blogs
This is a puppy mill?
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Fri, 07/17/2009 - 12:46pm.
Went to a puppy mill on Wednesday, except that I would call it "puppies for profit." It was an Amish farm and my visit was in the company of a group of 15 graduate students from North Carolina State University. All but two of the students are full time extension educators in North Carolina. They were on a week-long five-state bus tour designed to broaden their points of view by exposing them to the workings of farms and extension offices outside their home state.
If this had been the standard horror-fantasy puppy mill with hundreds of caged, dirty, miserable dog-like creatures, it definitely would have broadened their points of view. And mine as well. The farmer showed his guests the tidy dairy barn with its 55 milking Holsteins, the lush garden that is his wife's obsession, his alfalfa and cornfields, his hay barn and his massive, propane-fueled kitchen.
Coop review, part 2
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Tue, 07/14/2009 - 8:07pm.
Chickens were a big part of Michael Perrry's rural fantasy, and the title of his latest book, Coop, proves he's not ashamed to note that there were a few side trips on the road to turning that fantasy into reality. Or, more accurately, the road to knowing that realities can only, at best, approximate fantasies.
When Perry started on the coop, for example, he had 13 chickens. By the time it was built, there were six. His favorite, and his six-year-old daughter's favorite, was Little Miss Shake-N-Bake. The hen had a bad case of tremors. She did survive to see the finished coop, but she had trouble, because of her condition, getting into it.
Perry, his wife Anneliese, and her daughter Amy, the six-year-old, from a previous marriage, share love, laughter, some tears, a lot of manual labor and a sense of wonder at the things that are happening on their 37-acre farm. They also share the at-home birth of Jane, a sister for Amy.
There's a lot of the romance of farming in the book, and much of the gentle humor that Perry is noted for. For example, a couple of feeder pigs nearly gain pet status before they become an anatomy lesson for Amy on their way to the freezer.
Here's one of the cute things the pigs did: Perry installed a nipple waterer in their rough-hewn pen. The pigs captured water in their mouths then dribbled it onto the dirt until they had formed a wallow. Smart, cute, playful they were, but they wound up chops, ham and bacon anyway.
Perry is a freelance writer who's on the road a lot for major magazines, book tours and speaking engagements. He muses late in the book about spending too much time away from his family, his home and his livestock. If you've lived on a farm for a while, much of what he writes about in Coop will be familiar. But through Perry's eyes, the familiar can wear a very fresh face.
And if he wants to give up the road to stay home and write books, I think he could make a go of it. As long as he keeps the freezer full.
The Depression was tough on Detroit. But you know what's even tougher? Now. That's according to Tracy Sutton's grandfather, a Detroiter and retired auto executive who is deeply troubled by the state of his city today. At 91, he thought he'd seen it all, but he never imagined this. Tracy Sutton is Lancaster Farming's regional editor and visited her grandfather over the Fourth of July holiday. She writes about her grandfather's feelings - and draws some interesting parallels to the state of agriculture now - in our current issue.
Cats are always good for a laugh. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=3903091
"He can't do that!"
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Mon, 07/13/2009 - 5:04pm.
There was the sound of a chair being pushed violently into a file cabinet. "Have you seen this? Has anybody seen this?" It was the voice of Homer Luttringer, director of advertising and PR for the New Holland Machine Co. (actually Sperry New Holland by then, late 1960s) who appeared in the door looking left and right for anybody who had seen "This."
"This" was a product brochure for the John Deere Haybine. "They can't do this!" Luttringer said. "They can't!"
Saying goodbye to the little things.
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Fri, 07/10/2009 - 12:30pm.
Driving through Virginia yesterday on the way to a family wedding in North Carolina, I saw signs before every rest stop on I-77 saying the stop ahead would be closed as of July 21. I thought it odd that the state would be closing its rest stops - probably for renovation, I thought - at the busiest tourist season of the year. Then I learned they aren't closing for a redo, they are closing to cut costs.
And it's happening not just in Virginia, it's happening all across the country, and could affect all 2,500 of the nation's interstate rest stops. Virginia figures it can can save $19 million a year by closing its 19 rest stops. Those numbers give one pause, indeed, and strictly from an accounting point of view, it's hard to justify a million-dollar-a-year outlay just to maintain what is basically a bricks-and-mortar porta potty. Schools can use the money. Libraries and roads can use it. Dairymen in desperate need of low-interest financing could certainly use that money.
Animal ID across the pond.
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Wed, 07/08/2009 - 10:30pm.
Brits have given up on tagging people, but they're still going after sheep. Hilary Benn, the UK's secretary of agriculture, has been getting flack from shepherds who say the cost of tags would be a significant expense to them. Sheep tagging is already in wide use in other EU countries, especially Spain and Italy, so the British sheep producers aren't getting a lot of sympathy from their neighbors on the continent.
Sounds kind or like our NAIS issue currently roiling the waters in the U.S. There's an article about the animal ID in the current issue of The Economist. The article is here
Water worries in the Golden State.
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Wed, 07/08/2009 - 7:33am.
As if California didn't already have enough problems, drought is costing the state's imploding economy thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue. According to an AP story in USA Today, Fresno County, the country's top agricultural producer, farmers did not plant 262,000 acres this year because of the water shortage. Statewide, as of May, water shortages in the San Joaquin Valley have cost the California economy an estimated 35,000 jobs and $830 million in farm revenue.
