She is a member of the community-supported agriculture program at the Heifer Ranch, an international humanitarian relief organization that is experimenting with how to make such arrangements more popular and profitable for farmers around the world.

“You feel like you’re doing more than one thing: you’re helping the project and you’re helping yourself,” said Ms. Crisco, a document specialist at a mortgage company who heard about the program from a friend. “The whole premise is really neat.”

Here in Illinois, Erehwon sold out of shares last year and had to turn people away.

Tim Fuller, Ms. Propst’s longtime companion and business partner in running the farm, said: “People are coming to us. We do very little marketing except for explaining what we do. It’s amazing.”

With a wry smile, Mr. Fuller said he considers himself both personal farmer and personal trainer, because shareholders under his direction are going to break a sweat.

“There’s always pressure on,” he said. “This is a complicated business, growing so many crops. We do everything by hand for more than 100 different crops.”

The farm expects to gross between $80,000 and $90,000 this year.

Some shareholders said they found the arrangement a bargain compared to grocery shopping, while others considered it a worthwhile indulgence. Most agreed that the urge to buy and spend locally — to avoid the costs and environmental degradation that come with shipping and storage — was behind the decision to join. Shareholders can pick up their goods at the farm or at a store across the street.

“From a ‘going green’ standpoint, it’s an appropriate thing to do,” said Gerard Brill, a musician who bought a share of Erehwon. “Like everything organic, it’s not a bargain, but what price do you put on being healthy? Considering all things, it’s actually a very good deal.”

The downside for people who are used to grocery shopping comes when they want fresh blueberries in January or, as was the case at Erehwon last week, the tomato plants needed more time in the ground because of a cold spring.

“We eat with the seasons, and there’s no guarantee that Mother Nature will cooperate,” Ms. Propst said. “That’s all part of the deal.”


]]> 2008-07-11T11:30:01-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/bee_swarms_in_new_jersey_spur_hope_of_rebound_from_us_die_off/ {summary} Bees

By Joseph Galante
Bloomberg
June 26, 2008


Seth Belson remembers getting a phone call last month asking him to remove a bee swarm the size of a Volkswagen from a man's front yard in Merchantville, New Jersey.

The beekeeper found a mass of bees towering 50 feet (15.2 meters) above the ground. There was nothing he could do but wait for them to move on, he said.

``It was mind blowing,'' Belson said. ``It sounds like a train when 50,000 bees take off within seconds of each other.''

Swarms of wild honeybees have increased in the U.S. mid- Atlantic region this year, according to Belson and other experts. That's a hopeful sign for commercial beekeepers across the country, who have seen their hives devastated in recent years by parasitic mites and a phenomenon termed Colony Collapse Disorder.

Nationally, the commercial honeybee population dropped more than 36 percent last winter, according to a survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America released in May. Commercial bees, which do most of the pollinating for one-third of U.S. crops, have declined over the past two decades to about 2.3 million honey- producing colonies from about 3.5 million.

Belson says he has removed about 40 swarms at elementary schools, golf courses and houses this year, compared with one call to do so the past two years.

`Premature to Say'

``Hopefully it's a sign that bees are coming back, but it's very premature to say that,'' said Belson, who is president of the South Jersey Beekeepers Association. ``If this happens over the next two years we'll call it a trend. At this point it's just a hopeful aberration.''

A resurgence of feral honeybees is important because beekeepers build their farms in part by collecting from the wild. It may also suggest that some bees are building immunity to the varroa mite, a common killer of colonies, said Tim Schuler, New Jersey's chief beekeeper.

Schuler and other experts attribute the new swarms this season to mild weather and abundant rain. Commercial bees add $15 billion annually in value to U.S. crops, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Gary Neil, a beekeeper in Williamstown, New Jersey, said he too has been removing swarms. ``We're doing a lot more than we did last year,'' he said.

There are more of the clusters in Virginia also, said Alan Fiala, former president of the Virginia State Beekeepers' Association who lives in Falls Church. Glenn Davis, a board member in Bates City, Missouri, for the Midwest Beekeepers Association, said he's gotten more calls to remove swarms as well.

The rebound may not have reached California, the nation's biggest beekeeping state. Steve Arnold, who specializes in bee removal around California's San Luis Obispo County, said he hasn't seen any signs of resurgence in wild bees. Swarms typically thrive in mild climates and the weather has been erratic in the region this year, Arnold said.

Congressional Hearing

The plight of bees and their keepers will be taken up by the U.S. Congress today, when the House Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture hears testimony from researchers and farmers on population trends and progress in understanding Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD.

Pesticides, mites and viruses are the leading suspects behind the sudden, massive disappearance of bees that occurred in 35 states and three continents last year and began in the U.S. as early as 2004.

Wild bees have a tougher time surviving than commercial bees, which are closely monitored by beekeepers, said Maryann Frazier, an apiculturist at Pennsylvania State University. Their resilience may be a sign that some bees are adapting to the diseases and parasites out there, New Jersey's Schuler said.

``There seem to be some blood lines that are more resistant to the mites than others,'' Schuler said.

The resurgence this season may be short-lived, Frazier said. ``We have years like this where we have increases in swarming,'' she said. ``It's pretty much a temporary phenomenon.''


]]> 2008-06-26T14:31:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/record_corn_prices_mean_more_expensive_meat_dairy/ {summary} Farm Economy


NEW YORK (AP) - Raging Midwest floodwaters that swallowed crops and sent corn and soybean prices soaring are about to give consumers more grief at the grocery store.

In the latest bout of food inflation, beef, pork, poultry and even eggs, cheese and milk are expected to get more expensive as livestock owners go out of business or are forced to slaughter more cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens to cope with rocketing costs for corn-based animal feed.

The floods engulfed an estimated 2 million or more acres of corn and soybean fields in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and other key growing states, sending world grain prices skyward on fears of a substantially smaller corn crop. The government will give a partial idea of how many corn acres were lost before the end of the month, but experts say the trickle-down effect could be more dramatic later this year, affecting everything from Thanksgiving turkeys to Christmas hams.

Rod Brenneman, president and chief executive of Seaboard Foods, a pork supplier in Sawnee Mission, Kan. that produces 4 million hogs a year, said high corn costs were already forcing producers in his industry to cut back on the number of animals they raise.

"There's definitely liquidation of livestock happening," and that will cause meat prices to rise later this year and into 2009, said Brenneman, who is also the vice chairman of the American Meat Institute.

Brenneman's cost for feeding a single hog has shot up $30 in the past year because of record-high prices for corn and soybeans, the main ingredients in animal feed. Passing that increase on to consumers would tack an extra 15 cents per pound onto a pork chop.

It's a similar story for U.S. beef producers, who now spend a whopping 60-70 percent of their production costs on animal feed and are seeing that number rise daily as corn prices hover near an unprecedented $8 a bushel, up from about $4 a year ago.

"This is not sustainable. The cattle industry is going to have to get smaller," said James Herring, president and CEO of Amarillo, Tex.-based Friona Industries, which buys 20 million bushels of corn each year to feed 550,000 cattle.

Corn's prices were already rising before the floods, driven up 80 percent over the past year as developing countries like China and India scramble for grains to feed people and livestock. U.S. production of ethanol, an alternative fuel that can be made with corn, has also pushed prices higher, prompting livestock owners to lobby Washington to roll back ethanol mandates.

Before the floods, corn farmers were enjoying record profits selling the grain to feed animals and for use in cereals and as a sweetener in soda and candy. But a sharply smaller corn crop could wipe out those gains.

In Iowa, the No. 1 U.S. corn grower, floods inundated about 9 percent of corn crops, representing about 1.2 million acres - almost 1.5 percent of the country's anticipated harvest.

In Indiana, another 9 percent of corn and soybean crops were flooded, potentially costing farmers up to $840 million in lost earnings, Indiana Agriculture Director Andy Miller said.

