blogs
An open letter to Paula Crossfield at Civil Eats.
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Fri, 06/12/2009 - 5:18pm.
Hello, Ms Crossfield.
I read your review of the movie, Food, Inc., which I gather is a Michael Moore-style documentary of the food industry. Which, to me, means it's a gloves-off representation of the film producer's point of view. I haven't seen the movie, and maybe my characterization is incorrect. And maybe the film is thoroughly accurate and unslanted. That's what a good documentary should be, I think. Like The Parrots of Telegraph Hill. That's a documentary worth watching.
Science discovers what every kid knows...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Thu, 06/11/2009 - 6:09pm.
As entertainment, science is some of the best - and most expensive fun we can have with our collective money (i.e., taxes). The current issue of Science Magazine, which is published by the American Association of Science has, for example, of how a seed from a tree in your front yard can sprout a maple seedling in a fencerow next to your rented ground three miles down the road.
Well, it seems that maple "whirlybirds," to use their technical name, start spinning as they fall from the tree. In spinning, they create tornado-like vortexes that give them more lift than airplane wings, helicopter wings or just about any other manmade device. The same kinds of vortexes are found in the wings of bats and hovering insects.
A guest blog. (Because I chickened out on this one.)
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Wed, 06/10/2009 - 2:57pm.
I don't do that anymore, not with the water, not with milk. My water comes from a tap or, in an extreme emergency, from an insanely priced $1.69 bottle. My daily quart of milk is always pasteurized. It's not homogenized only because its skim. The other day an item touting the superior benefits of raw milk showed up on the Huffington Post, which you can read here: I thought it would make good fodder for my blog, but I didn't quite feel enough passion to form an adequate response. Not so my fellow Lancaster Farming staffer, Charlene Shupp-Espenshade, an actual dairy farmer. Here was her take on the topic, in an email circulated 'round the office: While I like raw milk, that list is a pile of well... you know what. The fact that they say raw milk does not make you sick - they must not be from California, where people are suing a raw milk dairy farmer because their daughter died from a bad bug that was in the farm's raw milk. And we had a nasty environmental mastitis bug on the farm last year and we broke from drinking raw milk until we resolved it. Food keeps you alive. It can also kill you. What's a government to do? Pass some laws. Write some regulations. That makes sense, actually. But, says Brian Snyder, of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, there has to be some commonsense philosophy guiding the regulators. He delivers some plain talk about food safety in an opinion piece in our current edition. Your next cow dog probably won't be a Rottie...
Raw milk is a hot button for farmers who do or do not produce it, and for consumers who do or do not drink it. I drank raw milk now and again growing up. And I put my face directly into cold, clear springs (one of which had a resident lizard), and occasionally sipped from mountain streams when I was on a hike and my canteen went dry.
Hey guys,And I would like to live wherever there is no inspection for dairy farms. Last I checked we have at least two a year, but can have up to four (federal, state, co-op, milk marketing board, etc.). And it's hard as heck to pass. And that's IF you don't have a quality problem, then the co-op/dairy is camped out with you until it's resolved. If it's not resolved, they can refuse your milk and you are forced to dump.
Sorry - soapbox here - but you can tell the (Huffington Post) editor never farmed.
Raw milk does not make milk better. To get quality milk - raw or pasteurized - you need a farmer who takes good care of his cows.
Charlene Shupp-Espenshade
Special Sections Editor
Lancaster Farming
Are we missing something here?
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Tue, 06/09/2009 - 2:45pm.
Switchgrass
What's seven feet tall and seemed like a slam-dunk for alternative energy five years ago? If you answered "LeBron Switchgrass," relax and pour yourself a glass of organic mint tea. Switchgrass, long the darling of conservation projects for its deep-rooted, hardy and self-replenishing ways, created a small torrent of news and commentary a few years back, but it seems like just a dribble, now.
Switchgrass was being touted as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol plants by none other than President George W. Bush, who mentioned it in his January, 2006, state of the union address. There were magazine and newspaper articles, TV segments and National Public Radio spots. Everybody was high on switchgrass.
