While most Americans were enjoying the fruits of the harvest at Thanksgiving, corn farmers were still out in the fields harvesting.
They made some good progress with another 11 percent of the crop in the bins as of Sunday, but the harvest still lags behind with just 79 percent complete, compared to 94 percent this time last year and 97 percent on average, according to the latest report from USDA. “We still have five states at least 20 points behind the normal harvest pace,” said USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey. Those are Illinois, North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The harvest is so far behind that USDA will continue issuing crop progress reports, which should be over by now, for at least another week.
Meanwhile, the soybean harvest is all caught up with 96 percent complete.
The Iowa Corn Growers Association, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board and Pioneer are proud to announce that they have renewed their sponsorship for the Iowa Corn Indy 250, presented by Pioneer. The 4th Annual race will be held on Sunday, June 20th at the Iowa Speedway in Newton. This race marks the 4th trip to Iowa for the Indy Car Series and the 4th time the cars have driven nearly 200 miles per hour on 100 percent fuel grade
corn ethanol.
“Powering Indy Cars at top speeds is the ultimate in ethanol performance,” said Tim Burrack, a farmer from NE Iowa and Chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. “Iowa Corn is at the track again this year because the cars are not only running on corn ethanol, but thousands of Iowans hear and see our messages about the power, performance, reliability, and energy independence from homegrown corn ethanol.”
Blake Hurst, the plain speaking and thought provoking farmer from Missouri, is back in The American today providing us all with ample reason to say thanks to farmers as we prepare to load on the turkey tomorrow.
Hurst pulls back the invisible curtain that separates today’s consumers from the real workings of a family farm in a fun and meaningful way that is worth a read and worth sharing with your friends.
“I had to laugh at a recent Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times, in which he had traveled back to his family’s farm in Oregon and was remembering how it was when he was a boy. But that idyllic time is lost, all lost, and Kristof concluded that farms have lost their soul. Or at least “industrial” farms operate at a soul deficit. I don’t know exactly what Kristof meant by the loss of soul. Reading what others write about agriculture, I sometimes think that what others see as “soul,” we farmers remember as grinding poverty and isolation. Does the fact that I follow the grain markets on my iPhone imply a loss of soul? If so, then this “soul” business is all cabbage, and the hell with it. Kristof and others constantly romanticize the life they imagine we live, or used to live, and I wouldn’t trade it for any other. But it can be as sharp as a serpent’s tooth. But if he means a family, working together from dawn till dusk to bring the harvest in, a place where love and affection and forbearance bind the workers together, then soul still exists, and we’ve got plenty of it.”
Yes, the old scenic barns still dot the countryside. But they often stand in the shadow of large metal buildings. They may lack the warm fuzzy-feelings of Americana but are far better adapted to house the large, technology-laden machines that still allow family farms to produce our food, feed and fuel that we rely on but often take for granted.
The aforementioned large equipment, satellite technology, computerized grain monitors, and modern grain dryers are all part of the tool box that allows family operations to survive and occasionally prosper. And make no mistake, American consumers recognize the value of these operations and plainly state this is a food production system worth valuing and protecting.
“If the movie “Food, Inc.” can be said to have a theme, it is that corn is too cheap. Cheap corn has led to industrial uses, cheap fast food, and, horror of horrors, corn fed to cows. This year’s harvest is bad news for documentary makers, because we’re bringing in a tremendous crop. Corn prices are at two-year lows. Author of Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser’s pain is palpable, but a big harvest should be a cause for celebration for everyone else. Farmers make the news when weather causes low yields and high prices, but plentiful and reasonably priced food is such a given that nobody but we farmers celebrates a great crop like this one. The rest of America should celebrate, and be grateful for the abundance that agriculture provides.”
So this Thanksgiving as you push you chair away from the table with a full belly be grateful for hard working American family farmers. And be careful about swallowing the load of bull that some agenda-driven elitists are trying to feed the public. Happy Thanksgiving!
Many agriculture advocates are taking part in tweeting the hashtag #thankafarmer today from 10 am through 12 pm CST. Twitter users are also expressing their gratitude with a #thankafarmer twibbon.
The twitter efforts are just a small way to recognize and thank farmers for the abundant food they provide that is both safe and affordable. They are also completely committed to the land on which they farm and care very deeply about their communities, environment, land and animals, something that is often overlooked.
If you are a Twitter user and unable to tweet because of previous commitments, please sign yourself into Twuffer, a twitter service where you can time your tweets. This document contains links to different websites that are advocating for US Farmers and some tweets to get you started.
“No plant left behind” is the motto of Purdue University researcher Tony Vyn, who is working to increase grain yield for corn at higher plant densities.
“The only way to pursue and achieve higher grain yields on a per-acre basis at high plant densities is to make sure that every single plant has the opportunity to compete with its neighbor in the row,” said Vyn. “The only way to achieve this competition ability is to have the genetic resources, in terms of a hybrid’s ability to compete and gain access to nutrients and water.”
Vyn recently completed a three-year study, which looked at approximately 4,000 individual plants each of the three years to understand how individual plants compete with neighbors at three different plant densities and three different nitrogen rates.
“As we’ve tried to push yield barriers beyond 300 and 350 bushels per acre, it’s extremely important that we think about the ability of the plant to tolerate not just a single stress like high plant density, but also be able to tolerate lower nitrogen availability on a per-plant basis,” Vyn said. “Our results suggest that on the plant breeding side of the equation, more attention should be focused on the joint ability of new corn hybrids to tolerate combined stresses of both high plant density and limited nitrogen.
