Our extensive water transportation system in the United States may very well be one of our greatest national economic and strategic assets. It is definitely our most unappreciated means of moving goods because the vast majority of the population doesn’t see river transport in action, smell it, or risk getting run over by it.
That’s also the downside. People will support road projects all day because of our personal engagement with the asphalt and concrete, but ignore our most efficient and environmentally safe means of moving critical goods from coal to corn to construction materials.
So it is concerning that a critical part of our nation’s transportation infrastructure, the locks and dams along the Illinois River and the Upper Mississippi River, are deteriorating and falling behind technologically after 80 years of stalwart contributions.
Granted, this oversight may be understandable given the public and government’s focus on political issues from war to health care and economic issues that don’t need any explanation, but the consequence for this lack of vision may carry a big price tag in years ahead.
The country’s inland navigation system plays a critical role in the nation’s economy, moving more than a billion tons of domestic commerce valued at more than $300 billion per year. More than one billion bushels of grain (about 60 percent of all grain exports) move to export markets via the inland waterways each year.
Growing agricultural productivity in the U.S. and growing populations and buying power overseas provide some clues to the critical importance of addressing this issue. Population is expected to grow by 2.5 billion more people by 2050 to more than 9 billion people and many of those hungry eyes will be looking to the U.S. to keep their pantries and their stomachs full.
There are also significant environmental benefits to the inland waterway system. The backwaters created by the lock and dam system support more than 40 percent of the migratory water fowl and fish breeding grounds and are home to more than 500 miles of wildlife refuge. In addition, more than $1 billion are generated each year in recreational use – fishing, hunting and tourism.
So if the opportunity arise to tell your local, state or federal elected officials they need to get active now on updating our water transportation system it will be time well spent.
Corn growers all over the country are preparing for the 2010 Commodity Classic next week in Anaheim where important policy issues facing farmers and ranchers will be discussed.
Members of the Missouri Corn Growers Association got in the mood this week by holding their annual meeting in Jefferson City and going to talk with state lawmakers about the importance of keeping agriculture in the hands of farmers. National Corn Growers Association president Darrin Ihnen (right) was guest speaker at the Missouri luncheon. With him pictured is Mike Geske, former president of the Missouri Corn Growers now serving on the 15-member National Corn Board.
I interviewed both Darrin and Mike about some of the issues important to growers right now and topping the list is the threat posed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), which is in the process of working up a petition drive in Missouri directed at dog breeders – lumping them all in the unsavory category of “puppy mills” – kind of like they lump all of agriculture under “factory farming.” Mike says that is why all agriculture groups in the state are working to keep legislators informed about how food is produced and the importance of the industry to Missouri. “We feel that once they get past the dog breeders they are going to be headed for commercial agriculture,” he told me.
Darrin says the threat posed to animal agriculture in individual states by groups like HSUS ultimately impacts all of agriculture across the country. “It’s very important that we help defend them,” Darrin says. “We can’t be separated when it comes to agriculture. We need to work together.”
This is just one of many important policy issues that corn growers will discuss at Classic next week, the annual meeting that also includes soybean, wheat and sorghum producers. Others include the indirect land use issue, climate legislation, increasing the ethanol blend rate and extending the blender’s tax credit for ethanol.
Listen to back to back interviews with Darrin and Mike here:
Oprah Winfrey, the soon-to-retire diva of daytime, has made quite a lot of money over the years with her self-named television program and self-named magazine and self-named Web-site and other self-named hooks meant to rake in the advertising dollars while giving consumers a breadbasket full of mixed messages. She talks the talk, then walks away …
Case in point: When Michael Pollan showed up on her show to promote a philosophy that is nothing short of a sustained attack on modern production agriculture and the contemporary food industry, the Guru of Granola received quite the warm welcome from the Big O.
And then, she unveiled a new studio set for her TV show … made entirely of Godiva chocolate, and allegedly completely edible. Did her staff carve the set up afterwards and feed it to Chicago’s homeless? It was quite a shrine to gluttony that Pollan the Food Prude would not care for.
In working on this post, I popped on over to Oprah’s Web site, where this banner ad greeted me, even on the page that featured Pollan’s puffery:
Oprah's Web site, Feb. 25
Now, we in farming may be upset when Oprah interviews Pollan one day, but we should relax a little when she sits on her Godiva Chocolate throne the next day and pops Peanut M&Ms into her mouth. After all, it’s just business as usual for a woman who treats her audience like a Yo-Yo diet.