And it's a fantastic plant, whether it's grown for fuel, fiber, forage or as a way to stop soil erosion. Some of the enthusiasm for switchgrass reminded me of Miles Fry in the early 1970s. A Lancaster County farmer and conservationist, Fry was convinced that hybrid poplars, already an important conservation tool, could produce homegrown fuel for America. I interviewed Fry, did a story for Lancaster Farming and wondered over the years, if his vision would ever take hold.
It didn't. But Fry's descendants still operate Frysville Farms and they still offer hybrid poplar seedlings. You can buy some next spring if you want to start your own energy farm.
I don't know if hybrid poplars represent a missed opportunity or not. How would our country look today if we had been more diligent about alternative energy sources when Miles Fry was filling his pickup with gas at 35 cents a gallon?
Who knows? Would our air be cleaner? Would we have had a more deeply rooted prosperity? Would we have waged war in the Middle East? Would we be concerned about global warming?
By not following up on Fry's vision, did we have a reaction to an inaction, like that other butterfly in Bolivia? The one that created a tornado in Kansas by not fluttering his wings? Who knows?
I'm starting to ask myself the same questions about switchgrass and other cellulosic feedstocks. Are we letting an important opportunity slip through our fingers? Who knows?
If you'd like to know more about switchgrass, there is tons of material on the Web. All you have to do is google "switchgrass 2005."
A legal battle by mostly Amish farmers to establish an ag security area for their Lancaster County farms may or may not be over. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently ruled in favor of the 12 farmers in East Lampeter Township who want to include their farms in an ag security area. But the township supervisors haven't decided whether or not to appeal. The story of the case was reported by Ryan Robinson, writing in the Lancaster New Era and reprinted in our current edition. The New Era and Lancaster Farming are both owned by Lancaster Newspapers, Inc.
A day in the life of Paris Hilton's pet pig. I don't know about you, but I found this much more interesting than any footage I've ever seen of Paris herself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QXiyqKWmJY
Pitchfork philosophy...Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.
Gardening at Longwood can be s-o-o-o tough...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Mon, 06/08/2009 - 2:36pm.
Better luck next year...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Fri, 06/05/2009 - 3:39pm.
Pork producers didn't seem to have a lot to celebrate this week at the 21st World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Ia. Prices in the past year were down, costs were up and then along came swine flu. But Sam Carney, president elect of the National Pork Producers Council, thinks by the time the 22nd Expo rolls around, things could be better. "I just hope things are better for us by this time next year," Carney told Dan Piller, a reporter with the Des Moines Register.
No doubt the rest of the 18,000 producers at the Expo shared his hopes and frustrations. The event has been held every year since 2001 at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, a venue that promotes a festive air that includes barbecues in every conceivable style, pig races and nonstop swine judging.
Carney is a fourth-generation farmer who runs about 6,000 hogs through his operation each year on his Adair, Ia. farm. He also raises corn and soybeans. Carney told Piller he was encouraged by the growing balance in the NPPC voluntary savings investment plan. It went from $1.4 million last year to $1.7 million in the latest audit. The investment plan is a voluntary contribution of 10 percent of members' profits, and is separate from the pork checkoff program, which is run by the National Pork Board. The money is used to support the Pork Producers Council's lobbying and export promotion efforts.
Foreign aid or neo-imperialism?
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 6:18pm.
Funds from Chinese and oil-rich Arab countries are being funneled into some of the world's poorest countries to buy and/or lease farmland. Over the past two years, more than 8 million acres have changed control from the have-not nations of Sudan, Ethopia, Congo, Pakistan and others to the cash-rich haves.
While money pouring into a poor country might seem to be a good thing, these are government-to-government transactions where politicians are less than eager to share the wealth. The new owners grow staple crops or biofuels on the land and ship the output home.
Is this your newest sports drink?
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Wed, 06/03/2009 - 10:39am.
Training for your next marathon? Drink tart cherry juice, and your post-race pain will be significantly lower than that of your fellow runners struggling breathlessly at your heels. According to a study you can read about here http://www.bio-medicine.org/biology-news-1/Is-cherry-juice-a-new-sports-drink-3F-8627-1/ cherry juice might be more beneficial for post-exercise relief than ibuprofen, acetaminophen and other non-steroidal anti-flammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
Did they say "ethical?"
