The May 10 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report projects U.S. feed grain supplies for 2012/13 at a record 416.3 million tons, up 16 percent from 2011/12 at a record 416.3 million tons, with corn production called at a record 14.8 billion bushels, up 2.4 billion from 2011/12.

A projected 5.1-million acre increase in harvested area and higher expected yields, compared with 2011/12, sharply boost production prospects. The 2012/13 corn yield is projected at a record 166.0 bushels per acre, 2.0 bushels above the 1990-2010 trend reflecting the rapid pace of planting and emergence. Despite the lowest expected carry-in in 16 years, corn supplies for 2012/13 are projected at a record 15.7 billion bushels, up 2.2 billion from 2011/12. Total U.S. corn use for 2012/13 is projected up 9 percent from 2011/12 on higher feed and residual disappearance, increased use for sweeteners and starch, and larger exports.

Under the corn usage category, USDA is increasing feed and residual use by 900 million bushels based on a sharp rebound in residual disappearance with the record crop and an increase in feeding with lower corn prices and higher expected pork and poultry production and exports are projected to be 200 million bushels higher than last year on abundant domestic supplies, lower prices, and higher expected China demand. Projected corn use for ethanol is unchanged at five billion bushels on the year as weak gasoline consumption limits domestic blending opportunities.

Of course, the downside to bigger supplies is lower prices. USDA is projecting at this point that the season-average farm price this year will be somewhere around $4.20 to $5.00 per bushel, down sharply from the 2011/12 record projected at $5.95 to $6.25 per bushel but still much better than it used to be.

What will this mean?  Possibly nothing, but, then again, it could indicate a variety of outcomes for the 2012 crop.

Higher-than-normal soil temperatures and favorable soil moisture across the Midwest, which weather forecasts suggest will persist, could provide an early window for rapid progress and germination.

For two years now, farmers in many areas have seen lower-than-expected yields due to weather difficulties.  While early, the possibility that 2012 will usher in more favorable conditions and a more bountiful crop is certainly welcome.

Coupling the optimistic outlook early planting demonstrates with estimates that more acres will be planted to corn than since 1937, it becomes possible to envision an abundant harvest this fall.

As any veteran agriculturalist understands, fall remains far in the distance and many troubles could still impede progress.  Just for a moment though, many feel a warm sun beating on their backs as, like every year, they toil in their fields in the hopes that this year will prove better than the last.

While most people have capriciously wished for an end to modern technology following a particularly annoying late-night text from an employer, only the smallest minority actually advocates a return to the workplace technology of 50 years ago.

So, why do so many people outside of agriculture think that a return to equally antiquated technology would actually improve farming?

Recently, a column in Stock and Land magazine examined the impact of a large-scale return to the farming methods of our forefathers, a romantic notion with dismal consequences. Instead of growing a crop large enough to share with the world, U.S. farmers would produce only enough food to feed half of the country’s current population.  Maintaining levels of dairy, meat and milk production would require two-thirds more land.  Increased environmental degradation and social unrest further complicate this already hungry scenario.

Simply, removing technology and scientific advances from modern life seriously damages productivity and effectiveness whether done in corporate or agrarian America.  Notably, the negative impact on farming creates a food shortage thus depriving an incredible number of those in towns and cities of the sustenance needed to survive.

Instead of buying into the soft-focus vision of farming that replaces knowledge and understanding with a vague sense of nostalgia, get the facts.  Question the farmers and ranchers who produce food about how and why they use the technology and practices that they do.  Look at the bounty of healthy options U.S. agriculture offers.  Become part of national discussion about food that seeks a better tomorrow instead of a rose-tinted version of the past.

Today is not the time for blame. Today is the time to reflect upon the incredible achievements that have allowed U.S. farmers to pull through disastrous weather reasonably in-tact, producing what may be a near-record crop.

Farmers, by the very nature of their business, must depend upon the weather. This year, Mother Nature proved uncooperative at best. In spring, she flooded the banks of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and delayed planting with a seemingly unending deluge. Then, showing her mercurial nature, she baked Texas, and much of the Corn Belt to a lesser extent, with an unrelenting heat. Finally, as if to show that no one would escape her wrath, Hurricane Irene leveled much of the crop almost ready for harvest along the East Coast. If this were an actual mother, the family would certainly be in counseling by now.

Despite harsh conditions, farmers maintained their composure using the vast array of tools and techniques developed through advanced research to mitigate the string on blows pummeled upon their fields. Day after day, they walked the rows contemplating a next move, a way to make the most of the quickly deteriorating situation.

