Hungry people weigh on our collective conscience, they create volatile politics, they live in despair, they die young, and the dead, the dying and the permanently afflicted are too often children. For decades, the United States, followed closely by Japan, have been battling world hunger with food aid, and they will continue to do so.
    At the recent G8 summit meeting of the globe's richest nation's, world leaders enlisted a new weapon in the fight against hunger. It's called "private enterprise." In an interview published in London's Financial Times yesterday, Oscar Cherminski told reporter Javier Blas that the International Finance Corporation is aiming for a 20-30 percent increase in agribusiness lending over the next three years. Cherminski is director of global agribusiness for the IFC, which is the private sector arm of the World Bank.
    Investments will focus on high yielding seeds, irrigation projects, fertilizer factories and bringing fallow land into production. Read the rest of the report here:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/23beb79e-7f72-11de-85dc-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

    The Annual Millersville Native Plant Conference drew hundreds of people who were dedicated to, interested in or just curious about the plant life that preceded Europeans and maybe even Native Americans to this part of the New World. The conference was held on the campus of Millersville (Pa.) State University. You can read a report about it in the Food and Family section of this week's Lancaster Farming.

    I think these tracks are reversed. http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=258016

    Blake Hurst was on an airplane recently headed back to his farm in Missouri. Like most farmers, when he flies he flies coach. It was easy to eavesdrop on the guy in the seat behind him, because he was so close and because he was talking so loudly.
    About food.
    A subject with which Hurst is more than vaguely familiar. The speaker was holding forth on the evils of industrial farming. Hurst considers himself an industrial farmer - except that he says "industrial" - because he grows corn and soybeans with fossil-fueled tractors, uses insecticides and herbicides and puts nitrogen fertilizer on his fields. He's about to spend the next six weeks on a combine seat, and after that he might schedule a board meeting. Around the kitchen table.
    Hurst is not averse to the idea of organic farming and vegetarian diets, but he is fully convinced there isn't nearly enough organic fertilizer to grow the crops we need to keep the world fed, and he is pretty sure people are going to continue to eat meat and poultry, and they're going to want eggs and milk, too.
    He doesn't use the word "husbandry," but he addresses the concept in passionate and soul-felt language. If a farmer takes care of his land, then the land will take care of the farmer and his family and everyone who depends on them for food and for life itself. A farmer who treats his animals humanely is a farmer who can sleep at night.
    It's a very compelling expression of Hurst's particular point of view. The article is in the current issue of The American, The Journal of the American Enterprise Institute. You can read it here:  http://www.american.com/archive/2009/july/the-omnivore2019s-delusion-against-the-agri-intellectuals

    High school ropers, riders and relatives galloped to Framing, New Mexico, last week for the annual National High School Finals Rodeo. There were 1,375 contestants, 7,000 fans and a whole lot of action. A report on the event, and a  great front-page photo, are in the August edition of Mid-Atlantic Horse, a supplement to the Lancaster Farming edition due in your mailbox tomorrow.

    Was that Captain Kirk? And was he really wearing a tent?  http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/shatner-does-palin-072709/1139665/

    In case you missed Jill and Kevin's big day (or if you're one of the 12 million who'd like a second viewing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

   Dairy producers, consumers and diary support groups gathered for a planning/gripe session in Delhi, New York, about a week ago. They talked about the current dismal state of the industry, and very few could recall rougher times. The meeting organizers handed questionnaires to the dairy producers in the crowd to gauge their mood.
    The producers were asked such questions as whether or not they're behind on their accounts payable, do they think the dairy industry is more like Main Street or Wall Street, and would they support Tom Vilsack if he ordered an immediate raise in the floor price for Class II and III milk. (Duh!)
    And, of course, the questionnaire asked the farmers if they could survive in dairying if the milk price continued to wallow in the valley of a mountain of debt. Could they make money?
    Of the 100 people who answered the question, 99 said, "No." What's surprising is that somebody did not reply in the negative.
    Either that one guy wasn't paying attention, or he knows something the rest of us don't.
    Wouldn't you love to talk to him?