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Tue, 06/02/2009 - 1:07pm.
There should be an organization called People for the Ethical Treatment of People. I don't believe that PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) would be much interested in joining, but that's just a guess. I base my assumption not just on all the nasty stuff you can find on the Internet about PETA, but also some of their own material. Much of it is decidedly anti-human. PETA's avowed goal is the complete "liberation" of all animals - your cows, your hogs, your chickens, your horses and cats and my dog Louie.
To achieve their ends they operate on an annual budget of nearly $30 million for TV ads, riotous gatherings punctuated with animal blood, slanted propaganda and payments to people who can only be described as terrorists. They don't condone the firebombing of drug research labs, but they "understand it." That's where my organization, P.E.T.P., might step in and say, "You can't 'understand' somebody who firebombs buildings that may have people in them. Not to mention research animals that are being roasted to death."
I spent some time on the Web looking at both sides of the PETA story after our local daily paper reported that Armstrong World Industries received one of PETA's BADDY awards for running a flooring ad that featured a trained grizzly bear. BADDY awards are designed to embarass companies and individuals deemed by PETA to be mistreating animals.
Armstrong promptly pulled the ad, because it just wasn't worth the hassle of wrangling with PETA, according to Cathy Riley, who handles investor relations for Armstrong. She was shocked to learn about the BADDY award a month after PETA was advised that the ad had been pulled.
PETA's Elizabeth Graffeo told me by phone that while Armstrong did pull the ad, the company refused to pledge never to run the ad, and they refused to pledge never to use exotic animals in any future ads. "They would not negotiate with us on those points," said Graffeo, "and that's why they got the BADDY."
"That was disingenuous of her," Riley told me, also by phone. "Actually, it's an outright lie. They asked us to pull the ad. We pulled the ad. They never asked us to do anything else."
In her PR release to news organizations around the U.S., Graffeo said that after the ad appeared on cable channels, PETA was "deluged" by complaints about the bear's mistreatment. That deluge turned into 2,300 form emails to Armstrong's corporate offices. In the ad, the bear was shown resting on one of Armstrong's hardwood floors before it chowed down on a few groceries.
I couldn't find the ad on YouTube or anywhere else, but I suspect the grizzly might have been "mistreated" in a manner similar to what you see here: http://www.armstrong.com/flooring/flooring-ads.html
I would never say that animals are not mistreated. I also would never say animals don't need a champion. But I would say that an organization that uses lies, intimidation and bullying tactics in pursuit of its goals is not the ideal champion.
And I would add that the majority of the animals that we keep for companions, food and fiber are treated well. Being inhumane is not the norm for humanity, I believe. And in the case of farmers, mistreatment means mismanagement, which means a farm business that's going out of business.
The term "animal husbandry" has been around for far longer than PETA.
A million years of monoculture...
Submitted by Dick Wanner on Mon, 06/01/2009 - 10:23am.
...sounds like a recipe for crop failure, according to proponents of sustainable agriculture. But that's exactly how leafcutter ants have been making a living since long before men could even say "leafcutter ant." Or even "ant."
Leafcutter ants harvest more greenery from South American forests than any other animal. They use it to feed just one species of fungus, which they propogate by cloning. There is absolutely no genetic diversity within the fungal crop, which should be highly vulnerable to disease and disruption.
But the ants are not of a mind to broaden their fungal garden. Their favored food might be what really good baked beans are to us. Imagine eating beans, beans and more beans morning, noon and night and nothing but beans for millions of years. Now imagine a planet with six billion people eating beans and nothing but beans. Since forever.
To take your mind off that thought, you might want to check out the ant story at http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/03/could-ants-hold/#previouspost
NAIS is a solution looking for a problem, according to Lancaster Farming reader Dan Vaughan of White Hall, Md. Vaughan attended the recent NAIS information-gathering meeting in Harrisburg, Pa. He tells USDA Secretary Thomas Vilsak why he thinks the program is seriously flawed in an opinion piece in our current issue.
Never, NEVER put steroids in the feed trough. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTmzLpV4zpU
