grouchyfarmer

Farm Catch Up

Looking back at ag news over the last week

NAFTA

The new ag secretary, Perdue, gave a speech in which he claimed the administration was going to renegotiate NAFTA within the next six months. He said, “We’re not talking about this taking years to do, but weeks…”, thus clearly indicating that neither he nor the administration he works for knows what NAFTA is in the first place, or even how trade negotiations work. If they think they can do something as complex as renegotiate NAFTA in a few weeks… Oh, brother, we’re in trouble.

Ag Immigration

With the ag sector in a near panic over the potential loss of much of their labor force due to the policies of the administration, some administration officials have been trying to calm things down. Perdue was out and about again and said in a speech that he had been assured that the administration was not gong to target employers, was not going to raid farms, and that the ag sector should calm down because the administration was not going to go after it’s immigrant labor force.

And then just a couple of days later ICE did exactly that, raiding a Pennsylvania mushroom farm and hauling off nine of it’s employees. So it goes.

Other anti-immigrant activities by politicians and law enforcement have done nothing but make the panic in the ag sector even worse. Texas just put in place a law that permits police to demand proof of citizenship during routine stops and would jail police chiefs and sheriffs who do not cooperate with federal immigration officials. Arizona has passed a similar law. Basically these laws allow, or even require, police to demand proof of citizen ship from anyone they suspect is not a citizen which, in a lot of jurisdictions basically means anyone who is not white.

Some politicians are trying to do something about this. Ag businesses and others that depend on immigrant labor are having serious problems already. There is a bill in Congress that would provide a “blue card” to farmworkers who have worked in agriculture for at least 100 days. That bill will almost certainly go absolutely nowhere. Wisconsin and some other states are trying to cobble together a “state visa” program that would give states more control over immigrant rights to prevent their labor force from being deported. Wisconsin is hugely dependent on immigrant labor and employers are already having problems finding people to work. That proposal will go nowhere as well. Even if it did go through at the state level, it would be over ruled by federal law and possibly would even be unconstitutional because the federal government, not the states, has control over immigration.

Water Wars

Wisconsin has a serious problem with water quality, especially ground water. Because of contamination by huge CAFOs (mega farms) caused by the dumping of millions of gallons of liquid manure on the ground, wells all over the state are being contaminated. Up in Kewaunee county about 40 miles from here it’s estimated that 35% – 50% of the private wells in the county are contaminated. And almost nothing is being done about it. A story in the May 10 issue of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (I can’t put in a link because I read MJS on Kindle, but you can find it with Google if you want) discovered that the problem is so serious that the Algoma school district is giving out water to students and families, some farm organizations are giving out drinking water, and even the DNR may be getting into the act, providing drinking water. And almost no one has heard about the story. I’m not a conspiracy nut, so I don’t think that they are deliberately trying to bury the story. I think it is just getting swept aside because of far more important issues. Kewaunee County is a rural area and not very affluent so news organizations tend to ignore it unless something makes a big stink.

Kewaunee County is also problematic because it is bordered on one side by Lake Michigan, and by the Bay of Green Bay (yes, I know it sounds redundant, but that’s what they call it) on the other. The Bay of GB has been suffering from dead zones, areas where nothing but algae grows, because of contamination by fertilizers, phosphorous, nitrates; the same contaminants that are getting into the wells.

Wisconsin isn’t the only state with this problem. Iowa, Indiana, California… Anywhere where large scale agriculture is going on is suffering similar problems. And the politicians are listening.

But, of course, not to the people who are finding their water polluted. Here in Wisconsin they’re ramming through new rules and regulations which would allow mega farms and irrigation systems to draw virtually unlimited amounts of ground water form high capacity wells, even in areas where the draw down has been so bad rivers and lakes are literally drying up because of it. The “new” DNR is doing nothing about the issues in Kewaunee and is working on “voluntary” solutions. And in California they tried to push through a bill that would forbid people from suing suspected polluters, giving the general public no recourse at all if they find their wells contaminated. And at the federal level some members of Congress are trying to push through a similar measure. You can read about that here over at The Hill.

Who Owns What?

