The harvest season is officially underway in many states and all eyes are on the weather watching for rain delays and any potential for frost or freeze in areas where the crop is not yet mature.
According to USDA, just six percent of the crop is harvested, compared to an average of 18 percent for this time of year, which is not too worrisome at the moment. Farmers can catch up very quickly once they get into the fields, but the crop is only 37 percent mature, compared to 72 percent average.
USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says one state is facing a very real weather threat this week. “In North Dakota, where there are frost advisories up, we still see one quarter of the crop has not yet begun to dent there,” Rippey said. “However, temperatures should be in the 30-35 degree range. If we are in that range, that should preserve most of the immature acreage. If we get a little bit colder than that, that could be a big concern for immature corn and soybeans.”
Harvest in both North and South Dakota, as well as Michigan and Minnesota, has yet to begin. Just two percent of the corn in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa has been harvested so far. Only Texas, Colorado and North Carolina are running about on schedule for this time of year.
“You think critics of modern food production just don’t understand the realities of farming? But consider how little you may understand about the philosophy behind their complaints. Today’s farmer is just as generationally divorced from the modern, urban liberal-arts university as his city cousin is from the farm,” says blogger Mike Smith in his new blog at “Truth n’ Food.”
Smith offers up a lengthy, thoughtful, and concerning look at the genesis of the tribulations being faced by farmers and the food industry today. A weird recipe of social psychology, history, politics, economic, cultural, and a modicum of science have led to some segments of our society that hate modern food production if not farmers themselves. They hate you because you trust science, because you are largely white and male, because they think you are messing with their kids, and because you are perceived to be the next generation of global imperialists who use food as a bargaining chip.
There’s a reason the most popular book criticizing the safety and sustainability of the food system, now being used on in college courses from science journalism to environmental management on campuses from California to Wisconsin is written not by a food scientist, but by a Berkeley journalism professor.
Smith notes that in today’s communications rich environment the “text is never as important as the context” in regard to understanding issues. Right or wrong this strange shift in public belief has elevated the novel to as powerful a guide for policy as the science text.
National Corn Growers Association board member Guy Davenport of North Carolina has been taking part in the U.S. Grains Council’s Annual China Corn Tour this month which has already visited Northern China Plain regions of Henan, Anhui, Hebei and Shandong Provinces and is now touring the drought stricken Northeast region of China.
During a conference call from China this morning, Guy talked about what they have been seeing. “China corn farming was certainly not what I envisioned it to be,” Guy said. “They have soils that are just as good as ours, very large fields that are very comparable to our Midwest farms.” Guy says they found most farmers had just about five acres, but they were small holdings all close together, giving the impression of vast acreage for miles. They also found out that harvest is done by hand and takes a typical farmer about ten days.
As a representative for all corn growers, Guy will be reporting back to the NCGA board what he has learned in China. “I think this gives us a better perspective about how much corn can be grown in that part of the world, how efficient they are in their corn production and to what extent they use irrigation. It was truly an eye-opening experience to me.’
Cary Sifferath, USGC Senior Director in China, talked about the drought conditions in the country and high corn prices. “Those high prices have led to some opportunities for US feed grains products, specifically distillers dried grains (DDGS) products from the US ethanol industry,” Cary said. “We had roughly 8,000 metric tons of DDGS that was exported from the US into China and right now for 2009 we can easily predict 250,000 to 300,000 tons of distillers dried grains being imported by China’s feed and livestock industry, especially in the southern and coastal areas of China where DDGS has become a very competitive feed ingredient.”
Wisconsin’s corn ethanol industry is putting on the green and walking for clean air at Milwaukee’s annual Lung Walk October 4 at the Milwaukee County Zoo and is offering free Green Team T-shirts to everyone who joins them.
“The Lung Walk at the Milwaukee County Zoo is a great family event for a worthwhile cause that calls attention to the need for cleaner air and corn-based E85 ethanol fuel is recognized as the Clean Air Choice of the American Lung Association,” says Team Captain Nancy Kavazanjian, a corn grower from Beaver Dam. “Walking as the Green E85 Team is the perfect way to show people that our locally grown and produced ethanol fuel is helping clean up Wisconsin’s air quality while it also helps boost the state economy.”