Floodwaters also tossed farm equipment, sprayed cornfields with debris and silt and sucked away large chunks of topsoil. For livestock owners and meat producers, the damage may be felt long after the corn grows back.

Even before the floods, Tyson Foods was complaining that high grain prices would drive up its costs by $600 million this year. The world's largest poultry company has already raised its prices over the past year, and expects to keep raising them, CEO Dick Bond told analysts at a conference in May.

Higher feed prices will eventually filter through to the cost of milk, cheese and yogurt, too, since 65 to 75 percent of a dairy farmers' production costs are for feed, said Chris Galen, a spokesman for the National Milk Producers Federation.

With the cost of animal feed only going higher, many poultry and dairy farmers are starting to look for cheaper alternatives.

Nebraska dairy farmer Dan Rice, who has 1,500 cows, said one alternative is to buy some of the byproducts of cereal or flour production, but they're not nearly as productive compared to corn.

"If we all feed less corn and get less production, then the price at the grocery stores are going to go up," said Rice, who supplies milk to grocery stores in Omaha and around Kansas City.

Without easy ways to cut costs, many livestock producers will have little choice but to slaughter more animals and send them to market.

"We're in survival mode now," said Paul Hill, chairman of West Liberty Foods, a turkey processor based in West Liberty, Iowa. He estimated U.S. turkey producers will reduce their flocks by 10 to 15 percent nationwide, a cutback that will send consumer prices dramatically higher.

"The cost of Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys will go up this year, and maybe even more next year," said Hill, who is also the chairman of the National Turkey Federation.

If corn were to rise to $10 a bushel, Richard Lobb, spokesman for the National Chicken Council, said recouping costs through higher retail prices may not be possible.

"Can you possibly charge enough for the chicken to recoup that investment?" he said. "That's a question no one can answer yet because it's never been done."

]]> 2008-06-23T00:39:01-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/overlooked_in_the_global_food_crisis_a_problem_with_dirt/ {summary} World Hunger




WASHINGTON (AP) - Science has provided the souped-up seeds to feed the world, through biotechnology and old-fashioned crossbreeding. Now the problem is the dirt they're planted in.

As seeds get better, much of the world's soil is getting worse and people are going hungry. Scientists say if they can get the world out of the economically triggered global food crisis, better dirt will be at the root of the solution.

Soils around the world are deteriorating with about one-fifth of the world's cropland considered degraded in some manner. The poor quality has cut production by about one-sixth, according to a World Resources Institute study. Some scientists consider it a slow-motion disaster.

In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 1 million square miles of cropland have shown a "consistent significant decline," according to a March 2008 report by a worldwide consortium of agricultural institutions.

The cause of the current global food crisis is mostly based on market forces, speculation and hoarding, experts say. But beyond the economics lie droughts and floods, plant diseases and pests, and all too often, poor soil.

A generation ago, through better types of plants, Earth's food production exploded in what was then called the "green revolution." Some people thought the problem of feeding the world was solved and moved on. However, developing these new "magic seeds" was the easy part. The crucial element, fertile soil, was missing.

"The first thing to do is to have good soil," said Hans Herren, winner of the World Food Prize. "Even the best seeds can't do anything in sand and gravel."

Herren is co-chairman of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, a collection of scientists sponsored by the United Nations and World Bank. It produced a 2,500-page report last month which, among other recommendations, emphasized a need to improve the world's soil.

Genetic improvements in corn make it possible to grow up to 9,000 pounds of corn per acre in Africa. But millions of poor African farmers only get about 500 pounds an acre "because over the years, their soils have become very infertile and they can't afford to purchase fertilizers," said Roger Leakey, a co-author of the international report and professor at James Cooke University in Australia.

Soil and water issues "have been taken for granted," said Ohio State University soil scientist Rattan Lal. "It is a problem that is not going to be solved. It's going to get worse before it gets better."

In Africa, farmers are forced to use practices that rob nutrients from the soil, not put it back, said Herren, who heads an Arlington, Va., nonprofit. Fertilizer is a quick, short-term fix, but even that isn't being done, he said.

The current crisis could have been avoided "if we, the world, had promoted fertilizer in Africa and we have known for ages it works," said Pedro Sanchez, Columbia University tropical agricultural director.

In that way, the problem with soil is a prime example of a larger failing of agriculture science, said Sanchez, who has won both the World Food Prize and a MacArthur genius grant. Scientists have the knowledge to feed the world right now, but that is not happening, Sanchez said. "It's very frustrating, especially when you see children dying."

The fruits of biotechnology and the staples of modern agricultural scientific techniques include irrigation, crop rotation, reduced tilling, use of fertilizer and improved seeds. It's a way of farming differently instead of just using better seeds that requires extra money up-front that many African farmers don't have, scientists said.

Fixing soil just isn't "sexy" enough to interest governments or charities, said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, Philippines.

Zeigler's center last week planted its 133rd crop of rice in the same land since 1963, trying to pinpoint the right combination of nitrogen and fertilizer. Better seeds worked wonders. But finding money for soil health is difficult and because of that, less work is accomplished, he said.

But there are success stories, Sanchez said, pointing to the small African country of Malawi. Three years ago, the country's new president invested 8 percent of Malawi's national budget in a subsidy program to get fertilizer and better seeds to small farmers. Each farmer got two bags of fertilizer and 4 1/2 pounds of seeds at less than half the cost.

Before the program started, one-third of Malawi was on food aid and the country wasn't growing enough food for itself, Sanchez said. It was producing 1.2 million tons of maize in 2005. In 2006, Malawi had more than doubled its production. By 2007 and 2008, the crop was up to 3.4 and 3.3 million tons. Now Malawi is exporting corn.

"In two years, the country has changed from a food aid recipient to a food aid donor and is self-sufficient," Sanchez said. "if Malawi can do it, richer countries like Nigeria, Kenya can do it."

---

On the Net:

International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: http://www.agassessment.org/index.cfm?PageAbout_IAASTD&ItemID2

Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research:

http://www.cgiar.org/

Tropical Agriculture Program at Columbia University:

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/tropag/

]]> 2008-05-10T01:46:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farmers_brace_for_their_own_economic_bubble/ {summary} Farm Economy



by Greta Cunningham,
Minnesota Public Radio
May 7, 2008


St. Paul, Minn. — A new report released Tuesday is warning Minnesota farmers against taking on too much debt and paying too much for farmland.

The report from the think tank Minnesota 20-20 found that record prices for farm land and crops could be setting up an "economic bubble" for farmers in Minnesota.

Former DFL House Minority Leader and 20-20 Chairman Matt Entenza says over the past six years, Minnesota farm prices have almost doubled. He says the boom cannot be sustained.

"We think that's its crucial first of all that all the folks in the ag sector recognize that debt right now is their enemy. That these prices will burst and if they do wind up in a situation with a lot of debt they could go down," Entenza said.

Entenza said with the state and national economy weakening, it is important to make sure the agricultural economy does not collapse.

State economist Tom Stinson says Minnesota 20-20 could be overplaying the potential for crisis. Stinson says farmers have long memories and will not get themselves into the financial squeeze that led to the farm crisis of the 1980s.

]]> 2008-05-07T13:30:01-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/bush_renews_call_for_congress_to_lower_payments_to_wealthy_farmers/ {summary} Farm Legislation


WASHINGTON (AP) -- House and Senate negotiators late Tuesday scrambled to meet President Bush's demands on a multibillion-dollar farm bill, considering cutting subsidies for wealthy farmers.

Earlier in the day, Bush had renewed his call to reduce such subsidies, saying the "massive, bloated" bill would do little to stem rising food costs. Negotiators met with Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer soon afterward.

That meeting was "sobering," said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. He said the Bush administration had a laundry list of demands for the legislation, which lawmakers were hurrying to finish before current farm law expires Friday. The law has been extended several times, and lawmakers have said another one-week extension may be necessary.

Emerging from several hours of meetings, Conrad and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said negotiators would further limit subsidies and cut other spending in response to the administration's demands.