What we should celebrate today is the fact that farmers, backed by research and technology, can still produce an abundant crop even in difficult conditions. Only 10 years ago, the national average yield was 138 bushels per acre and the crop totaled 9.5 billion bushels. Now, even in a year many farmers describe as having the worst weather they have seen, the United States is set to produce 12.5 billion bushels of corn with a national average yield of 148 bushels per acre. Today, farmers do what those only a few decades ago could not have imagined under circumstances without recent parallel.

It only gets better though. As new traits come through the pipeline, Texans will have access to corn varieties that can better resist drought. Corn Belters will select the seeds they need to withstand more or less rain as they see fit. Scientists are hard at work to make sure that every farmer’s hard work is matched by the thought and development in each seed they plant.

While the epic creativity of the ever-rotating crop of insightful local reporters attempting such crazy feats allows us to giggle at the heat, or at least their tired antics, for many, the heat brought about a level of panic, suffering and problems more likely to make a sane person cry.  From illness to electric bills that trigger a special sort of nausea, the heat wave wreaked havoc on what could otherwise have been a productive, enjoyable summer.

Children trapped indoors and sidelined runners aren’t the only groups stopped dead in their tracks by the blistering bubble.  Corn farmers have watched as the crop they worked late into the night to plant following this spring’s unrelenting monsoon season begins to show signs of heat stress.

While the farmers themselves can escape to the icy, dark confines of the closest movie house, corn plants must find ways to endure the heat and preserve precious moisture.  As corn plants are past the pollination stage at this point in the season, each individual plant makes a variety of small adaptations that best allow it to produce the maximum amount of viable seed possible.

As for each of us who has eschewed a morning jog or skipped an outdoor barbeque to cope with the insipid temperatures, corn plants make sacrifices to survive in these conditions.  These sacrifices, although vital to preserving the corn and to the inherent objective of spreading its own genetic material, negatively impact the crop in a number of ways that can subsequently impinge on each individual farmer’s profitability at harvest.

Just walking through a corn field, the toll heat stress takes on a plant becomes obvious.  The normally green, flat leaves that jet from the stalk have rolled in around the edges to reduce surface area, therefore preserving moisture.  Near the ground, leaves have been fired from the stalk completely and now lie in brown, crumpled piles.  The once lush, green field no longer resembles the perfect stands picturesquely surrounding the baseball diamond in “Field of Dreams.”

Heat damage affects more than the cosmetic in corn.  As the nights stay hot and days reach record highs, the plant must further shut down to preserve the seeds encasing its valuable genetic material. The small kernels from the top of the ear abort to save the more desirable brethren at the base.  Even the kernels for which much of the plant was sacrificed may not reach their maximum potential.

At harvest, these ears of corn will still be useful.  The crop will still provide food, feed or fuel depending upon its destination.  Yet, the farmer will again suffer as low test weights and diminished yields chip away at the profitability of the year’s corn crop.  With high fertilizer prices and increasingly expensive land, farmers may find the heat burning them in the pocketbook long after a chilly fall breeze begins to blow in the evenings.

Farmers know from a very young age, most often by observing as their parents and grandparents worked that same land, that every year, every day their livelihood is at the mercy of the weather.  Long after the average person’s electric bill is paid, farmers feel the impact of a long, hot summer.

So, next time a peppy freshman reporter cracks an egg onto a white hot sidewalk remember that the heat dome of 2011 will continue to loom large in the memories of many long after the holidays.  America’s family farmers toil on despite the risk because they realize the importance of producing enough corn to supply the world’s growing demand.

Say thank you by becoming more informed.  Take a moment to read a simple, short brief on how farm programs, such as those coming before Congress next year, help protect farmers from the heat and ensure a vibrant future for this key industry.  If the television station can invest in the same tired heat story year-after-year, the country should invest in the men and women who provide the food that actually ends up on a plate.

In November, we started filming a video that will encompass aspects of grain bin engulfment and prevention. But  before jumping in (no pun intended), our team sat down and decided what messages we needed to get out in front of our members and farmers across the country.  Our end result; this is going to be no ordinary video.   We realized that many of the informational videos on grain bin safety didn’t bring in the emotional aspect and that is where our video will differ.  You may find yourself reaching for the tissue box in the opening seconds of the video as we are bring to light the emotional struggle families must face after the loss of a loved one in a grain bin accident.