      Having fun at the Young Male Cub Association. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR_vdikpKZA

    Slithering snakes seek surcease from the driest summer Texans have seen in the last half century. Snake bites are reportedly up around Austin and San Antonio as the reptiles crawl from their usual haunts in search of shade and water and run into Lone Star citizens.
    Rambling rattlers aren't the worst part of it for ranchers and farmers. A rancher in central Texas had to sell 600 head of cattle because his grass dried up. Lake levels are down as much as 30 feet, 100-degree days are the norm, and cattlemen have suffered $1 billion in losses so far.
    Crop farmers have been hit hard, too, especially cotton. Texas leads the nation in both cattle and cotton production. Some farm economists predict that this summer's losses could exceed the record $4.1 billion wipeout suffered by Texas agriculture in 2006.
    There's an AP report on the situation here http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5idiO5oOBgb4k6rcgdomM-FHn8Z8QD99IV6G00    
   
    Kentucky's King of Cones is a graduate of the world renowned Penn State ice cream short course. Carl Chaney completed the short course in 2003, went back to his home farm near Bowling Green, Ky, and began making and selling ice cream by the truckload. Lancaster Farming correspondent Sue Bowman paid a visit to the Chaney family's growing ice cream empire and reports on her visit in Section B of the current issue.

    PETA thought they should have used a blue brush. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL6u2moekds&feature=player_embedded
    

    Algae, that slimy stuff on your farm pond, could be pickng up speed in the race for an economical alternative to fossil fuels. That's according to an article in The Economist, which you can read here http://www.economist.comsciencetechnologydisplaystory.cfm?story_id=14029874. Exxon Mobil, working through Synthetic Genomics in San Diego, Calif., has so far sunk $300 million into a pilot algae based biofuel project. And if the pilot is successful enough, the company has earmarked another $300 million for the project.
     Most biofuels now on the market are made either from corn, sugar cane or plant oils, such as soybean oil. Algae could do it better, Exxon believes, and in the process use the carbon dioxide from power generation utilies and other producers of greehouse gases.
     Synthetic Genomics is headed up by Craig Venter, a pioneering geneticist who led a privately financed version of the human genome project.
    Many algae produce oil, which they store in their bodies as a hedge against lean times. It is difficult to extract this stored oil. Venter is developing a strain of algae that excrete oil, which floats to the top of the culture medium. There could be a time in the next decade or so when Exxon just skims the oil off its algae tanks, puts it into a tanker truck and ships it to your tractor.

     Pretty on the outside, gorgeous on the inside. Our annual Dairy of Distinction supplement is included in the current edition of Lancaster Farming. More than a dozen family dairy farms are featured this year, and it's apparent from reading the articles that it takes more than a pretty face to earn the Dairy of Distinction honor. It also takes a family, lots of hard work, a good bookkeeper and great cows.

     Speaking of slime... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNIktyQcgRE

     How happy are you? Really? Let's say on a scale of 1-to-9? If you're feeling "triumphant" you're 8.87 happy on the 1-to-9 scale. If you had "pancakes" for breakfast you're at 6.08 on the happiness scale. And if you're a "hostage," you're 2.20, which presumably is a miserable condition but still measurably happy.

     The numbers for the words in italics come from Peter Dodds and Christ Danforth, who toil at the University of Vermont as a mathematician and a computer scientist. They have arrived at their calculations not by hooking people up to a happiness meter, nor by personal interviews. Interviews would be suspect, anyway. If somebody asked me to put a number on my happiness at any particular moment, I either wouldn't be able to do it, or I'd lie or make something up.

     What Dodds and Christ have done is mine the Internet for words like "triumphant," "pancake," and "hostage" then used some science stuff to assign happy numbers to large samples of communications from people who blog, tweet and listen to presidential speeches.

    It's an interesting study, which you can read here:  http://www.uvm.edu/%7Euvmpr/?Page=News&storyID=14590

    I was interested in finding out what they had to say about the word "deadline." Couldn't find anything, but I think it's a little south of "pounding headache."

     Promoting the Obama administration's revitalization efforts for rural Americans, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack and Energy Secretary Steve Chu visited the area around Danville, Virginia, last week to add some details to the plans. They talked about dairy programs, energy conservation, renewable energy and jobs.

     Rocky Womack, Lancaster Farming Virginia correspondent, prepared a report on their visit, and it is in the issue set to show up in your mailbox tomorrow.

Monkey see, monkey laugh. http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/368418/

    The latest word from Dublin is that Sinead Noonan, aka Miss Ireland, will be teaming up with the winner of a beauty contest featuring 30 of Ireland's finest young ladies parading around in the altogether. Judges will be looking especially closely at contestants' legs, necks, backs and udders.
    And may the prettiest Holstein win.
    The makers of Bailey's Irish Cream, a top-selling liqueur sold around the world, host a contest every year to name the Bailey's Top Irish Cow. The 30 cows entered in next month's contest are all outstanding producers. Contestants must produce over 22,000 pounds of milk annually to be eligible. But the winner of the Bailey's trophy will be judged strictly on her looks. There is no shortage of contestants. The winner walks away with 8,000 euros, which is more than $11,000 U.S. money. Losers get to keep their sashes.
    One might think there's not a whole lot of actual cream in a snootful of Bailey's, but one would be totally wrong.  Bailey's buys its cream from Glanbia, an Irish company that markets dairy products world wide. Some 1,400 Irish farmers milking 40,000 cows produce the 275 milion litres of milk that Bailey's buys for its product.
    After a few conversions and a little math, that works out to 562 million pounds of milk, or 5.62 million hundredweight. Maybe somebody should tell the folks at Yuengling about this cream business.