"We moved considerably," said Harkin, though he declined to share specifics and said all of the bill's negotiators had not yet agreed on the cuts.

Lawmakers reached a tentative agreement last week on how to pay for the massive bill, which would cost almost $300 billion over the next five years, but they have not finished resolving policy issues.

One of the last sticking points is how much would be paid to farmers in a time of record crop prices.

Bush has threatened to veto the legislation and showed no signs of backing off that threat Tuesday.

"The bill Congress is now considering would fail to eliminate subsidy payments to multimillionaire farmers," Bush said. "America's farm economy is thriving. The value of farmland is skyrocketing. And this is the right time to reform our nation's farm policies by reducing unnecessary subsidies."

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., said last week that lawmakers were considering an eventual limit on payments to high-earning "nonfarmers," people who make only a small portion of their income from farming. But that wouldn't impose any income limits on wealthy farmers, Peterson said then.

Conrad said Tuesday that the bill now would have "substantial reform" for farmers and nonfarmers.

The Bush administration has sought limits that would apply to anyone who earned more than an average of $200,000 a year.

Bills passed by the House and Senate last year still would allow many wealthy farmers to collect payments. The Senate bill would eventually ban payments to nonfarmers whose income averages more than $750,000 a year. The bill defines farmers as those who earn more than two-thirds of their income from agriculture. There would be no new income-based limits on what a farmer could collect, though the bill would prohibit some farmers from collecting payments for multiple farm businesses.

The House-passed bill would ban payments to all who earn an average $1 million a year or more. It also would prohibit some farmers from collecting payments for multiple businesses.

The current cap is $2.5 million.

___

On the Net:

House Agriculture Committee: http://agriculture.house.gov/index.shtml

Senate Agriculture Committee: http://agriculture.senate.gov


]]> 2008-04-30T12:51:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/food_is_becoming_the_worlds_new_gold/ {summary} World Hunger Food has become the new gold, and the world must cope with the new reality of more expensive prices.


By ANTHONY FAIOLA,
Washington Post
April 26, 2008


The globe's worst food crisis in a generation emerged as a blip on the big boards of America's great grain exchanges. At first, it seemed like little more than a bout of bad weather.

In Chicago, Minneapolis and Kansas City, traders watched from the pits early last summer as wheat prices spiked amid mediocre harvests in the United States and Europe and signs of prolonged drought in Australia. But within a few weeks, the traders discerned an ominous snowball effect -- one that would eventually bring down a prime minister in Haiti, make more children in Mauritania go to bed hungry, even cause Sam's Club to restrict U.S. sales of rice.

As prices rose, major grain producers battling inflation, caused in part by soaring oil bills, were moving to bar exports on a range of crops to control costs at home. It meant less supply on world markets even as global demand entered a fundamentally new phase. Already, corn prices had been climbing for months on the back of booming government-subsidized ethanol programs. Demand for soybeans was surging in China. But as supplies in the pipelines of global trade shrank, prices began shooting through the roof.

At the same time, food was becoming the new gold. Investors fleeing Wall Street's mortgage-related strife plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into grain futures, driving prices up even more. By Christmas, a global panic was building. With fewer places to turn, and tempted by the weaker dollar, nations staged a run on the American wheat harvest.

Foreign buyers, who typically seek to purchase one or two months' supply of wheat at a time, suddenly began to stockpile. This led major domestic U.S. mills to jump into the fray with their own massive orders, fearing that there would soon be no wheat left at any price.

"Japan, the Philippines, [South] Korea, Taiwan -- they all came in with huge orders, and no matter how high prices go, they keep on buying," said Jeff Voge, chairman of the Kansas City Board of Trade. Some traders walked off the floor for weeks at a time, unable to take the stress.

"We have never seen anything like this before," Voge said. "... But no matter the price, there always seems to be a buyer. ... This isn't just any commodity. It is food, and people need to eat."

Consequences: Riots and turmoil

The food price shock now roiling world markets is destabilizing governments, igniting street riots and threatening to send a new wave of hunger rippling through the world's poorest nations.

At least 14 countries have been racked by food-related violence. After hungry mobs and violent riots beset Port-au-Prince, Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis was forced to step down earlier this month. At least 14 countries have been racked by food-related violence. In Malaysia, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is struggling for political survival after a March rebuke from voters furious over food prices. In Bangladesh, more than 20,000 factory workers protesting food prices rampaged through the streets two weeks ago.

To quell unrest, countries are digging deep to boost food subsidies. The U.N. World Food Program has warned of an alarming surge in hunger in areas as far-flung as North Korea and West Africa. The crisis, it fears, will plunge more than 100 million of the world's poorest people deeper into poverty, forced to spend more and more of their income on skyrocketing food bills.

"This crisis could result in a cascade of others ... and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said.

Coping: No breakfast, little lunch

As farmers rush to plant more wheat now that profit prospects have climbed, analysts predict that prices may come down as much as 30 percent in the coming months. But that would still leave a year-over-year price hike of 45 percent, suggesting that the world must cope with a new reality of more expensive food.


]]> 2008-04-27T12:13:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/analysis_congressional_climate_has_become_tougher_for_farm_bill/ {summary} Farm Legislation


WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's not a good year for a farm bill.

Crop prices are sky-high. President Bush, who thinks the nation's farm program is bloated, is leaving office and doesn't need to court voters in rural America. There is less budget money to work with. The leadership in Congress doesn't exactly hail from farm country, and those lawmakers who do also must grapple with bigger election-year problems — such as mounting job losses and a deepening foreclosure crisis.

"When you don't have enough budget the fights become more intense over those precious resources," said Tom Buis, president of the National Farmers Union. "You kind of have this perfect storm, all coming together at the same time, and you add in a lot of new players to the farm bill process, people that just say, 'Oh, farmers are greedy' or 'Farmers don't need this.'"

Things were different in 2002, when the last bill to expand agriculture and nutrition programs was written. Back then, rural America was recovering from hard times and there was more federal money to be spread around.

Bush was never a fan of the bill, but he signed it anyway with lukewarm praise. He still faced a re-election campaign, and his party was eyeing a Senate takeover.

"It's not a perfect bill, I know that," he said then.

This year, as Congress struggles to rewrite a new farm bill, Bush has less to lose. His administration has taken a hard line on multibillion-dollar farm bills passed by the House and Senate that would expand farmer subsidies even as crop prices skyrocket.

Congressional dynamics have also changed since the last farm bill. Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader from South Dakota who brokered the negotiations six years ago, lost his seat in 2004. Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, also hailed from a farm state, Texas.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada have not traditionally been involved in farm debates. Reid's home state has little agriculture and Pelosi is from urban San Francisco.

Bush has threatened to veto both the House and Senate bills. That opposition and congressional infighting have stalled the bill, and negotiations are in disarray.

Negotiators face several obstacles. The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate agriculture committees, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, have lost control of the legislation as tax packages were added to both bills to help pay for them and win votes.

That has brought into the mix House Ways and Means Committee chairman Charlie Rangel, who represents few farmers in his New York City district. He and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., are charged with finding an extra $10 billion for the bill but have agreed on very little.

At a farm bill meeting in Rangel's office Thursday, shouting could be heard behind closed doors. Several senators, including Baucus, left angrily.

"Let's just say it wasn't good," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said afterward.

Members of the House say the farm bill is not the only thing widening the gap between the Baucus and Rangel. Contentious negotiations between the two tax committees on economic stimulus and other issues have left hard feelings on both sides, and the farm bill may bear some of the brunt of that.

"This is not the first time horns have been locked," said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, a North Dakota Democrat who sits on both the Agriculture and Ways and Means committees and is trying to help find a compromise. "I don't think there is any question that the farm bill encountered some of the scarring that occurred in earlier legislative battles."

Both sides traded offers Friday and a deal could still come together by April 25, when the bill is now set to expire after Bush reluctantly agreed to extend current law for a fourth time. If a deal doesn't happen, the law may have to be extended for a year or longer.