We are also interviewing experts that train firefighters across the country to rescue engulfment victims and hope it shines a light on how difficult their job can really be.  In fact, we were told during an interview that even after all the training; their department lost a firefighter in a grain bin accident on his parent’s farm only a few years ago.  Can you imagine what was going through those firefighters’ heads as they frantically tried, and ultimately failed, to save a colleague’s life?

Our goal is to reach farmers and make sure they understand that those five extra minutes that might be saved by going into the bin alone and without proper precautions could cost them their life.  We want them to realize that while this is a harsh reality of our industry, it can be prevented.   If we have just one farmer stop and think twice before entering a grain bin alone, we have done our job. 

As a daughter, sister, granddaughter and niece of farmers and the wife of a firefighter, I am making sure I can do my part to not only protect and educate my family, but farmers all across the country. 

The video will debut at farmer meetings and on the NCGA web site in the middle of January, 2011.

Our host was Bill Couser. Bill conducted a fascinating presentation about his marriage of row crop farming (corn/soybeans), livestock production and ethanol production! You can see a portion of his explanation in the video below. He used a long table to display all the products he produces starting with an ear of corn and winding up with ethanol (2.81 gal/bushel of corn) as well as by-products like DDGS and ultimately fine quality beef. I loved his description about the whole food vs. fuel debate, “It’s rubbish!”

TATT Global Farmer To Farmer Roundtable Photo Album

It doesn’t get any better than driving up to a farmer’s doorstep and loading up the trunk. But for those that don’t get outside the city farmers markets offer the same attraction. Produce is cheaper, fresher and often tastier because it is picked at peak ripeness. And whether at the farm or the market there is the bonus of visiting with the grower which is generally fun.

But here is the rub; October looms around the corner and with it the closure of many farmers markets for the season. Given the large harvest moon hanging in the sky this week it also means what you find at these markets is changing. Tomatoes and cucumbers are rapidly being replaced by squash and pumpkins and empty shelves or parking lots will soon follow where abundance ruled in the summer months.

So while there is a certain attraction to being a locavore, culinary adventurer’s who attempt to survive on food grown and harvested within a 100 mile radius, the prospects are a bit grim if you don’t live in California, Florida or similar Sunbelt locales. (Although there appears to be some honesty issues in some markets even in Sun Country where farmers market vendors are passing off produce from the same wholesalers used by grocery stores as locally grown.)

As you can see in the attached photo many markets have already closed for the season and two months from now these market locations will be clutched in the frosty grip of a Midwestern winter.

Of course there is always the labor intensive option of preserving food for the winter months, but personally, I like having the freedom offered by modern conveniences like grocery stores. I have no desire to go back to canning like Michael Pollan’s grandmother or crawling into a root cellar in February for the pitiful offerings they used to produce.

I think there is tremendous opportunity for growth for locally grown food and we should encourage schools and restaurants to serve local food and even establish more community gardens. Especially if it helps us recognize that the choices we make about what foods we choose to eat are important politically, environmentally, economically, and healthfully.

But I for one will continue to approach this subject with a skeptical eye, especially regarding those who think it’s either locally grown or conventional agriculture rather than both in concert.

The traders and speculators would cash in, check out, and be sipping umbrella drinks in Tahiti.

Today’s crop report triggered all kinds of news stories and messaging in social media that all read like the crop of 2010 was in the bin. Just a note for future reference a corn crop isn’t made in June, July or even August. It is cumulative.

Corn production is forecast at a record high 13.4 billion bushels, up 2 percent from the previous record set in 2009. Based on conditions as of August 1, yields are expected to average a record high 165.0 bushels per acre, up 0.3 bushel from last year’s record of 164.7.

However every stage from planting to ear set to pollination is critical. And so is ear filling. August is traditionally the time when a crop is polished off…the shine is put on the apple so to speak. The size of the ears is already determined but the final yield depends on the number of kernels developed and its weight and size. The size of the kernel is still on the bubble for the 2010 crop in many areas.

For much of this key kernel filling stage many key corn production states have been experiencing severe heat and in some cases accompanying dry conditions.

Then why have we been doing these reports since 1863? Apparently President Abraham Lincoln was swayed by USDA’s contention (actually included in the first report) that “Ignorance of the state of our crops invariably leads to speculation in which the farmer does not obtain just prices and by which the consumer is not benefitted.”

It is hard to argue with that. I prefer to think of the report as a compass that helps point the way but you may be stopping to ask for directions before you reach your final destination.