One trend that I find troubling is farm land being snatched up by investment companies. Farmland Partners is perhaps the best known of these, but it isn’t the only player in this. FP now owns around 154,000 acres of farmland, and it’s expanding it’s holdings every year.

Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but when I read stories like this I tend to think of how this can be abused and misused. I get nervous whenever an essential item like farmland is being concentrated in the hands of people who don’t give a damn about anything except maximizing their profit. Yeah, I know the companies talk about preserving farmland, protecting our resources, saving the environment, protecting agriculture and all that. But when it comes down to it, the only business FP is in is to make money for it’s stock holders. Period.

Unpasteurized Milk

Consuming unpasteurized milk has become a fad in the “natural food” world. From ridiculous claims that unpasteurized milk can cure everything from rashes, to baldness, to cancer, to claims that pasteurizing milk somehow destroys it’s nutritional content, the internet abounds with utterly absurd claims alleging health benefits from it that simply do not exist.

One thing that unpasteurized milk can do, though, is make you sick. According to a new study published by the CDC this week, 96% of all illnesses linked to milk products were caused by unpasteurized milk, even though only about 3% of the population drinks unpasteurized milk and even fewer eat cheese made with unpasteurized milk. You can read about it here over at Consumerist.

I know this sounds kind of ridiculous from a former dairy farmer, but the fact is that you don’t need milk at all. You can easily get the calcium, protein and other nutrients in milk from other sources. There are studies out there that indicate that contrary to what the milk marketing boards are trying to claim, drinking milk does nothing to improve bone density nor does it do anything that can’t be gained by eating other foods. There are even some studies indicating that drinking milk may be related to some of the very things the marketing people claim it helps.

[Addendum: May 12. I added this edit after someone who read this told me that you need to drink milk to get vitamin D. Yes, D is an essential nutrient and a lot of people don’t get enough of it, but you don’t get vitamin D from milk itself. The only reason D is in milk is because milk processors are required to add it. They basically grind up a vitamin pill and throw it in the jug. ]

Cheese… that’s a different story. Ooo, yummy yummy cheese… I think I have some of that gorgonzola left in the fridge…

Say it with me now — cheese….

Garden Updates

Even the local dentist’s office is looking colorful these days. Had to stop and take a picture of these guys. There is color bursting up all over, despite the cold weather we’ve been having.

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Apparently once you have catnip in your garden, you will always have catnip in your garden. We made the mistake of putting one plant in about fifteen years ago, and we’ve been trying to get rid of it ever since. The stuff is ridiculously prolific, spreading all over. Still, the cats do like the stuff when we bring in a few leaves for them. They roll around on it, sit on it, rub their faces on it, then fall asleep for two hours. Great fun.

I’m looking forward to seeing these guys come into blossom. These asiatic lilies usually put on a spectacular show later in the season.

This is our lettuce/greens bed. About four feet across, this circular, partly shaded bed provides us with more than enough lettuce and fresh greens during the season. It’s a bit early, but MrsGF seeded this one over the weekend. I dumped about 4 inches of compost on the bed earlier and worked it in so we’re hoping for better results than we had last year. We had plenty of greens for salads, but the growth was a bit disappointing. The nice thing about this bed is that it’s partly shaded which helps to keep the lettuce from bolting before we can use it. We generally re-seed in late summer so we keep getting fresh growth right up until frost in the late fall.

This bed was a motley collection of — of stuff. And the soil was absolutely terrible. MrsGF was very fond of some of the flowers in here, but even she had to admit it needed to be worked up and replanted. We removed old growth, transplanted some root stock she wanted to save, and then worked it up with the tiller, hauled in about 6 inches of compost, worked that in, and she’s put in a mixture of different flowers. I’m looking forward to this. She put in a section of alyssum which smell absolutely heavenly when they come into bloom.

It’s hard to believe how fast the hostas are growing. Just two weeks ago this plant was little more than a couple of green spikes sticking out of the ground. Even with temperatures dropping to freezing overnight they’ve been growing like crazy. I don’t know how some of these plants survive the frost. It’s been down to 28 degrees at night around here for the last few days.

Then there is these little guys. They pop up in the most unexpected and sometimes ridiculous places, and I always have to smile when I see one. I love their color, their texture, like dark purple velvet and then that burst of yellow in the center. This little stinker popped up right in the middle of the lawn.