Farm-state lawmakers say an extension is not ideal and the new legislation is still needed, even if it isn't needed now. Gas prices are high, hurting farmers and ranchers who use a lot of fuel. And crop prices could always drop.

Farming, like writing a farm bill, is a volatile business.

]]> 2008-04-19T12:55:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/congress_sends_1_week_farm_law_extension_to_bush_who_has_threatened_veto/ {summary}

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress sent President Bush a one-week extension of current farm law Thursday as the House and Senate continued to argue over how to pay for a multibillion-dollar farm bill.

Administration officials have warned that Bush may not sign the extension, which would allow the law to expire April 25. It was passed by the House on Wednesday and the Senate on Thursday.

President Bush has threatened to veto the House and Senate bills, which would cost roughly $280 billion over five years to expand agriculture and nutrition programs. He says they are too expensive and would not sufficiently cut subsidy payments to wealthy farmers in a time of robust farm prices.

Deputy Agriculture Secretary Charles Conner said Wednesday that Bush would only sign the extension if it appeared negotiators had made significant progress on the bill, and the administration had not seen that progress.

Negotiations are in disarray as lawmakers from the House and Senate are squabbling over how to pay for the legislation. House and Senate negotiators have suggested a number of different ways to come up with an extra $10 billion needed for the bill, including some ideas the White House has backed previously. But administration officials have rejected most of their ideas, saying they would rather use the money for other priorities.

House members have also objected to several tax breaks in the Senate bill, including provisions to help owners of race horses, landowners who find endangered species on their property and those involved in litigation over the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., have said that many of those tax provisions are not acceptable. The tax package, which also includes a $5 billion program for farmers who lose crops to bad weather, was drawn up by the Senate Finance Committee and helped win 79 votes for the farm bill in that chamber last year.

Private meetings did not produce a deal Thursday, as members from each chamber rejected offers from the other.

"Let's just say it wasn't good," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., said afterward, declining to comment further.

Bush said last month that lawmakers should stop relying on short-term fixes and extend current law for at least a year if it expired without a new law in place. This would be the fourth time the 2002 law, which expires Friday, has been extended.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said on the Senate floor Thursday that he would object to any future extensions, which could bring more urgency to the process. An objection could force a Senate vote instead of easy passage by unanimous consent as the chamber did Thursday.

Peterson said on Wednesday that negotiators might need more time beyond the one additional week.

]]> 2008-04-18T04:02:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/dangerous_animal_virus_on_us_mainland/ {summary} Animal Health


WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak.

Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry.

One such government report, produced last year and already turned over to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department, combined commercial satellite images and federal farm data to show the proximity to livestock herds of locations that have been considered for the new lab. "Would an accidental laboratory release at these locations have the potential to affect nearby livestock?" asked the nine-page document. It did not directly answer the question.

A simulated outbreak of the disease - part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" - ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

"It was a mess," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who portrayed the president in the 2002 exercise. Now, like other lawmakers from the states under consideration, Roberts supports moving the government's new lab to his state. Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. "It will mean jobs" and spur research and development, he says.

The other possible locations for the new National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility are Athens, Ga.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss. The new site could be selected later this year, and the lab would open by 2014. The numbers of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the finalists range from 542,507 in Kansas to 132,900 in Georgia, according to the Homeland Security study.

Foot-and-mouth virus can be carried on a worker's breath or clothes, or vehicles leaving a lab, and is so contagious it has been confined to Plum Island, N.Y., for more than a half-century - far from commercial livestock. The existing lab is 100 miles northeast of New York City in the Long Island Sound, accessible only by ferry or helicopter. Researchers there who work with the live virus are not permitted to own animals at home that would be susceptible, and they must wait at least a week before attending outside events where such animals might perform, such as a circus.

The White House says modern safety rules at labs are sufficient to avoid any outbreak. But incidents in Britain have demonstrated that the foot-and-mouth virus can cause remarkable economic havoc - and that the virus can escape from a facility.

An epidemic in 2001 devastated Britain's livestock industry, as the government slaughtered 6 million sheep, cows and pigs. Last year, in a less serious outbreak, Britain's health and safety agency concluded the virus probably escaped from a site shared by a government research center and a vaccine maker. Other outbreaks have occurred in Taiwan in 1997 and China last year and in 2006.

If even a single cow signals an outbreak in the U.S., emergency plans permit the government to shut down all exports and movement of livestock. Herds would be quarantined, and a controlled slaughter could be started to stop the disease from spreading.

Infected animals weaken and lose weight. Milk cows don't produce milk. They remain highly infectious, even if they survive the virus.

The Homeland Security Department is convinced it can safely operate the lab on the mainland, saying containment procedures at high-security labs have improved. The livestock industry is divided. Some experts, including the former director at the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center, say research ought to be kept away from cattle populations - and, ideally, placed where the public already has accepted dangerous research.

The former director, Dr. Roger Breeze, suggested the facility could be safely located at the Atlanta campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., home of The United States Army Medical Research Institute for infectious diseases.

Another possibility, Breeze said, is on Long Island, where there is no commercial livestock industry. That would allow retention of most of the current Plum Island employees.

Asked about the administration's finalist sites located near livestock, Breeze said: "It seems a little odd. It goes against the ... safety program of the last 50 years."

The former head of the U.S. Agriculture Department's Agricultural Research Service said Americans are not prepared for a foot-and-mouth outbreak that has been avoided on the mainland since 1929.

"The horrific prospect of exterminating potentially millions of animals is not something this country's ready for," said Dr. Floyd Horn.

The Agriculture Department ran the Plum Island lab until 2003. It was turned over to the Homeland Security Department because preventing an outbreak is now part of the nation's biological defense program.

Plum Island researchers work on detection of the disease, strategies to control epidemics including vaccines and drugs, tests of imported animals to ensure they are free of the virus and training of professionals.

The new facility will add research on diseases that can be transferred from animals to humans. The Plum Island facility is not secure enough to handle that higher-level research.

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also are worried about the lab's likely move to the mainland. The chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and the head of the investigations subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., are threatening to subpoena records they say Homeland Security is withholding from Congress. Those records include reports about "Crimson Sky," an internal review about a publicized 1978 accidental release of foot-and-mouth disease on Plum Island and reports about any previously undisclosed virus releases on the island during the past half century.

The lawmakers set a deadline of Friday for the administration to turn over reports they requested. Otherwise, they warned in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, they will arrange a vote next week to issue a congressional subpoena.

A new facility at Plum Island is technically a possibility. Signs point to a mainland site, however, after the administration spent considerable time and money scouting new locations. Also, there are financial concerns about operating from a location accessible only by ferry or helicopter.

The Homeland Security Department says laboratory animals would not be corralled outside the new facility, and they would not come into contact with local livestock. All work with the virus and lab waste would be handled securely and any material leaving would be treated and monitored to ensure it was sterilized.

"Containment technology has improved dramatically since foot-and-mouth disease prohibitions were put in place in 1948," Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said.

Cattle farmers and residents are divided over the proposal to move the lab to the mainland.

"I would like to believe we could build a facility, with the knowledge and technology we have available, that would be basically safe from a bio-security standpoint," said John Stuedemann, a cattle farmer near Athens, Ga., and a former scientist at the Agriculture Department.

Nearby, community activist Grady Thrasher in Athens is worried about an outbreak from a research lab. Thrasher, a former securities lawyer, has started a petition drive against moving the lab to Georgia, saying the risks are too great.

"There's no way you can balance that equation by putting this in the middle of a community where it will do the most harm," Thrasher said. "The community is now aroused, so I think we have a majority against this."

In North Carolina, commissioners in Granville County originally endorsed moving the lab to their area but later withdrew support. Officials from Homeland Security ultimately met with residents for more than four hours, but the commissioners have taken no further action to back the facility.