At the end of the day the news is good. We will once again be blessed with an abundant harvest and it appears prices will be good enough to pay the bills and sustain family farmers for another year.

Are today’s farmers feeding and taking care of their animals properly?

It seems to come down to who you trust.

Marcia Gorrell, agriculture reporter for The Marshall Democrat-News in Marshall ,Missouri, is today’s guest blogger, and offers the following commentary on the confusing and contrary information bombarding consumers regarding our foods origin and safety.

Do you believe the family farmers who have spent their whole lives producing food? The farmers who have built modern farming techniques, step by step, generation by generation — building on the lessons, failures and successes of those who farmed before them?

Do you believe the scientists or researchers who have spent their entire careers studying animals, nutrition and food safety? Do you believe the USDA or the FDA who are tasked with making our food supply safe?

I have as much suspicion as anyone when it comes to the government, but in the case of food safety, I can’t argue with the results.

While the rest of the world’s agriculture has been ravaged by outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease and Bird Flu, we in the United States have not. Somebody is looking out for us and doing a good job.

Then there is the other truth. Here in the United States we pay only 7 percent of our take home income for food, while other countries pay a lot more. And despite that fact, we still have 36 million living here who can’t afford enough food for themselves and their families.

Of course, if you don’t believe those people — or me — you can believe the reports like the one recently by Katie Couric of CBS News. It blamed antibiotic use in animals for the rise of antibiotic resistance in humans.

If she would have contacted farmers and veterinarians, as I did, she might have found out there are two sides to every story.

H. Scott Hurd, a veterinarian and former deputy undersecretary of food safety for the USDA has written a statement-by-statement rebuttal of Couric’s piece.

As far as antibiotics are concerned, they test and make sure there are no traces of antibiotics in animals headed for the food supply. Every load of milk is tested for traces of antibiotics. The FDA has a zero tolerance policy — as in none!

A hog producer here in Saline County told me that he uses fewer antibiotics now than ever, and that was true long before Katie took over the CBS news desk. I know for a fact that hog producers are meticulous when it comes to letting germs or disease in, calling it bio-security. They use antibiotics for sick animals, of course, and put a low level of antibiotics in feed or water during times of high stress, such as weaning or moving to a new building.

According to the hog producer I talked to, if they didn’t do that, they would actually use more antibiotics taking care of sick animals, and the animals might suffer needlessly. According to Hurd’s article, that has been the unfortunate consequences of an antibiotics ban for Danish hog farmers, who were held up as a good example in Couric’s piece.

The local farmer doesn’t use antibiotics to promote growth in his hogs and doesn’t know anyone who does.

He points out there are several reasons they strictly limit antibiotic use already: one is cost, antibiotics are expensive and hogs don’t have health insurance. They also want to provide a safe, acceptable product for consumers. The third reason is simple. The drugs are strictly regulated by the FDA to guard against antibiotic resistance.

Again, if you don’t believe me, you might believe Michael Pollan, the journalism professor from the University of California-Berkeley, who has become a self-appointed “food expert” but has never spent time actually raising food or feeding an animal day after day.

Recently Pollan was on Oprah, spouting his oft-repeated line that corn is not a natural food source for cows (and ruminants) and that we are force-feeding the foodstuff causing them to become sick.

According to Pollan, in order to feed cattle corn, we have to also feed them antibiotics.

For most farmers, that statement is so laughable they can’t believe someone would actually believe it. In fact, most don’t think it is worth a response.

The problem is the journalism professor has made millions of dollars on several books and is getting paid $100,000 a speech to spread his message that cheap food equals bad food or that we should only eat locally grown food in season. (Lucky for him, he lives in southern California, where winter means 60-degree weather. Unlucky for us in mid-Missouri, it means we would eat no vegetables from November to March!)

I recently tried to explain Pollan’s assertions to a cattle producer who has personally fed and sent thousands of cattle directly to packers. He raises the kind of cattle that people in New York City and California want when they pay $50 to $100 for a 6-ounce filet mignon.

No doubt, aided by the fact that he had been up since 3 a.m. helping cows during calving season, he thought I was joking.

This is an intelligent, college educated beef producer who is too busy raising safe, affordable and good-tasting food for you and me to watch Oprah or read fiction.

I didn’t need to talk to him to know that it’s untrue that corn is not a “natural” food for cattle and other ruminants.

The first reason I know its untrue is that corn IS a grass and the corn kernel is a seed of that grass. Pollan and his followers might argue that it has been “changed” or genetically modified, so it is therefore not a grass.