Cat Shaming

This is Meg the Siamese. She is really fat. Her brother Jay is really skinny. She is really fat Screen Shot 2017-05-08 at 5.57.02 AM and he is really skinny because she steals all his food. I have to stand or sit alongside of poor Jay all the while he eats or she’ll just shove him out of the way, scarf down all of his food, then scarf down hers, and beg for more.

Meg is not ashamed. Irritated at being locked in the bedroom so her brother can eat, yes. But ashamed? You kidding?

Birch

Close ups of birch trees in my neighborhood. I’ve always been fascinated with tree bark as a photographic subject. The texture, the play of light and shadow, lichen and moss, the amount of detail is astonishing and often quite beautiful.

Birch are getting hit hard here in the state, especially up in the northern part of the state where they’re more common. Not from disease, from tree rustlers, I suppose you could call them.

I’m not the only one who thinks birch are beautiful trees. A lot of others do to, and are running around up north cutting them down, hacking off their branches, and selling them as decorative items. And doing it on private property, public parks, state parks and forest reserves where they’re doing it illegally. They’re finding hundreds of birch trees being hacked down just so people can steal the branches to sell them as decorations. Sigh…

Pear Blossoms And More Little Purple Thingies

The pear tree is coming into full blossom. This dopy tree never ceases to amaze me. It is gnarled, misshapen, leans over at about a 35 degree angle and any arborist would wince at the sight of it. But holy cow, does it produce pears! Some of the most delicious, luscious pears I’ve ever had. We look forward to mid to late September when the fruit gets ripe. At their peak the pears are so sweet, so juicy and lush they melt in your mouth when you eat them. Alas, while they are amazing for eating fresh, they’re terrible for canning because the buttery texture that makes them so delightful for eating fresh means they disintegrate when canned. They do make great jam, though!

We tend to ignore the goofy little bushes on the north side of the house. They are generally rather nondescript and often annoying because they grow like nuts and have to be trimmed frequently, and some of them have vicious thorns on them. But every once in a while this one decided to bloom. Tiny little lavender-purple blossoms that are so small they’re easy to completely ignore.

They’re sort of like, well, people. Even the most ordinary, the most nondescript, have incredible beauty within them if you look past the surface.

Hostas! And Little Purple Thingies!

I love hostas. Easy to take care of, can survive a variable climate. The flowers, well, they

Every single one came back! I am enormously pleased. They’re looking wonderful.

don’t do very good in the flower department, but that’s not why I grow them. It’s the foliage. Over the years growers have developed dozens of different varieties with a huge assortment of different types of foliage; yellow, striped, speckled, different shades of green, different leaf shapes. They’re great fun.

A couple of years ago I ripped out the entire front mess between the house and the sidewalk and put in a hosta bed. Even went to a professional hosta grower to get the plants. Spent way too much money. And much to my surprise, every single one of them has been doing beautifully up there, surviving the cold, the rain, the snow, the ice. Great plants, hostas.

Was out walking with MrsGrouch (She’s not really a grouch, just the opposite, but this is Grouchyfarmer.com, so what, I should call her Mrsdotcom?) and we ran into these and I had to take a photo. In an otherwise totally nondescript front yard, this cluster of brilliance was sitting there near a step, this tightly packed cluster of brilliant joy… Wow.

Farm Catchup

Time to get caught up with what’s been going on in the farming world.

Elderly Corn

China has a problem with corn. As in it has too much of it. It’s been sitting on a large amount of stockpiled corn for years now, and it needs to get rid of it because some of this has been sitting in storage for ages now and if they don’t get rid of it soon it’s going to be unfit for even animal consumption. Agrimoney posted a story indicating China is going to start dumping a lot of it’s aging corn on the market beginning May 5. Some of this stuff has been in storage since 2012. The country has had a problem with this for some time now, and there are rumors flying around that the quality of this stuff is marginal at best. China has been working to make their grain markets less dependent on government support programs and to draw down massive amounts of grain that they have in storage. The result has been a huge drop in the import of grain, especially corn. Chinese corn imports in March were 91% lower than they were a year ago.

GM Corn Saving Lives?