“Most of what you think you know about sweeteners is probably wrong. Some of this is a product of simple misunderstandings. The rest is a giant scam.”
SweetScam.com includes great information about science and nutrition, sweetener myths and facts, how sweeteners are made and how they compare. Not only that, they have a couple of nicely done print and television ads with the message that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is just the same as other sweeteners and is being falsely accused of making us fat.
Watch CCF’s “Sweetener Lineup” commercial here:
Meanwhile, as companies like Pepsi and Starbucks have been dropping HFCS from beverages, the March issue of Consumer Reports attempts to set the record straight, noting that taking this kind of action “may well have more to do with marketing than science.”
A sweetener made from cornstarch processed with enzymes and acids, HFCS has roughly the same composition as cane sugar—about half glucose and half fructose—and the same number of calories. Concerns that it’s directly responsible for rising obesity rates or somehow intrinsically more fat-inducing than sugar are largely unfounded, though researchers continue to study whether the body handles HFCS differently.
Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?
The U.S. Grains Council just held it’s International Marketing Conference and the keynote speaker was the Hon. Carole L. Brookins, Managing Director of Public Capital Advisors, LLC.
Her topic was “Growing Grain Markets in a (Sustainable) Brave New World.”
“We are moving into a new era of focus on global public goods, including money, trade, climate and environment. With that come global threats: cyber terrorism, fragmented political and economic power, radical groups seeking to control weapons of mass destruction and piracy on the high seas,” she said.
Brookins identified four trends shaping our world today. First – a re-balancing of global wealth and power. “There are shifts in global economic leadership, which creates a wider competition to maintain and grow market share,” said Brookins. Second – a revolution in energy supply and markets. According to Brookins, this is fueled by climate change, resource depletion, energy security and technological innovation. Third – a rebellion against the modern food system. “Activist groups attack the safety and value of the modern food production system,” she said. Fourth – a resurgence of investment in commodities and agriculture. According to Brookins, this will be stimulated through investments, control of the supply chain and economic power.
“Experience shows that sustainable global food security will depend on intensive, large scale agriculture and expanding global trade,” Brookins said. “Both your risks and reward will be multiplied. Your complexity of choices and competition will be magnified. The brand of the Council is highly respected around the world. Renew your mission in 2010 and lead out in a growing, dynamic world of 9 billion lives over the next 50 years. I look forward to watching.”
The Center For Consumer Freedom is turning up the heat on the Humane Society of the United States. This week they took out a full page ad in the New York Times that highlights “the failure of the Humane Society of the United States to devote a significant amount of money to supporting America’s underfunded pet shelters. The ad explains that HSUS shares only 1 dollar out of every 200 dollars it collects with local, hands-on pet shelters.” That is graphically reflected with 200 little puppy paw prints, just one of which represents the money that goes to help homeless pets.
The ad reads:
Shouldn’t the “Humane Society” do better?
The Humane Society of the United States is NOT your local animal shelter. In fact, it gives less than one-half of one percent of its $100 million budget to hands-on pet shelters.
Meanwhile, this wealthy animal rights group socked away over $2.5 million of Americans’ donations in its own pension plans.
Surprised? So were we. The dog-watchers need a watchdog. Join the discussion at HumaneWatch.org.
Recently, a nation starved for domestic energy supplies and sources, has managed to lose its way in the deep dark forest of the unknown that is the speculative science of indirect land use change. In typical American fashion – or at least this seems to be the new norm – we have missed the point, evaded the crux of the issue and been distracted by ne’re-do-wells with questionable motives.
So in the name of refocusing the energy debate, I offer up the bold statement that ethanol fuel is a slam dunk when it comes to offering a real solution. First, it is here today, not on a drawing board or in a lab and it helps us achieve many of our critical goals such as providing jobs, making us less dependent on foreign oil from often hostile sources, and it pollutes less than gasoline during its manufacture and use. And as a bonus, with biofuels like ethanol we also get a product that is renewable. Anything that directs our focus away from these fundamental truths should be looked at with a skeptical eye.
There appears to be some evidence that rational thinking is not dead and more and more people are beginning to understand the fallacies and foibles of the concept of indirect land use. Historical trends indicate that increased U.S. ethanol demand has not been a significant driver of land use change. Increased crop productivity (growing more on the same amount of land) has primarily provided the growth in production necessary to meet heightened demand. But if history has shown us one thing it is that critics of ethanol will not go gently into that good night.
