It’s really fun when you have a brush with greatness and it is no more apropos than when you run into a celebrity in Anaheim during Commodity Classic. Well the celebrity I’m referring to is our very own NCGA past president Ken McCauley, who was featured in the book Power Trip. Now Ken is quite modest and didn’t really tell people that he made it into the book. From start to finish it took more than two years from the time the author Amanda Little visited his farm in White Cloud, Kansas to the time it made it to the book shelves (Fall of ‘09).
Needless to say, as soon as I saw Ken I told him I’d read (and reviewed) the book and he was, well, flabbergasted after he got over being shocked. But he shouldn’t be shocked – the book is very good and Ken did an amazing job of getting out a strong American agricultural message. The book is about how tied our world is to fossil fuels. From transportation to medicines, to plastic to agriculture, fossil fuels are a part of our everyday lives, and Little helps us understand how embedded they are, and addresses the question of how we move away from them.
In an recent blog from Mark, he celebrated that fact that Food Inc. didn’t win an Oscar. Unfortunately you can’t mention that “documentary” without thinking of Michael Pollan who wrote Omnivore’s Dilemma and promotes a world of organic farming. When on Ken’s farm, Little asks him about Pollan to which he replied, “It’s not a way to maximize production.”
Ken explained that the drawback of these organic methods is that they require more labor and time, and in turn generate lower profits. Organic farmers also tend to have lower yields per acre and higher prices.
The question Little didn’t ask him: How is the world going to feed 9 billion people without production agriculture? It’s not.
Ken is very conscientious about sustainable farming since his land, puts food on his table too. Farmers understand more than most that they must take care of the land that feeds them. I just wish consumers understood that better.
Well, to better understand our addiction to oil and the need for production agriculture through the eyes of a great man, Ken McCauley, then be sure to read Power Trip.
If you’ve sort of forgotten about domestic ethanol as an alternative to imported gasoline, be assured that Tom Stephens hasn’t.
Stephens, who was in Orlando recently to speak at the National Ethanol Conference, is vice chairman of global product operations for General Motors. He knows as well as anybody that our gasoline supply won’t last forever, and we’re long past the point where we should be concentrating our efforts on weaning the U.S. from our dependence on oil. GM has lived by that philosophy and has been the automotive leader in offering up flexible fuel vehicles that run on gasoline, E85 or any gasoline-ethanol combo in between.
Despite all their efforts, those by NCGA and many others, there are only 7.5 million E85 capable FFV’s in operation today and 2,000 stations offering up the corn-based, eco-friendly fuel. Surely nothing to sneeze at but given our voracious appetite for gasoline in the U.S. we have plenty of room for improvement.
With that sobering assessment, let’s take a look at some signs of what the future might hold. The U.S. Department Energy projections say ethanol production is on the rise and we will make 800,000 barrels a day in 2010, up from 700,000 last year. Another 50,000 barrels a day will be added in 2011. The trend seems to document the buzz in the industry that ethanol makers are recovering from the sluggish economic conditions that have plagued every industry.
That’s a good thing considering the ethanol industry added $53 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product and $16 billion in U.S. household income last year even as the ethanol industry struggled. (more…)
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.
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.
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…)
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.
A recent online New York Times editorial praised the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision supporting the expansion of biofuels production however, the praise was too lavish, according to many close to the issue.
As seems to be more and more common in government, EPA’s attempts to mollify all parties involved, resulted in a watered-down decision that missed the mark. The source of the EPA and NY Times gaff is their inability to expose the Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) argument for the red herring it really represents.
For those unfamiliar with the concept a “red herring” is a deliberate attempt to divert or deflects attention away from the real subject at hand, and ILUC proponents deserve a nod for their adept sleight of hand regarding the future of biofuels. Instead of focusing on the documented economic, environmental, and energy contributions of biofuels, we find ourselves debating the tenuous connection between America’s production of corn and land use impacts in sovereign countries elsewhere in the world.
According to the Renewable Fuels Association, these so-called indirect land use impacts have questionable scientific validity. In fact, more than 100 scientists and Ph.D.’s have stated: “The ability to predict this alleged effect depends on using an economic model to predict worldwide carbon effects, and the outcomes are unusually sensitive to the assumptions made by the researchers conducting the model runs. In addition, this field of science is in its nascent stage, is controversial in much of the scientific community, and is only being enforced against biofuels.”
That’s RFA’s way of saying a lot reasonable and reputable folks don’t trust the subjective nature of computer modeling which is in its infancy, let alone using something as important as biofuels as the crash-test dummy for this new assumption rather than fact-based driven methodology.