At loggerheads over water are farmers, fishermen, environmentalists and ordinary citizens drinking water from the kitchen faucet (although who knows how many Californians actually drink water straight from the tap).
Wall Street Journal says "Yay," for food stamps.
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Tue, 07/07/2009 - 11:20am.
Farmers markets have benefited from a significant boost in food stamp benefits, according to a report in today's Wall Street Journal. Reporters Roger Thurow and Timothy Martin interviewed farm marketer Ed Kraklio, Jr., in Davenport, Iowa, to find out how the food stamp increase has affected his business. He now takes in several hundred extra dollars a month, according to the WSJ, which has enabled him to hire an assistant to help tend his fruit and vegetble crops.
That assistant spends her income in nearby stores, restaurants and gas stations. Which is good for the economy, according to the USDA, because every $5 worth of food stamps that goes out generates $9.20 worth of economic activity. A Chicago mother whose monthly food stamp allowance went from $525 to $606 in April, told the reporters that she has introduced her two sons to things like cauliflower, cabbages, lettuce and cucumbers with the increase.
Battles in the ethanol wars.
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 4:01pm.
I picked on Fortune Magazine the other week, so maybe I shouldn't be at them so soon again. But it's hard to ignore them when they hang a big target. This time it's a story about General Wesley Clark, retired four-star general and NATO commander, and one-time presidential candidate. In February, Clark signed on as co-chairman of the ethanol trade group, Growth Energy.
He's also on the board of Juhl Wind, a Dutch turbine maker, is on the board - and very active with - Emergya Wind Technologies, CEO of Wesley Clark Associates, and chairman of Rodman and Renshaw, a New York investment bank.
When Fortune reporter Jon Birger interviewed Clark, he focused on his Growth Energy work. From the tone of the article, it seemed as though Clark was paying most of his attention to the battle to save ethanol from the crazy ups and downs in the oil and corn markets, internal sabotage by Archer Daniel Midlands, and outright hostility from the Grocery Manufacturers of America.
Birger's article in the July 6 edition is here:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/23/news/economy/wesley_clark_fights_for_ethanol.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009070217
A June 24 TV interview by Poppy Harlow with General Clark set a different tone. In that interview, Clark was all about wind energy and Emergya. The interview was interlaced with file footage that was supposed to tie in with the storyline, and sometimes did. That interview is here: http://money.cnn.com/video/fortune/2009/06/24/f_wesley_clark_wind.fortune/
The Fortune article was much meatier than the thrown-together TV piece, but neither reporter asked the question that begged to be asked: "Are you really just a figurehead for all these groups? If not, how do you keep it all together?"
Oh, and here's the kicker. In a photo taken to illustrate the article, General Clark is shown holding two bushels of corn. Bicolored sweet corn.
Some people keep alpacas for the sheer fun of it, while others use the South American cousin-to-the-camel for shear profit. Alpacas are sheared once a year and the fleece - alpacans call it "fiber" - can weigh from two to four pounds per animal. Fiber sells for $5 to $8 an ounce, which certainly helps with the feed bill. There's an interesting story about alpaca shearing in our current issue, written by Lancaster Farming reporter Michelle Kunjapu.
Grow your own racer and win big money in Easton, Pa. (Thanks, Anne.) http://buylocalpa.org/event/view/481
It's not a surplus, stupid...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 6:01pm.
...it's market manipulation that's destroying dairy farms. That's according to Leslie Hatfield, a regular contributor to the Huffington Post on issues relating to food and agriculture. With dairymen struggling to cope with their worst price drop since the Great Depression, Hatfield believes half the nation's milk producers could be out of business by the end of this year.
And she points the finger of blame not at a supply surplus but at market manipulation by groups like the "cooperative" (her italics, not mine) Dairy Farmers of America. Increased imports, a lack of government oversight and a credit market collapse are all bearing down on dairymen, particularly the small operators, like four freight trains from four different directions.
Under a 1938 law, according to Hatfield, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsak actually has the power to set a floor price for milk of $17.50, which obviously hasn't happened. And it would probably take two small armies of lawyers, one on each side of the issue, to determine if Vilsak actually does have that power.
But it's a thought-provoking post from someone who obviously cares about the welfare of family farmers. You can read it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leslie-hatfield/for-dairy-farmers-the-dep_b_214538.html
Next time you're spending the night in Louisville, head on over to Churchill Downs for a little after-dark fun at the track. Except that you'd better check the schedule first. The nation's most august racetrack is staging night races this summer on a trial basis - just three nights this summer. Night racing has long been a staple at lesser venues, according to a story in the current issue of Mid-Atlantic Horse, a monthly feature in Lancaster Farming.
I am cow. Hear me moo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WFp4kozlOU
Carey, Carey, how does your garden grow?
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 3:49pm.
With 7,000 tobacco plants, all in a row. Don Carey, a smoker and a building contractor who lives near Akron, Ohio, has taken offense at the skyrocketing tax levy on his favorite herb.
So, man of action that he is, he's grow his own, roll his own and smoke his own tax-free cigars and cigarettes. And it's legal. He checked.
Carey bought seeds, started them, and planted 7,000 seedlings of 40 different varieties on three-quarters of an acre near his home.