My opinion of genetically modified crops is mixed. I believe the science that proves that the GM crops in use currently are generally safe and that consuming them does not cause health problems. But GM crops have other issues associated with them that are problematic. Like the fact they don’t really improve yield at all, that they lead to the development of herbicide tolerant weeds and that in the long run, GM crops modified to resist weeds and things like the corn borer are little more than stop gap measures that will ultimately fail… The list goes on and on.

But there is one GM crop that could genuinely be of benefit. Aspergillus is a type of fungi or mold that produces aflatoxin, which is not only a carcinogen, but can also cause stunted growth in children and damage immune systems. And it causes liver cancer. It can be found in all kinds of things; peanuts, walnuts, the list goes on and on. Aflatoxin is especially a problem in corn. Corn that is harvested wet, stored improperly, can easily be hit with this stuff, and it can be very nasty.

Here in the US and other first world countries corn and other food crops are tested for the the stuff, but that’s not the case in other places that don’t have the resources, the money, or the expertise to do the testing.

They’ve developed a modified variety of corn that resists the development of the toxin in the corn kernel. Aspergillus can still develop, the the toxin itself will not get into the kernels of the corn.

The early test results are very promising, but they’re going to have to hook up with someone who can afford to foot the bill for large scale testing of the modified crop and go through all of the regulatory paper work and testing.

It wouldn’t just help poorer countries which can’t do the testing. Farmers have huge amounts of corn rejected because of testing positive for the toxin, so a variety of corn that didn’t develop the toxin would be a significant financial benefit.

Weed Wars

I ran into this item over at agweb.com: When Will the Herbicide Cavalry Arrive? It talks about herbicide resistant weeds and new chemicals to kill them and all that stuff. The usual kind of thing that reads like a PR piece written by the chemical companies. But if you scroll down a bit over halfway through the piece, you’ll find a somewhat different tone when someone, finally, utters the phrase “we’ll never spray our way out of the problem.”

And we won’t. Sooner or later the pests will develop resistance to whatever chemical solutions they come up with and the problem will come back just as bad, probably worse, than it was before. They go on to praise two Australian “innovations” that attach to the combine to capture weed seeds before the combine can blow them back out onto the field.

It’s certainly a good idea. Any weed seeds you can capture at the combine aren’t going to germinate the next year to infest your crops. But innovative? Hardly. Similar technologies have been around for decades. Back in the late 1950s our old Massy Harris combine had a device mounted on it that did something similar. It collected the weed seed that would have been blown back out onto the field or gone into the grain tank with the oats and dumped it into a feed sack attached to the back of the combine. At the end of the day we’d have bags of the stuff. It certainly wasn’t 100% effective, but every weed seed it did collect was one that wasn’t going to cause a problem the following year.

Will these devices be helpful? Hell yes, if they ever get them into production and farmers buy into the idea.

I’m not sure why the process went out of favor. I think our combine was the last one I ever saw that was equipped with it. I suppose people figured why bother when all we need to do is just spray. Just blow the weed seed out the back of the combine and let the chemicals deal with it.

School Lunch Controversy

You’d think that one thing everyone would agree on is that school kids should be fed lunches that are safe and healthy, right? But you’d be surprised. Opinions range all over the place out there, from people who think parents should be responsible to feeding their kids and the schools shouldn’t be serving any food at all, under any circumstances, to those who think schools should be feeding kids everything; breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And as for what schools should be serving, well, it’s turned into an utterly ridiculous and totally unnecessary political fight that started the moment the Obama administration announced new rules to insure that what kids were being fed in schools was, if not actually good for them, at least wouldn’t actively harm them. There is absolutely no doubt that we eat too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt, too much processed food and we don’t eat enough vegetables, fruit and whole grains. The new rules were intended to help deal with that, and from the moment they were even mentioned, the fight started because, well, Obama, and as far as certain politicians and special interest groups were concerned, anything coming out of the Obama administration was automatically the spawn of Satan.