"Accidents are going to happen 50 years down the road or one year down the road," said Bill McKellar, a pharmacist in Butner, N.C., who leads an opposition group that has formed a research committee of lawyers and doctors.

]]> 2008-04-11T11:27:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farmers_expected_to_plant_less_corn/ {summary} Farm Markets


WASHINGTON (AP) - Farmers are expected to plant less corn this year, according to the Department of Agriculture, and that could mean higher bills at the grocery store.

Corn prices have skyrocketed in recent years, helped by the burgeoning ethanol industry, which turns the crop into fuel, and rising worldwide demand for food. The higher prices have hurt poultry, beef and pork companies, who use corn to feed their animals.

Farmers are expected to plant 86 million acres of corn this year, the government predicted Monday, down 8 percent from 2007, when the amount of corn planted was the highest since World War II. The decreased supply could drive corn prices even higher - a cost for food producers that could be passed on to consumers.

According to the agriculture department, corn planting is expected to remain at historically high levels but could be down this year because of the high expense of growing corn and favorable prices for other crops, such as soybeans.

As many farmers have made that switch, soybean planting is expected to be up 18 percent this year, at almost 75 million acres. The largest increases in soybean planting are expected in Iowa and Nebraska.

Though the ethanol industry is heavily subsidized and has contributed to the rise in prices, a decrease in corn production could hurt that business, too. Higher prices for the crop could be passed on to those filling their cars up with the renewable fuel.

The number of ethanol plants has increased from 50 in 1999 to 134 now with more being built, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. An average, 100 million gallon-per-year ethanol plant consumes about 33 million bushels of corn.

The Department of Agriculture report is based on sample surveys of 86,000 farm operators in the first two weeks of March.


]]> 2008-03-31T13:20:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/farmers_can_save_on_crop_insurance_with_gmo_corn/ {summary} Farm Economy


by Dan Gunderson,
Minnesota Public Radio
March 25, 2008


For the first time, the federal government is endorsing a specific genetically modified crop. Minnesota is one of four states taking part in the pilot program. Farmers who plant a Monsanto corn variety can get a price break on their crop insurance premiums. But many farmers are skeptical.

Moorhead, MN — Corn gets a lot of attention from biotechnology companies and as a result, has had a number of genetic modifications which make corn plants resistant to insects, disease and specific herbicides.

Monsanto put all the genetic modifications in a single plant, a process that's called stacking genetic traits.

The federal government says the triple stack genetic technology is less risky to grow so farmers should pay less to insure that specific variety.

Federal Risk Management Agency Administrator Eldon Gould says the goal is to save farmers and taxpayers money.

"The premium that the farmer is going to pay is subsidized by the taxpayer so by the fact the farmer is paying less on his portion of the premium, the taxpayer is paying less on the taxpayer portion of the premium so there is in fact a savings to the taxpayer," says Gould.

Monsanto is the first company to qualify for the crop insurance reduction allowed by Congress. Monsanto New Business Development Manager Tim Hennessy says the federal endorsement is a competitive edge,

"This really opens the door for future submissions like this. The process is very thorough and a rigorous evaluation that requires substantial amounts of data. So it's not something that can be built around just any product, but certainly those products that represent that, I do think it opens the door for a lot of future opportunity," says Hennessy.

To prove its genetically modified crop is less risky to insure, Monsanto needed to provide three years of data. Federal officials say the data proved the crop produced higher yields under adverse conditions. That means farmer are less likely to get payments from their crop insurance policy, and that would save taxpayers money.

Monsanto says farmers can save $3.00 to $7.00 per acre on their crop insurance if they plant triple stack corn.

So, Minnesota farmers are flocking to the program, right? Maybe not.

Several farmers say they plan to use the triple stack corn variety, but they're not signing up for the crop insurance savings.

Jerry Larson says there's some fear of government red tape. Larson raises corn in western Minnesota. He recently attended an informational meeting about the program.

"I suppose there was 50 farmers there and there was some skepticism about the amount of detail that was being required," recalls Larson.

At least 75 percent of a farmers corn crop must be the Monsanto variety to qualify for the insurance price break. Larson says he could save $6.00 per acre on crop insurance by using only Monsanto triple stack seed, but he's not ready to switch all of his loyalty to one company.

"I think other companies feel like it wasn't fair. But Monsanto took the initiative. My suspicion is other companies will get on board and maybe the insurance industry will broaden the parameters a little bit to make it more user friendly," says Larson.

Farmers are also concerned about the complex record keeping required by the program. They need detailed records of exactly where the genetically modified crops are planted, because insurance companies will do random testing.

There are also Environmental Protection Agency rules to follow. When farmers plant a genetically modified crop, 20 percent of the field must be a buffer zone of plants that are not genetically modified. Federal Risk Management Agency Director Eldon Gould says he understands the skepticism among farmers. He doesn't even have a good guess as to how many farmers will embrace a single corn variety in exchange for crop insurance savings.

"That remains to be seen and I'm just as curious as the next person to see what happens when this all shakes out and we get the totals by the middle of the summer," says Gould.

He believes it may take a couple of years for farmers to get comfortable with the new program, but Gould says they should get used to it, because in the future it's likely there will be more government incentives to plant genetically modified crops.

]]> 2008-03-25T22:22:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/drought_monitor_storm_system_drops_moderate_precipitation_across_midwest/ {summary} Farm Economy

Cattle News
January 24, 2008


The Southeast and Mid-Atlantic: Once again, significant precipitation fell on the Southeast and mid-Atlantic, although the greatest totals (2 to 5 inches) were shifted farther south compared to the previous week. A wave of low pressure formed along a stalled cold front in the Gulf of Mexico and tracked northeastward, dropping over 2 inches of rain along the Gulf and southern Atlantic Coasts, with mixed precipitation and lower totals (0.5 to 1.5 inches) farther north in the southern Appalachians, mid-Atlantic, and New England. The precipitation continued a pattern of near- to above-normal precipitation for the drought-stricken Southeast since early December, although the core of the extreme to exceptional drought (D3-D4) received between 0.5 to 1 inches. This was far less than last week, which kept conditions status-quo there, but did include rare accumulating Southern snows.

In contrast, the heavy rains along the Gulf Coast were enough to alleviate abnormal dryness in extreme southern sections of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, and improve portions of southern and eastern Georgia, eastern South Carolina, and extreme southeastern North Carolina by 1-category. Nearly all monitored USGS stream flows at 1-, 7-, 14-, and 28-days (ending Jan. 22) have risen back into the normal range (30th to 70th percentiles), and short-term surpluses (30- and 60-days) have accumulated in these aforementioned areas, especially aiding the topsoil moisture. However, it should be noted that some states have maintained their severe drought status even after the recent precipitation as reservoirs, ground water, and many rivers remained at very low levels. This included South Carolina, where Lakes Marion and Moultrie were at very low elevations, and approximately 26% and 56% of the population is under mandatory and voluntary water conservation, respectively. In northern Georgia, Lake Lanier, the major water supply for Atlanta, was at 1051.38 feet at Buford Dam, only a tad above its record low of 1050.79 feet on Dec. 26, although other reservoirs were doing better (e.g., West Point and George were above the top of conservation level). Farther north, another round of light to moderate precipitation (0.2 to 0.8 inches) trimmed the northern edge of the D0 from eastern Kentucky into the Delmarva Peninsula where surpluses now exist out to 90-days.

The Great Lakes Region and Midwest: For the third consecutive week, a storm system dropped moderate precipitation (0.4 to 0.7 inches liquid equivalent, or 5 to 10 inches of snow) on the upper Great Lakes region, upping the snow depths to between one and two feet and creating a 30-day surplus of 1 to 3 inches. Accordingly, the recent precipitation was enough to decrease the D1 in northeastern Wisconsin, although D0(H) persisted as precipitation remained below normal from 90-days out to 12-months plus. In east-central Missouri and southwestern Illinois, little or no precipitation fell on the small area of D0(H) as 1-, 7-, 14-, and 28-day USGS stream flows stayed in the lower 25th percentile, although no other impacts were noted.