The walk is a major fund-raising event that helps the ALA, the oldest nationwide voluntary health agency in the United States, fight lung disease through education, community service, public policy and research. As part of the year’s promotional efforts supported by Wisconsin’s corn checkoff, the Wisconsin Corn Promotion Board is the official sponsor of the Lung Walk’s Green E85 Team and paid for the commemorative T-shirts shirts for all team members. Badger State Ethanol, Didion Ethanol, United Ethanol and the UWGP ethanol plant, along with several individual corn growers made major donations to the Green E85 Team effort, helping meet the team fund raising goal of $1,500.
Michael Pollen, author of such widely read but hotly debated books as “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,: and “Omnivore’s Dilemma” got a nice dose of farmer activism when he spoke at the University of Wisconsin last night. A group of about 200 Wisconsin farmers, Ag supporters, and UW Ag students and faculty also showed up to the lecture wearing green t-shirts printed with the slogan, “In Defense of Farming: Eat Food. Be Healthy. Thank Farmers.”
The appearance seems to have proven a point for those in agriculture who feel they are getting pounded on every side on multiple issues and they have no control, no way to make a difference. If you were ready to throw your hands in the air and give up you might want to read this story.
Although political and social activism goes against the grain for most farmers, it may be time to reassess this aversion based on the impact WI Aggies had on Journalist Pollen’s normal presentation. The result appears to have been a more subdued if not more sensitive Michael Pollen. (more…)
If there is one thing certain about indirect land use change (ILUC) it would be that it is uncertain.
In a letter this week to Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson used the word “uncertainty” four times in referring to using ILUC modeling for implementation of the expanded Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2).
Jackson said in her letter that it is “clear that there are significant uncertainties associated with these estimates and in particular, with the estimate of indirect land use change.”
“Therefore, I have asked my staff to quantify the uncertainty associated with specifically the international indirect land use change emissions. They are working closely with USDA as well as incorporating feedback from experts who are commenting on the rule. This analysis will allow us to quantify the impact of the uncertainty on the lifecycle emissions. We will present these estimates in the final rule, and I plan to incorporate those estimates of uncertainty in my regulatory decisions.”
After receiving the letter, Sen. Harkin withdrew an amendment to the Senate Interior and Environment Appropriations Act which would have prohibited the EPA from spending funds to include international ILUC emissions in the implementation of the RFS2 for a period of one year. “I think our amendment got EPA’s attention,” Harkin said.
The comment period on the implementation of the RFS2 ends today and according to Jackson, the EPA has already received “thousands of comments, and expects to get many more by the closing deadline.” She is certain about that.
On Wednesday, the Grocery Manufacturers Association and allies put out an advertisement in a DC newspaper. It was black-and-white, so perhaps they didn’t want to put too much money into it — especially because it dragged out the usual Food v. Fuel argument long abandoned by sensible people. You can view it here.
Today’s Wall Street Journal is a little closer to the truth, with a story about how General Mills made a lot of money off lower commodity prices.
“After rising for years, prices of wheat, corn and other commodity ingredients have moderated in recent months. Meanwhile, food companies that raised prices on their packaged products to offset those higher costs have managed to hold onto those price hikes.”
Too bad General Mills couldn’t kick in for color ink to make the corn in the ad look as pretty as it really is.
There’s a good chance that quite a bit of the corn about to be harvested in the Midwest this fall got its start in Hawaii.
According to the latest report from the the Hawaii Field Office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) the value of Hawaii’s seed industry for the 2008/2009 season was a “record high” of $176.6 million. Seed corn accounts for $169.3 million, or 96 percent, of the total value. According to NASS, acreage devoted to seed crops will increase 12 percent from the previous growing season to a record of 5,930 acres.
In fact, a recent Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation study shows that seed crops have become the largest agricultural commodity in the state, exceeding the value of both sugar and pineapple by 180 percent and 90 percent, respectively.