I don’t agree. The main changes made since early times affect the bushels we can grow per acre, not the actual plant or seed.

The second reason I know it is untrue is because unlike Pollan, I’ve actually fed cattle. I’ve slogged through mud and trounced through pastures, carrying buckets to cattle who can hardly wait until I pour the corn into to the trough. I’ve fed cattle for our own consumption and I’ve helped my sons feed steers for the Saline County Fair.

Pollan is right when he says corn needs to be fed at gradual increments or cattle will get bloated. It’s true. Cows have sensitive stomachs (four, to be exact), and they don’t limit

their intake of food as hogs or chickens will.

What Pollan fails to say is that too much of many foods cause bloat in cattle, including the “grass” many grass-fed cattle are finished on — clover and alfalfa. They will eat and eat until they get sick, especially something they love as much as corn, alfalfa or clover.

That’s why God invented farmers.

Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen. We’ve fed many steers here on the farm in a short period of time and gradually adding corn to their diet is the key. It’s really not any different from humans, if we normally eat one amount and then one day overeat, we get bloated. No difference. We too, are unable to limit ourselves at times.

And here is the most important point: We’ve never aided the feeding process with an antibiotic and neither has the feedlot operator I spoke to. It is certainly not a necessary part of corn-fed beef.

Pollan likes to say that feeding cattle corn is a new phenomenon. He asserts that 50 years ago cattle were fed grass and then slaughtered after two or three years of grazing. His theory is that the farm policy of the 1970s and subsidization of corn are the reason that cattle are now corn-fed.

However, of all the Century Farm farmers and old-timers I’ve interviewed or talked to, I’ve yet to find one that didn’t remember feeding anything but corn to finish cattle.

Corn-fed beef tastes better than grass-fed cattle. Study after study has shown consumers agree overwhelmingly.

Maybe that wasn’t the case in western states, where corn was less available, I don’t know, but here in Missouri, feeding corn to cattle is a practice that is at least a century old. Of course, as farmers always do, they are building on new technologies.

In recent years, the “corn” cattle eat includes a growing amount of the byproduct from ethanol production called DDGs or Dried Distillers Grain. Most people don’t know that. Apparently, recycling an already “green” product doesn’t sell books or television advertisements.

There is a fourth reason I know Pollan is wrong. I didn’t realize it until this fall (I am not smart like my farmers), but deer are ruminants, just like cattle. They have two stomachs. In fact, even Pollan mentions them in one of his articles. Deer grow wild on my farm. They choose their own

food.

That includes a smorgasbord during the summer — grass, alfalfa, trees, soybeans, wheat and a variety of garden goodies — there is plenty of everything. However, judging by the big holes left in our fields, the crop they eat the most is corn.

Yes, the same corn Pollan says isn’t a “natural” feedstuff for ruminants.

Ever look in a deer’s two stomachs? I got that “joy” this fall as my sons dressed the deer they shot during hunting season. Guess what? Full of corn, lots and lots of MY corn.

Obviously our resident deer haven’t read Pollan either.

I was trying to explain all this to someone recently, and she asked a very legitimate question.

“If it’s not true that today’s food animals are pumped full of antibiotics or that corn shouldn’t be fed to cattle, why is that story not on the news?”

I wonder that too.

But the truth is with just one million people involved in production agriculture today, there are few people who know the “real story” about raising food.

Most Americans have never been to a farm, let alone ever talked to an actual farmer. And like my farmer friend, most farmers are too busy raising food to explain all the details to what sometimes seems like an ungrateful public.

And not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s awful hard to get the “other side” out there. My own cousins thought that only 3 percent of farmers were family farmers. They knew we were family farmers — they had been to my house, but they had no idea the ratio was 97 percent family farms and just 3 percent corporate farms.

Here is the other problem: Oprah didn’t have anyone on her show to refute what Pollan said and neither did the documentary “Food, Inc.” Or Katie Couric, for that matter. Hard to get the “other side” out there when you are not given a chance to state it.

The real truth is just because it says so on the news — yes, even Oprah– doesn’t mean it’s true. Remember, there was a time when majorities thought the world was flat, women in Salem were witches, Hollywood producers were communists, Iraq was full of weapons of mass destruction, that “popular” girl in your high school was really cool and the Colts would easily win the 2010 Super Bowl.

But now we know the “rest of the story.”

To my friend and all of you who never hear the “other side.”

You just did.

Like I said, it all comes down to who you trust.

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