The Plains: Much of the Plains experienced little or no precipitation and very cold weather, with temperatures averaging 4 to 10°F below normal and lows plunging to -25°F in eastern Montana and North Dakota, 0°F as far south as the Oklahoma Panhandle, and into the teens into south-central Texas. After last week’s expansion, conditions were left status-quo, except in the upper Missouri Valley. With less than 25% of the normal precipitation during the past 90-days, some degradation was made in eastern Montana, based upon suggestions from the latest Montana drought subcommittee. In contrast, heavy rains soaked extreme southeastern Texas (along the western Gulf Coast as mentioned in the Southeast and mid-Atlantic section) where 1.5 to 5 inches improved conditions by 1-category along the Texas coast.

The Rockies, Intermountain West, and Far West: After a very wet December, especially in the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and central Rockies, and a very stormy but beneficial early January that doubled snow water equivalent and season-to-date precipitation in the Sierra Nevada and brought values close to normal, the weather has gradually quieted down, particularly this week. A much colder weather pattern (departures -4 to -15°F in the Far West, -6 to -20°F in the Rockies) only brought light precipitation (0.1 to 0.5 inches) to the Pacific Northwest, Sierra Nevada, and northern and central Rockies (although 0.5 to 1.5 inches in the north-central Rockies), and little or no precipitation to the Southwest and Intermountain West. After further assessment, however, from the latest NRCS/USDA products and recent state drought updates and surveys, additional improvements were made in the northern Rockies. In western Montana, the recent state drought report depicted a 1-category improvement due to above-normal precipitation (105-115% of normal) and seasonable snow water equivalent (SWE), while Idaho has also benefited from frequent Pacific storminess this season. In central Idaho, water year (Oct. 1) precipitation has run from 110% to 130% and SWE from 100% to 115%. In response, the D1 was removed from central Idaho, and the D1-D2 was shifted farther south in Idaho. The rest of the West was left untouched as one to three categories of improvement have already been made in the West since the late Fall.

Alaska: Above-normal temperatures accompanied light snow (0.1 to 0.3 inches liquid equivalent) across most of interior and northeastern Alaska, slightly building up the area’s snow depth, but not enough to remove the region’s abnormal dryness.

Looking Ahead: For January 24-28, cold weather will envelop the lower 48 states early in the period, but by the weekend, milder air will return to the eastern half of the nation. A few weak systems will generate light showers in the southern Great Plains and the western Gulf Coast, and lake-effect snows will blanket orographically favored parts of the Great Lakes. In the West, an upper-air low off the California Coast will bring more January precipitation to California, Sierra Nevada, and Great Basin, with heavier totals expected by the weekend as the system gradually tracks inland. The Rockies should receive light precipitation on Sunday, and as the system moves into the nation’s mid-section on Monday, showers will occur from the upper Delta to the upper Great Lakes region, with snow in the upper Midwest.

]]> 2008-01-24T16:12:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/florida_is_spared_crop_damage/ {summary} Farm Economy
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Flurries fell across the Sunshine State on Thursday, but it appeared that growers were spared the deep freeze they feared would devastate the nation's citrus supply. Meanwhile, California was preparing for a trio of storms expected to unleash heavy rain and snow through the weekend.

A serious freeze in Florida would have meant more damage to the nation's biggest citrus industry, already struggling from years of diseases and hurricanes. Most orange and grapefruit groves are in Central and South Florida, where temperatures hovered in high 20s and low 30s. Trees can be ruined when temperatures fall to 28 degrees for four hours.

"Mother Nature cut us a break this time and now we can continue to produce the quality citrus crop Florida is known for," said Michael W. Sparks, executive vice president and CEO of grower advocacy group Florida Citrus Mutual.

Temperatures were not below freezing for long enough to cause widespread damage to Florida's citrus trees, the group said. In fact, the cold could benefit some growers because it slows down growth and hardens up citrus trees.

Growers had tried to harvest as many mature fruits and vegetables as possible, and tried to protect plants by spraying them with water that freezes, insulating the temperature at 32.

Orange-juice futures for immediate delivery fell 6.2 cents Thursday to settle at $1.4110 a pound on the New York Board of Trade.

Citrus crops were not the only ones at risk in Florida. Around the state, farmers were checking on other crops that Florida produces in the winter for much of the country, including strawberries and vegetables. While citrus was spared, strawberry crops may not have been as fortunate - and farmers likely would not know the extent of damage for a few days.

"I feel confident we're going to have some damage," said Carl Grooms, a Plant City strawberry farmer. Temperatures in his fields hovered around 27 degrees for several hours overnight.

The cold temperatures did not appear to damage cabbage, broccoli and other crops growing in north Florida. Those are more resistant to freezes, said Terry McElroy, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Temperatures in many areas of northern Florida dropped into the 20s early Thursday, following the 30-degree temperatures some northern parts of the state saw Wednesday. Snow flurries were reported near the Daytona Beach coastline, the first in Florida since 2006.

In Louisiana, strawberry farmers covered their crops in an attempt to protect them. Peach farmers, however, welcomed the cold, which they say benefits their fruit trees during their period of dormancy.

"The more cold weather we have, the better," said Joe Mitchum, a peach grower outside Ruston, La.

On the West Coast, three storms were expected to bring more than a foot of rain to mudslide-prone canyons, dump several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada and buffet the state with hurricane-force winds.

The first in the trio of storms began with sprinkles along Northern California coast, but the heaviest precipitation was expected Friday night and Saturday. By Thursday afternoon, blustery winds had already forced some Sierra ski resorts to shut down lifts.

Forecasters issued a rare blizzard warning for the Sierra Nevada, with up to 10 feet of snow in higher elevation areas, and predicted 30-foot coastal swells by Saturday.

In Southern California, the wind was expected to be less severe, but homeowners struggling to rebuild after October's wildfires braced for torrential rain that could bring flash floods and mudslides.

Lowland areas around Los Angeles and Orange County were expected to get up to 4 inches by Monday, while mountain areas of Southern California could get 10 inches.

Officials urged homeowners in mudslide-prone areas to stock up on sandbags, monitor the news for evacuations and keep an eye on streams and flood control channels for flooding. Fire stations throughout the region were handing out free sandbags.

Steve Enochs, 52, said he put 80 hay bales around his backyard to keep water away from his home, which sits directly beneath a towering canyon wall that burned during last fall's wildfires.

"I'm worried. See that hill up there? This whole canyon's burned and there's a huge watershed up this canyon that's all burned too," he said. "It's a pretty dangerous threat."

The storm could dampen the San Diego Chargers' playoff game against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday. A Qualcomm Stadium official said that if the rain persists, the field will be covered by a tarp until one hour before the game.

]]> 2008-01-04T01:16:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/citrus_growers_shiver_as_cold_lingers/ {summary} Farm Economy


ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Florida citrus growers spent an uneasy night as a blast of bone-chilling air lingered over the East, forcing some farmers to try to save their crop beneath a layer of ice.

Growers were doing two things - harvesting as many mature fruits and vegetables as possible, and trying to protect plants by spraying them with water that freezes, insulating the temperature at 32.

Based on early reports, citrus industry officials believe the state's groves escaped major damage, because it didn't get as cold as forecast.

"Overall, this is preliminary, but it looks like we have dodged a bullet," said Rusty Wiygul, director of grower affairs for Florida Citrus Mutual. He said there will be pockets of minor damage.

Temperatures in many areas of northern Florida dropped into the 20s early Thursday, following the 30-degree temperatures some northern parts of the state saw Wednesday. Cross City was 20. Farther south, Orlando was 31 and it was 39 in Miami.

People in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, the Gulf Coast and the Ohio Valley woke up to sub-freezing temperatures.

Upstate New York had single-digit readings and wind chills well below zero. At 7 a.m., it was 8 degrees below zero in Watertown, N.Y., with the wind chill making it feel like 20 below. In Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, it was 17 below with calm winds.