The next issue can already be seen on the horizon and it can be seen clearly because it is not a “new” criticism. It is called the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC). This is the incentive put in place to encourage gasoline marketers to blend 10% ethanol in a gallon of gasoline. It is the carrot that got the entrenched oil industry to rethink their century old product mix and make it better. (more…)
The entertainment during a reception at the Renewable Fuels Association National Ethanol Conference last week came up with some new lyrics to an old Pink Floyd song that hits on the blend wall facing the nation’s ethanol producers.
The group, made up of three ethanol industry executives, is called “Green Floyd” and the parody lyrics to the other Floyd’s “The Wall” include references to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, the waiver to allow up to 15 percent ethanol in regular gasoline, RFA president and CEO Bob Dinneen and the blend wall faced by the industry if the allowable blend is not increased.
With credit to Frontline Bioenergy CEO Bill Lee, Neil Koehler with Pacific Ethanol and bioenergy consultant Paul Kamp, here are the lyrics to “The Blend Wall” (to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”) and a short video clip to enjoy.
We don’t need o-ver production
We could use some E-15
Lisa Jackson, approve our waiver
Listen to our man, Dinneen
Hey, Lisa –
Listen to Bob Dinneen!
All in all it’s just another wicked Blend Wall
All in all it’s just another wicked Blend Wall
As a general rule guns and alcohol don’t mix well. But when it comes to the colorful and often entertaining world wide web simplicity and entertainment value can help you hit the bullseye, especially with the rapidly expanding audience for social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
A perfect example of this approach and the power of Social Media for agriculture is the wild backlash experienced by Australian winemaker Yellow Tail after they made a donation of $100,000 to the Human Society of the United States. HSUS says they are saving puppies and kitties, while their tax return shows they are really spending millions on lobbying for animal rights and legislation that tells farmers how to do their business. Less than 5% of their budget goes to animal shelters.
After being bombarded with emails, twitter messages and Facebook page posts from farmers and ranchers pointing out HSUS’s disingenuous fund raising practices Yellow Tail did the virtual equivalent of saying “Uncle.”
They apologized on Facebook and then took down their Facebook page to minimize the damage. In a statement to ABC News this week, John Casella, the managing director of Casella Wines which owns Yellow Tail, says the company will look to non-political groups in the future.
“Yellow Tail is committed to the plight of animals in need and as a result, we can confirm that through any future activity, we will be looking to other non-profit organizations without lobbying interests that best deliver on our intended outcome of saving animals,” their statement said.
There are several valuable lessons to be learned from this on-line firestorm. 1. Scattered independent farmers can join their voices for a cause and magnify their influence via Social Media. 2. Others outside of agriculture now recognize HSUS as a political entity, not a charitable organizations (IRS are you paying attention). 3. Hard working farmers have a sense of humor and that humor can be used to good effect to educate businesses and the public online.
Examples abound to document point 3. A rancher from South Dakota has posted an online video of himself pouring the wine onto the snow in front of his cattle and urging others to do the same. And a Nebraska video showing a person (ok, it’s a Corn Grower) using Yellow Tail wine for target practice got picked up by the popular magazine Field and Stream.
In response, the HSUS says the partnership with Yellow Tail is about celebrating animals and the money will support the organization’s rescue team, which saves animals from natural disasters or cruelty. The evidence shows this will happen when pigs fly.
The new rule for the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS2, represents the first time the federal government has ever had to develop regulations based on the unproven theory of international indirect land use change. This is kind of like trying to make a recipe without knowing the ingredients.
EPA’s Transportation and Regional Programs Division Director Sarah Dunham talked about how they did that during a presentation at the National Ethanol Conference this week.
She said that having to incorporate indirect land use change into the rule “contributed to the evolution of the science in this year. There’s no question the science evolved significantly over the last year through this process and will continue to evolve going forward.” However, she added, “Just because we issued a final rule doesn’t mean that it’s done, it’s just the first step in moving forward with this.”
In other words, they’re not sure whether this first recipe they have put together will be a cake or a mistake. It still needs more testing in the kitchen because of what they call “inherent uncertainty.”
“There is inherent uncertainty in these assessments,” Dunham said. “And we thought it was important to try to formally recognize that uncertainty” and incorporate it into the analysis. The National Academy of Sciences has been asked to do a review of the whole lifecycle assessment and indirect land use change component and report back in two years.
I would call this inherent insanity. Why in the world would our federal government try to regulate something based on a half-baked theory and uncertain projections? It makes no sense at all. It would make much more sense to throw out the entire indirect land use change modeling effort until the science is fully evolved, not just partially.
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