“If the new hybrids can better tolerate both, then it will be possible for those high-density, low-nitrogen situations to achieve an overall improvement in uniformity of grain yield on a per-plant basis.”
Nationally, the corn harvest progressed 14 percent last week, but remains 26 points behind normal for this time of year, according to USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service. Harvest was most active in Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin where producers combined 21 percent or more of their crop. Despite the active harvest pace in these States, overall progress remained over 2 weeks behind normal. Wet weather in Illinois and Missouri held the harvest pace to single digits during the week.
Meanwhile, the soybean harvest has just about caught up to normal at this point, with 94 percent of the crop now done – just three percent behind average.
Finding a station that sells E85 just got a lot easier, if you have a Garmin GPS in your flex fuel vehicle.
The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has launched a new application for Garmin GPS units that maps out the location of E85 pumps nationwide.
“The most frustrating thing for many FFV owners is not knowing where they can fill up with higher level ethanol blends, like E85,” said RFA Director of Market Development Robert White. “With this new feature, drivers going to the grocery store or to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving will know the exact location of the nearest E85 pump.”
Using the Garmin navigation system, FFV owners can download station locations and program their device to guide them to upcoming E85 stations. The Garmin application is available for download on ChooseEthanol.com.
While the program is currently only available for Garmin GPS units, RFA is working to bring this data to other navigation systems – like the iPhone – and will be updating station locations on a regular basis.
Oh, Anthony Bourdain. The “Bad Boy” of food, the one who has eaten fresh seal slain by Inuit and laid out on a kitchen floor that looked like a bloody crime scene. You’re such a rebel with your cigarettes and booze; you’ve turned the world of celebrity chefs upside down with your wacky adventures into far flung places.
You have been developing a following from real America because you openly criticize these elitist chefs on the Food Channel. You have written in your own blog about the sanctimoniousness of chefs such as Alice Waters and the granola hippies in San Francisco.
Before you arrived in Columbus to speak this weekend you did an interview with Alive magazine spouting off about the audaciousness of the word “foodie” and openly disagreeing with the likes of Michael Pollan and Alice Waters—or, as you’ve called her, Saint Alice.
But then you just turned out to be another wimp who bailed on your conviction and on family farmers when it got too hot in the kitchen.
At your show, when I asked you what you think of self proclaimed experts like Pollan and Waters, you pandered to your audience of about 400 people and criticized modern farming practices.
When asked about the dynamic duo of the foodie movement you changed the subject to putting down the food industry for using High Fructose Corn Syrup (farmers don’t delegate where their crops go). The crowd booed … it was like the Maury Povich Show for food snobs.
I defended the corn industry, saying corn sweeteners are the same as sugar, everything in moderation. And I got more boos than a visiting football team at Ohio Stadium (minus the large crowd).
What a hypocrite. In a recent blog you publically state there is plenty to sneer about in San Francisco because the Bay is “pretty much the epicenter of so many of my most cherished aversions: political correctness, veganism, rich hippies, sanctimoniousness about food, food fetishism, animal rights terrorists, gastro-dogma, and loud locavores who actually get their produce flown in from Chino Farms in San Diego.”
In closing, I have this to say to the so-called Bad Boy: if you say something, stick to it. Don’t pander to the audience and become the sell out that you claim Rachel Ray is now.
By setting out on a tour of the United States and speaking to crowds for about, oh, 20 minutes for $50.00 to $100.00 dollars a seat makes me think that you’re a sellout.
As for the blogger who attended Bourdain’s show and later called me a “dolt from the corn industry.” I represent family farmers, the same folks who feed you with little regard for you ignorance and arrogance.
This is a funny video with a great Thanksgiving message for corn farmers if you overlook the fact that it mixes up corn the vegetable with corn the grain. It was written and performed by Brett Slater and has been viewed over 32,000 times since it was posted in January 2008.
The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) asked farmers and others to submit photos of this year’s harvest and despite the slow pace this year they have already gotten some good ones.
But they are still looking for more. The deadline for sending in photos is December 1. Every photo is an entry for a free USGC meeting registration for the 7th International Marketing Conference and 50th Annual Membership Meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Feb. 13-17, 2010.
The Council will assume the rights of submitted entries for use in publications and online. Entries must be JPEG files. Submit your entries along with your contact information and brief photo captions via e-mail to thegrainboard@grains.org by Dec 1. You may also mail entries in a CD or jump drive to Melisa Augusto at 1400 K St. NW, Suite 1200, Washington, DC 20005.
While most Americans were enjoying the fruits of the harvest at Thanksgiving, corn farmers were still out in the fields harvesting. 
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Many agriculture advocates are taking part in tweeting the hashtag #thankafarmer today from 10 am through 12 pm CST. Twitter users are also expressing their gratitude with a 
“The only way to pursue and achieve higher grain yields on a per-acre basis at high plant densities is to make sure that every single plant has the opportunity to compete with its neighbor in the row,” said Vyn. “The only way to achieve this competition ability is to have the genetic resources, in terms of a hybrid’s ability to compete and gain access to nutrients and water.”
Nationally, the corn harvest progressed 14 percent last week, but remains 26 points behind normal for this time of year, 
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