All the major seed companies have operations in Hawaii on a total of about 6,000 acres. Syngenta Seeds Corn Product Development Lead Ben Hable says it allows them to get new products to market faster. “In Hawaii we can actually turn a crop every 3 and a half months so we can increase the seeds that we need to get back here to the mainland for seed production,” Ben told me during an interview at the grand opening of Syngenta Seeds new headquarters in Minnetonka, MN this week. “Syngenta now has over 300 full time staff in the state of Hawaii working on corn and soybean seed production.”
Interesting article in the Houston Chronicle over the weekend headlines a positive – “Corn crop helps ethanol industry argue its case” – but by the end leaves the reader with the impression that the near-record crop forecast this year could be just a fluke.
“Critics caution against reading too much into one good crop year and assuming corn yields can keep rising as much as some project,” the article reads, quoting ethanol critic Tom Elam as saying the weather in “almost all of the Corn Belt” was “almost perfect” this year – which is “highly unusual.”
I am sure that there are many farmers in the Corn Belt who had to deal with a very wet spring and delayed planting who would argue that this year’s weather was “almost perfect.”
The article goes on to note that the “corn ethanol industry often cites projections by seed producers that suggest the U.S. could double current corn yields within 20 years. But critics say such projections don’t take into account risk factors like a drought that can bring wide swings in corn production from year to year.”
The last time we had a significant drop in corn production due to weather was 1995. The improvements in corn hybrids for drought tolerance, insect and disease resistance, not to mention higher yields have all contributed to make the crop less likely to experience “wide swings” in production. This is just a fact. It doesn’t mean there can’t or won’t be lower production in the future, it just means that seed producers are providing growers with the ability to produce a much more consistent crop despite the risk factors.
The comments attached to this article indicate that the corn ethanol industry still has a long way to go to deal with the misinformation out there. The same tired arguments are brought up – from food versus fuel to ethanol taking more energy to produce than it makes. The negative comments, including many about HFCS, more than outweigh the positives.
It may not seem like much, but making comments on articles like these does make a difference. It is something that any farmer with a computer can do. It’s easier than writing a letter to the editor and reaches more people in less time and who knows? You might just educate someone.
The ethanol co-product known as DDGs or dried distillers grain is mostly being used right now as livestock feed, but someday it could be used to feed the hungry.
A Google search shows that this is not a new concept. One paper that turns up from Virginia Polytechnic Institute dates back to 1986 and discusses the use of DDG flour as an ingredient for preparing wheat muffins. According to that research, “DDG can be incorporated up to 10% in wheat muffins without significant changes in appearance, texture, flavor, and overall acceptability. Addition of either raisins or blueberries to wheat muffins allowed for an increase in the incorporation level of DDG to 15%. Wheat muffins supplemented with DDG had a higher protein, amino acids, and certain minerals content than wheat muffins without DDG.”
There’s even a patent that was issued in 1993 for an invention related “to a method for utilizing wet distiller’s grain (WDG) or distiller’s dried grain with solubles (DDGS), by-products of the alcohol manufacturing industry, in the preparation of bakery products for human consumption.”
Interesting concept that making ethanol from corn could actually help to feed people who are starving because we are making ethanol from corn. Kinda turns the whole food versus fuel argument on its head.
The harvest season is officially underway in many states and all eyes are on the weather watching for rain delays and any potential for frost or freeze in areas where the crop is not yet mature.
“You think critics of modern food production just don’t understand the realities of farming? But consider how little you may understand about the philosophy behind their complaints. Today’s farmer is just as generationally divorced from the modern, urban liberal-arts university as his city cousin is from the farm,” says blogger Mike Smith in 
As a representative for all corn growers, Guy will be reporting back to the NCGA board what he has learned in China. “I think this gives us a better perspective about how much corn can be grown in that part of the world, how efficient they are in their corn production and to what extent they use irrigation. It was truly an eye-opening experience to me.’
Michael Pollen, author of such widely read but hotly debated books as “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,: and “Omnivore’s Dilemma” got a nice dose of 
If there is one thing certain about indirect land use change (ILUC) it would be that it is uncertain.
According to 
The article goes on to note that the “corn ethanol industry often cites projections by seed producers that suggest the U.S. could double current corn yields within 20 years. But critics say such projections don’t take into account risk factors like a drought that can bring wide swings in corn production from year to year.”