Darrin Ihnen, president of the National Corn Growers Association, laid bare the biggest argument refuting ILUC in his response to the New York Times. “Upwardly trending corn yields disprove this theory. In 2009, for example, farmers grew enough corn to break 2007’s production record, and we did so harvesting nearly seven million fewer acres.”
In fact, corn growers have developed a new paradigm regarding the future of corn production. Scientists have unlocked the intricate corn genome and in doing so have set the stage for a national yield average of nearly 300 bushels per acre within two decades. Productive capacity is increasing so rapidly that the U.S. corn farmers has grown enough corn to meet the needs of all markets while biofuel production has soared.
Ihnen pointedly says “those who wrote the studies you cite should get out into the fields and talk to the many farmers who are not only beating the Department of Agriculture’s average corn yield, but also doubling it in some circumstances. They will see the great potential the Corn Belt has for feeding and fueling the world.”
By – Tim Burrack, Iowa Corn Promotion Board Chairman
High fructose corn syrup misinformation is being peddled at the grocery store and in the news. As you consider sweets for your sweetheart this holiday, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board would like to reiterate that High Fructose Corn Syrup is a natural and safe sweetner for this Valentine’s Day and throughout the year.
“Both medical and nutrition groups along with a few of the loudest food industry critics believe that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), a natural sweetener made from corn, is exactly the same nutritionally as sugar,” said Tim Burrack, a corn farmer from Northeast Iowa, and chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board.
In terms of composition, high fructose corn syrup is nearly identical to table sugar (sucrose), which is composed of 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose. In fact, Arthur Frank, M.D., Medical Director at George Washington University stated that HFCS is the chemical and nutritional equivalent of table sugar (sucrose). The two substances have the same calories, the same chemical composition, and are metabolized identically.
So why peddle misinformation? For the first time in history the number of obese people outweighs, literally, the number of underweight people. The World Health Organization reports there are more than 1 billion obese adults and an estimated 22 million children under five are estimated to be overweight worldwide. According to the US Surgeon General, in the USA the number of overweight children has doubled and the number of overweight adolescents has tripled since 1980.
The World Health Organization notes the growing weight problems to be caused by rising incomes and higher food proportions in fats, saturated fats, and sugars coupled with less physical activity. Kris Clark, the assistant director of sports nutrition at Pennsylvania State University reports “There’s no one reason why we’ve seen the escalating rates of childhood obesity — it all comes down to calorie balance. Kids are eating too many calories and not burning off those calories by being active. It’s a reality that kids are going to have some sugar in their diets, whether that’s table sugar, honey, pancake syrup or high-fructose corn syrup.”
New research by the Corn Refiners Association (CRA) showed that all this talk about differences that don’t exist between sugar and high fructose corn syrup is confusing to consumers. Nearly half (46.9%) of consumers surveyed felt misled by food companies making high fructose corn syrup-free claims. For example, Pizza Hut’s anti-corn advertising campaign recently implied that high fructose corn syrup was not “natural” or “honest.” The suggestion that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is not “natural” is simply wrong. The Iowa Corn Promotion Board sent a letter and made calls to set the record straight, but this is just the beginning in the myth battle for high fructose corn syrup.
“The finger pointing at high fructose corn syrup for obesity in children and adults is wrong,” said Burrack. “We are a nation with many luxuries including ample food. And to blame high fructose corn syrup for obesity when our sedentary lifestyles and overeating is the cause misrepresents the answer. There is no scientific justification to single out High Fructose Corn Syrup over any other sweetner. The reality is, if you are going to use a sweetner to give food it’s great taste and texture, then you will consume some calories in the process. We all need to know the truth.”
Consumption of high fructose corn syrup has declined since its peak in 1999. The USDA estimates per capita sugar consumption in 2008 was 47.2 lbs per year and 37.8 lbs per year for high fructose corn syrup.
As high fructose corn syrup use increased in the United States, it replaced sugar in various foods and beverages on a nearly one-for-one basis, as the chart (below) illustrates. Yet because sugar and high fructose corn syrup share a common composition, the ratio of fructose-to-glucose in the diet has remained relatively unchanged over time. This means that sugars in the foods and beverages we consume is nearly the same today as it was 30 years ago, before high fructose corn syrup was introduced.
“As a corn grower, I know that what I am producing is safe and nutritionally the same as sugar. It has been scientifically proven to be safe and natural, it has the general properties of sugar, and the truth that should be peddled to consumers is their ability to control their calorie intake and their appetite for misinformation. ”
Tim Burrack is a farmer from Northeast Iowa. He is active in promoting the many uses of corn including processing, livestock, feed, and ethanol. He is also active in defending the corn industry to consumers through partnerships with the Indy Racing League, Iowa and Iowa State University, the Corn Farmers Coalition, the US Grains Council, and the National Corn Growers Association.