The lowest reading in Maine was 23 below near Ashland, the National Weather Service said. Ohio saw 9 degrees at Cleveland Hopkins Airport, 8 in Youngstown and 7 in Dayton.

People shivered overnight inside about 1,000 homes that lost power in the Cincinnati suburb of Madeira after a vehicle hit a utility pole around 12:30 a.m. Duke Energy indicates nearly all the customers were back on by 6 a.m.

On the West Coast, a trio of rainstorms was expected to hit Southern California this weekend, with the first band of showers set to arrive Thursday.

The heaviest precipitation is expected overnight Friday, with lowland areas around Los Angeles and Orange County getting a total of up to 4 inches and mountain areas up to 6 inches.

Officials urged homeowners in mudslide-prone areas to stock up on sandbags, monitor the news for evacuations and keep an eye on local streams and flood control channels for flooding. Fire stations throughout the region were handing out free sandbags.

Citrus crops were not the only ones at risk in Florida. A broad variety of plants and produce - from broccoli and cabbage in the north to strawberries, tomatoes and corn in the south - are also threatened.

In Louisiana, strawberry farmers covered their crops with material in an attempt to protect them. Peach farmers, however, welcomed the cold, which they say benefits their fruit trees during their period of dormancy.

"The more cold weather we have, the better," said Joe Mitchum, a peach grower outside Ruston, La.

The unusually low temperatures led New Orleans emergency officials to enact a "freeze plan" on New Year's Eve, allowing homeless shelters to temporarily exceed their fire safety capacity. Six shelters took on 700 extra cots between them, boosting the city's capacity of about 400 shelter beds. The plan is expected to last through Thursday.

Snow fell Wednesday from Ohio through eastern Kentucky and West Virginia into parts of Virginia and Maryland. West Virginia's rugged Randolph County got 13 inches, the Weather Service said.

At least 40 of West Virginia's 55 counties closed schools Wednesday because of snow-covered roads and freezing temperatures. Dozens of schools also were closed Wednesday in southeastern Michigan.


]]> 2008-01-03T14:08:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/opportunity_to_maximize_grass_production_per_acre/ {summary} Farm Economy
By EUGENE ELHARD
Extension Educator/Agriculture Dickey County, SD
Published in the Aberdeen News


ELLENDALE, N.D. - Dickey County has considerable grassland acreage. Two pieces of information came across my desk in December relating to grass or forage production: “Cook Season Grasses for Norther Plains” and “Pharo Cattle Newsletter.” We have an opportunity to maximize grass production per acre, but we'll have to do things differently.

I received a newsletter from Pharo Cattle Company, Colo.; it has application to Dickey County. Kit Pharo writes in his November/December newsletter “Solar Energy” is your source of income and wealth. He drew out a flow chart of sunshine on plants, yield growth that is consumed by cattle which yields pounds of beef that are sold for dollars.

Solar energy is free and the key is to collect it to maximize its use for your benefit. That's where we need green leaves to capture and convert that solar energy to plant volume. Thus we must never allow our rangeland to be grazed so severely that it has no leaves. No leaves, no solar energy collected.

Secondly, we must ensure that once a plant has been grazed, it is allowed ample time for rest and re-growth before it's grazed again. Cattle like that re-growth and will continue to graze it.

The answer to maximize those dollars at the end is to be in control of your livestock and grass. You can do that with a grazing system.

Help available

Susan Muske with the Dickey/LaMoure Watershed Program, stopped by my office in November. She has knowledge about grass species and has resources to work with you on developing a grazing system or help you implement the plan that you already have.

I know some of you have agreed to a grazing plan when you get those dollars at NRCS for feedlot or cross fencing or water development I've driving by and haven't seen that you've changed a thing since you got the money.

Grass handbook available

NDSU Extension and NRCS have teamed up and published an excellent handbook on Grasses for the Northern Plains. Volume I describes cool-season grasses. It has 80-plus pages of glossy pictures, graphs and grazing diagrams.

This resource will broaden your knowledge and understanding how these cool season grasses grow. You can learn by viewing the charts on when the grass species are meeting nutritional needs for a 1,200 lactating cow.

Copies can be requested from our office at (701) 239-3249, ext. 2.


]]> 2007-12-30T04:35:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/senate_to_debate_farm_subsidy_cut/ {summary} Farm Policy While Minnesota's senators take opposing sides on limiting subsidies for the wealthiest, farmers watch with concern.


By Kevin Diaz and Nina Petersen-Perlman,
Star Tribune
December 3, 2007


WASHINGTON - From Minnesota to Texas, farmers across America's midsection are watching what the Senate does this week with a multiyear behemoth known as the farm bill.

Some think this could be the year Congress cuts back on decades-old farm subsidies that have been decried by reformers for years. Others predict the status quo will endure.

This time, Minnesota's freshman Sen. Amy Klobuchar is at the center of the reform tempest.

The Minnesota Democrat has her name on a controversial proposal to deny government payments to farmers with more than $750,000 in adjusted gross income. The cap is aimed at the Ted Turners and Scottie Pippens -- millionaires who have famously invested in farmland and reaped the benefits of government programs meant for family farmers.

But the very idea of income tests and payment limits worries many full-time farmers in Minnesota. The state has harvested more than $9.5 billion from government farm programs over the past decade -- fifth most among all the states.

Among the concerned Minnesotans is Brian Molitor, who represents the fifth generation of a Cannon Falls family farm that now stretches over more than 10,000 acres of corn and soybeans in southeastern Minnesota.

Molitor Bros. Farm, which four families operate, was one of the state's top three recipients of government subsidies in 2005, the latest year for which data is available. It pulled in nearly $1.2 million.

But Molitor, hoping that his children will become the farm's sixth generation, said that without the government money, his farm wouldn't be able to break even some years.

"If you look at the last few years, subsidies have been what's been able to keep people at zero and keep them from losing money," he said.

Full time vs. part time

Klobuchar's proposed income qualifications could be paired with a separate payment cap of $250,000, which would set maximum payment limits no matter how much a farm earns.

Like Klobuchar's plan, the payment limit, championed by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is opposed by many of the nation's big farm groups, including the Minnesota Farm Bureau.

Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican who faces reelection next year, is opposed to both payment caps and income limits for full-time farmers, saying the dispute could break up the fragile coalition of regional farm interests that is trying to win passage of a $288 billion bill to fund nutrition, conservation and farm programs for the next five years.

Coleman is backing a more modest set of reforms that has come out of the Senate Agriculture Committee, including one that would lower the income limit for "part-time" farmers -- those who derive less than two-thirds of their income from farming -- from the current $2.5 million to $750,000.

Some analysts believe that income or payment limits for full-time farmers would spark a revolt among farm interests in the South, particularly among cotton and rice growers who benefit the most.

"If we proceed unwisely on this matter, we could jeopardize the entire farm bill and invite legislative attacks on Minnesota's farmers," Coleman said. "Minnesota has a lot to lose if that occurs."

That assessment is not shared by Klobuchar, who is being advised by Dave Frederickson. He is the former head of the National Farmers Union, which has long supported cutbacks in subsidies to the nation's largest farms, where government payments are concentrated.

"Limits that would hurt family farmers would blow up the farm bill," Klobuchar said, "but I don't think an income limit of $750,000 is going to blow it up."

Klobuchar says she wants to return to the original aims of farm programs created during the Great Depression. "The purpose of the farm bill is to make sure there's a safety net," she said.

Few state farms affected

Current farm policy, last updated in 2002, reflects the hard times of the 1980s and 1990s, when commodity prices hit many more lows than highs. But in recent years, farm prices have rebounded, in part because of growing export markets and the rising demand for ethanol and other biofuels.

A growing chorus of critics says it is an ideal time to scrutinize the price supports and commodity payments of years past. "Now is a time to take a serious, close look at it," Frederickson said, "because there's a basic issue of fairness."