Does he really talk? N-a-a-h-h-h-. http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/322309/

     Beat it. That's the message Iowans sent to the Iowa State Fair organizers who were considering a Michael Jackson butter sculpture at this summer's upcoming fair. Butter sculptures have been a popular part of the fair since 1911, and fairgoers jostle for position in front of the glass-enclosed displays to watch the artists at work. Besides a life-size Butter Cow, which always makes an appearance, sculptors usually whip up another display, according to an AP story which is here http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Content.asp?ContentID=331906

    Staffers at the fair began plans for a butter statue the day after Jackson's death, June 25. After word got out, the organization was deluged with complaints, not because of his art, but because of his seamy personal life.

    So organizers put the issue to an online vote. Some 100,000 people logged on to let their thoughts be known, and the final tally, which was taken on Friday, was 35 percent in favor of an MJ likeness and 65 percent opposed.

    The theme for the fair this year is the 40th anniversary of NASA's manned lunar landing. Part of the rationale for a Jackson sculpture was his famous moonwalk, a tie some folks found a bit tenuous, to say the least.

    So with Jackson out of the picture, I've been thinking about contacting the fair with my own sculptural efforts. This is a talent I've kept carefully hidden, so far, but I think I could pull this one off, with a modest little piece I call "Moon Rock."

    Rural folks and city folks have to understand each other or we're headed for trouble, according to Lancaster Farming editor Dave Lefever in his editorial this week. He cites the example of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regulators with responsibilities related to on-farm manure storage facilities. Asked what they were seeing out on farms, they said they hadn't been to any farms.

    How to make people think you're driving a BMW pickup truck.  http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=26925604

     The Straight Story. How long do you think it would take to ride a John Deere riding mower, with a top speed of 5 mph from Laurens, Iowa, to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin, a distance of 240 miles? Alvin Straight did exactly that in 1994, when he was 73 years old and his riding mower was pushing 30. Alvin's sight was going, his hips could barely carry his weight and he didn't trust buses. He certainly couldn't drive, even if Iowa had given him a license. 
    So he rode his mower. Hitched up a wagon with supplies and a sleeping bag, drove to Wisconsin to see his dying brother, Lyle, and, along the way, met some interesting people and had some adventures.
    David Lynch made a movie about Straight's trip, a movie starring Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek as his daughter. You might know David Lynch as the writer and director behind Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet and Elephant Man. The Straight Story, distributed by Disney, is nothing like those other films. It's squeaky clean, nobody curses, and nobody even looks like they want to have sex. Alvin Straight took the slow road to Wisconsin. By slow, I mean s-l-o-o-o-w. He left Laurens on July 5 and pulled up to Lyle's place in Wisconsin six weeks later.
    Lynch shot the film in chronological order, featuring some of the same towns Straight drove through. There is lots and lots of countryside in this movie. Look carefully, and you can see the corn growing day to day as he crawls east. If anything, the movie actually feels slower than the trip itself. I can't say it's a great family movie, because half my family, i.e., my wife, found the movie boringly s-l-o-o-o-w.
    This is a movie for people who actually like slow movies, and I love good, slow movies. It's on DVD and available at Netflix and rental stores or from Amazon. You might think it's boring. And in a way, it is. But it's worth watching.
    I discovered, after seeing the movie, that my sensibilities were upheld by the fact that Richard Farnsworth, the actor who played Straight, was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal. In a sad note, the 80-year-old Farnsworth was actually suffering from terminal bone cancer while the film was being shot. Hobbling around on two canes was not an act for him, but a fact of his later life. A year after the film's completion, he committed suicide to escape the pain of his disease.
    And when Alvin Straight's heart gave out in 1997, his funeral procession was led by a John Deere riding mower.
    
    Pennsylvania's 25X'25 Alliance hosted a group of German farmers touring renewable energy sites in Ohio and the Keystone State. The tour stopped in Harrisburg to learn more about how the Alliance hopes to increase the state's use of alternative fuels to 25 percent by the year 2025. A report of their visit appears in our current edition. It was written by staff writer Chris Torres.

    Now you see yourselves. And now you don't. Können Sie sagen, "Count Dracula?" http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=20768775.