In his latest post in the Energy Tribune misguided columnist Robert Bryce jumps the tracks by trying to draw a correlation between increasing ethanol production from corn and the rising number of undernourished people in the world.
The headline on the article kind of says it all… “The Latest on the Ethanol Scam: US Ethanol Industry’s Grain Consumption in 2009 Was Enough to Feed 330 Million People.”
His argument has too many holes to address but let’s start with the shaky premise it is all built upon…that we use little of our commercial corn crop for human food. People eat very limited quantities of the commercial corn grown in the U.S. Roughly 99% of what we grow in this country is field corn, not sweet corn or the canned vegetable in your pantry.
A miniscule part of this crop is used as corn chips or food ingredients. Much is fed to livestock or exported for the same purpose. But the fastest category of corn use is non-food. Corn is basically a solar collector that converts light energy to sugars/calories. Those calories stored in the kernel can then be released for food, fuel, fiber, degradable plastics, fabric etc….and why not?
Many of the products corn replaces come from imported petroleum. We are growing record amounts of corn each year and production is escalating due to technology and good management and we are growing it on 20% fewer acres. As for your humanitarian argument, put a sock in it. We don’t have a corn supply problem for any purposes or markets.
Our yields are soaring and we grew more than 13 billion bushels of corn in 2009. Bin busting records are becoming so common there is little fanfare when it happens. But suffice it to say that burgeoning production has more than met any increased demands in the market resulting from ethanol.
The U.S. gives more humanitarian aid than anyone in the world including distribution of corn to needy nations, to the tune of $1 billion to $2 billion a year just through one program alone (Title 2 PL80). But raising corn is a business and a reasonable percentage of the crop needs to be purchased to give farmers an incentive to grow and keep them in business.
The biggest problems facing the poor and undernourished are: archaic agriculture that needs to be modernized so they can do a better job of feeding themselves; lack of jobs, weak economies that don’t allow them to buy U.S. food products; and stone age transportation that doesn’t allow them to get the food where it is needed.
Most of the needy nations of the world don’t have the capacity to distribute food to where it is needed even if we dumped tons on the dock every day. Solve these three problems and the nation’s farmers will grow all the corn the world needs.
Until then please consider finding a more reputable source than the Earth Policy Institute which is steered by the well-known save-the-planet quack Lester Brown. EPI is an agenda driven outfit that clearly has no understanding of modern agriculture. Look for more information on Lester here soon.
A widely known, experienced and respected veterinarian provided a very succinct review of the recent Katie Couric CBS News report on the use of antibiotics in livestock and pretty much proclaimed it hooey, sludge, manure, compost and crud.
Actually, the esteemed livestock expert with more than 36 years of livestock management and care credentials was far more professional and said simply, “the piece is not a factual representation of the scientific, safe, and careful use of antibiotics in animal agriculture.”
But hey, even medical experts can’t avoid the occasional verbal jab when provoked. Dr. Alyn M. McClure, DVM, pointed out the probability of a person experiencing a health treatment failure due to antibiotic use in say swine (piggies) are up to 1 in 53 million. To give that perspective, the odds are 1 in 555,000 you will get struck by lightning or 1 in 6 million you will die from a bee sting.
There is some solace that this irresponsible broadcast news piece ran on a show with ratings in the basement. CBS Evening News with Katie Couric had its lowest viewership yet. In fact, it’s the lowest viewership since at least the 1991/92 season, as far back as Nielsen records track.
“I welcome open dialogue and evaluation of our agricultural production practices. It can only make us better. I do ask the evaluation to be scientific and objective, and the reporting to avoid sensationalism, hyperbole, and misleading statements aimed at inflaming opinion.”
Dr. H. Scott Hurd, Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine, Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine lent credibility to Dr. MClure’s comments in a Point-Counterpoint piece on the ISU web site.
It’s really fun when you have a brush with greatness and it is no more apropos than when you run into a celebrity in Anaheim during Commodity Classic. Well the celebrity I’m referring to is our very own NCGA past president Ken McCauley, who was featured in the book Power Trip. Now Ken is quite modest and didn’t really tell people that he made it into the book. From start to finish it took more than two years from the time the author Amanda Little visited his farm in White Cloud, Kansas to the time it made it to the book shelves (Fall of ‘09).
In an recent blog from Mark, he celebrated that fact that Food Inc. didn’t win an Oscar. Unfortunately you can’t mention that “documentary” without thinking of Michael Pollan who wrote Omnivore’s Dilemma and promotes a world of organic farming. When on Ken’s farm, Little asks him about Pollan to which he replied, “It’s not a way to maximize production.”