President Bush has suggested barring payments to any farmer whose annual income exceeds $200,000; the House version of the farm bill, brokered by Minnesota Democrat Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, would set the income limit at $1 million.

But some analysts fear that prices will eventually fall. Putting the squeeze on farm payments, they say, could come back to haunt farm country, and not just millionaires collecting farm payments on Wall Street.

"If we have low prices, and we will if history is any guide, you'll see Minnesota farmers up against those [payment] limits," said Jeff Harrison, a former agriculture staffer for Coleman and former Minnesota Sen. Dave Durenberger. "Anybody who lived through the '80s can appreciate that."

As it is, some 100 Minnesota farms would exceed the proposed $250,000 limit on annual farm payments, Molitor's among them.

But according to Klobuchar, few if any Minnesota farmers would run afoul of her plan to cut off payments to those with adjusted gross incomes above $750,000.

The average income of a Minnesota farm, she says, is a modest $54,000, after expenses.

Kent Olson, a University of Minnesota applied economics professor, estimates that an income limit of $1 million would affect about 150 Minnesota farm returns, or 0.2 percent of all individual Minnesota farm returns.

Analyzing Internal Revenue Service data from 2004, the latest year available, Olson also found that a $200,000 income limit would apply to fewer than 1,800 Minnesotans who filed individual farm returns, which was about 2.4 percent of all individual farm returns that year.

"In general, Minnesota farmers are much less concerned about that than southern farmers, which are much larger," Olson said. "Ninety-seven percent wouldn't be bothered."

]]> 2007-12-03T13:19:00-06:00 http://www.therochesterdemocrat.com/index.php/weblog/so_whats_so_bad_about_corn/ {summary} Green Energy As Iowa Enjoys a Bumper Crop, Farmers Hear It From Environmentalists, Ethanol Skeptics and Other Critics


By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post
Friday, November 23, 2007


NEVADA, Iowa -- To say that corn is king around here is to come close to demoting it. In the last couple of weeks, the farmers of this state finished harvesting an astonishing 14 million acres of corn, which is more than a third of Iowa's surface. The yield: nearly 2 1/2 billion bushels. That's about 420 billion ears of corn, or about 225 trillion kernels.

A phone call to Tim Recker, president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, found him in his combine, harvesting the last of a bumper crop.

"I got 225-bushel corn that I'm doing right now, which is phenomenal," Recker said by cellphone from a field near the town of Arlington. That's 225 bushels per acre. For a corn farmer, that's living in the tall cotton.

And yet, despite the fabulous harvest and the boom in ethanol made from corn, corn farmers often sound beleaguered and aggrieved. Corn, they say, has been getting a bad rap.

"You have to wear a flak jacket," said Bill Couser, who farms 5,000 acres here in the central Iowa town of Nevada (pronounced ne-VAY-da). "When we planted this crop, people said we were the villains of the world."

This mundane plant, once arguably dull as dirt, its name useful as an adjective ("corny") to describe something kind of lame and hillbillyish, has become improbably controversial. The gist of the criticism: So much corn, doing so many things, serving as both food and fuel, and backed by billions of dollars in government subsidies, has been bad for America and the rest of the world.

Start with food prices. Corn and its derivatives are in thousands of items sold at a typical grocery store, and corn is trading on the market at about twice the price it was just a couple of years ago. There are ripple effects everywhere. More acres in corn mean fewer in soybeans, and so soybean prices are also up. Soybean extracts are all over the grocery store, too.

Meanwhile, there are ethanol skeptics. They say production of ethanol has outpaced the infrastructure -- flex-fuel cars, for example -- for using it. A 51-cent-a-gallon federal subsidy to ethanol blenders helps keep the ethanol market commercially viable.

Environmentalists decry the impact on soil, waterways and wildlife of so much acreage planted in vast tracts of a thirsty, fertilizer-hungry plant. Tens of thousands of acres in Iowa once set aside for conservation were plowed this year for corn. The Iowa landscape is a patchwork of corn and soybean monocultures, with about as much biodiversity as a bachelor's refrigerator.

Corn, in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, is even accused of causing the national obesity epidemic.

A new documentary that skewers corn, "King Corn," has won rave reviews. And corn plays a starring, and nefarious, role in a recent book, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," in which author Michael Pollan reveals that, at the molecular level, Americans have ingested so many corn-derived substances that we are essentially walking corn chips.

Recently Jean Ziegler, the United Nations expert on the "right to food," called the diversion of food crops to biofuels a "crime against humanity." The United Nations later distanced itself from those remarks. But they were already in the wind in corn country, where farmers, up to their eyeballs in corn, are wondering what exactly they have done wrong.

Here in the town of Nevada, dead center in Iowa, you'll find Couser, a farmer, feedlot owner and ethanol entrepreneur. From many miles away, you can see rising from the fields of corn stubble the silo-like fermenting tanks of the new ethanol plant, Lincolnway Energy, where Couser serves as chairman of the board. At the plant, corn mash makes glucose and ferments into alcohol.

"It's just an old still back in the woods. It's no different. It's just bigger," he says of the plant. "It's basically 200-proof corn whiskey."

A byproduct is a sawdust-like substance called dry distiller's grain with solubles -- huge piles of which are in a warehouse at the distillery, ready to be hauled off and fed to livestock somewhere in the Midwest. It's good feed, Couser said.

"And it smells good. Does this place stink?"

No: Much of the ethanol plant smells like a bakery. Yeasty.

Last year, the federal government banned a gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), because it was polluting groundwater. Gasoline blenders needed another "oxygenate" -- designed to reduce air pollution -- and quickly turned to ethanol. Corn prices surged. American farmers planted 93 million acres of corn, up from 78 million a year ago -- the largest crop by acreage since World War II.

As if corn needed yet another boost, the political calendar ensures that the road to the White House starts in Iowa. One candidate after another has put on a hard hat and safety glasses and admired the ethanol plant in Nevada.

Republican Fred D. Thompson, a former opponent of ethanol subsidies, came through a few weeks ago and said he'd changed his mind. Democrat Bill Richardson gave a speech recently in Des Moines about major threats to the environment, but said of ethanol, "It's so far superior to our addiction to foreign oil, you have to go full speed ahead."

Bucking the trend is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who said recently in a speech in Ames, just down the road, that he opposes all government subsidies that distort the free market: "I've never known an American entrepreneur worthy of the name who wouldn't rather compete for sales than subsidies."

McCain, however, has never counted on getting many votes in Iowa. Because of his position on subsidies, he didn't even campaign here when he ran for president eight years ago.

'We Don't Have the Land'

Once, much of Iowa was a "pothole prairie," an open terrain pocked with wetlands. Now it is a completely managed landscape. It has few forests. You can search a long time in Iowa before finding anything that you could call the Wild.

If the nation's leaders have their way, there will be yet more corn here. The Energy Act of 2005 mandated the use of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2012, and that's just for starters.

"The president's goal is to have 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2017, and we're currently at 6 billion gallons. That would mean a huge increase in land for corn," says Jerry Schnoor, a University of Iowa professor of civil and environmental engineering. "The environmental constraints are just too great. It's too much nutrients, too much soil loss, too much pesticides. We don't have the land."

Ethanol advocates vow that the next generation of technology will make ethanol more attractive environmentally. Cellulosic ethanol could be made from cornstalks or, better yet, from perennial crops such as switchgrass. But that's the future. Today, corn, and specifically corn kernels -- little nuggets of starch -- are the sole source of commercial ethanol.

"The thing about ethanol: It's not a perfect solution for our energy, but it's a pretty good one. You don't throw out the good in search of the perfect," said Julius Schaaf, who farms 4,000 acres in Randolph, Iowa, and is chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board.

Both Food and Fuel

Driving around Nevada in the truck he calls Bob -- for "big ol' beast" -- Couser grew increasingly combative. He groused about "tree huggers." His way of farming is sustainable, he says. On his feedlot, he uses an innovative system of