As the current administration works to roll back or eliminate everything that it’s predecessor did, it’s been going after the school lunch program as well. The ag secretary announced in a self promotional fluff piece that reads like it was written by the food processing companies and backed with “information” that either isn’t true, is misinterpreted or cherry picked, that they’re going to “make school meals great again” by rolling back the Obama era nutritional guidelines, and allow schools to return, at least partly, to serving kids little more than junk food disguised as a meal. Restrictions on salt, fat, sugar, serving increased amounts of vegetables and whole grain breads and fat free milk are all being rolled back

One of these days I need to do an article about the school food service system. I’ve been involved in it either directly or indirectly for decades and some of the crap going on in that system, well, it’s scary sometimes.

You want some flowers? Here you go!

Milk Wars

Well, the politicians have gotten involved in the dispute with Canada over their change Screen Shot 2017-04-27 at 6.43.56 AM.png to their milk import policies, and as you might expect, there has been a lot of muttering, tut-tutting, bloviating and ranting, with absolutely nothing being done about anything. The president got involved, appearing in Wisconsin briefly where he said many, many things to try to make it sound like he was going to do something, and as soon as he got out of the state and safely back in DC, the Whitehouse immediately disavowed everything he said, blunted or even eliminated entirely the vague threats, and we aren’t going to do this or that, but oh, even though the dispute is about milk we’re going to put a tariff on Canadian wood…. Wood? Really? Oh, well…

The state’s ag secretary is apparently actually doing his job, trying to help the dairy farms that are being dumped by Grassland. But in the long run there isn’t a heck of a lot that can be done at the state level. Fortunately it seems like most of the farmers effected by this have now found other markets for their milk, but the situation is still very concerning, and I expect things will get worse before they get better.

Blaming Canada for this, as many are doing, is silly. These new rules should not have blind sided anyone. From what I’ve been reading, the rules have been in the works for at least a full year, if not longer. Back in November already we were seeing stories popping up about the change in rules and warnings of how it would effect the markets here. So the processor’s claim that they were blindsided by this is a bit disingenuous. If their management didn’t see this coming, they really should be in a different business.

The real problem is the dairy industry itself and the politicians who keep fiddling with it, not any specific country. And the problem is world wide, not limited to the US or Canada. The problem is that dairy farms are producing way, way too much milk. More than the market can absorb. And instead of trying to deal with the situation, the reaction of the whole industry is to try desperately to come up with some kind of market for the stuff, any way they can, even if it destabilizes some other country’s farming industry. Pressuring politicians to institute still more ways to artificially prop up prices.

Canada has done something no other country has, it has actually been trying to deal with the problem of oversupply. It has a fairly strict quota system on milk production to try to keep the market stable. But in order to make it work, they have to restrict imports of dairy products from outside of Canada or the whole system would fall apart as the country is flooded with cheap imports. (The EU tried a quota system but abandoned it a year or two ago)

Is this protectionism? Of course it is. But you have a choice: Do you protect your businesses at home, giving them a level playing field to work with, restrict production so the farms can be relatively profitable, or do you open up your markets to cheap imports, often cheap because of government subsidies, tax breaks and other things that make it cheaper for them to produce the product than you can?

Then the politicians get involved… Price supports, tax breaks, grants, subsidies, government agencies buying up surplus product to artificially prop up prices, mandates that you have to use certain products (Wisconsin still has laws that force restaurants and food service operations to serve butter, for example), the list goes on and on. The end result is that anyone who thinks there is a “free market” for dairy products is living in a dream world.

What’s the solution to the problem? I really don’t know. My father used to say that the system was so screwed up that the whole thing should be scrapped. All of it. Make it a true free market. No government subsidies, no tax breaks, no marketing boards. Leave the health and safety regulations, testing, etc. But get rid of everything else. Turn it into a real free market that has to respond to normal supply and demand rather than a government supported mess where farms are propped up by various programs and price manipulations that encourage overproduction.

Would it help? I don’t know. But it seems to be about the only thing we haven’t tried yet. It’s obvious that all of the quota systems, price supports, surplus buys and everything else isn’t doing any good.

Ultimate Recycling?

This construction site is on one of the routes I take when I walk the town in the afternoons when the weather permits and I’ve been watching it with some interest. It may not look like it, but this is a major recycling project. The photo doesn’t do those two houses justice because it was a rainy, dreary day and I was using the cell phone, but those two little houses are actually really quite nice, with new brick facades on the living quarters and a matching stone facade around the garages. Once they get the landscaping done they’re going to be really very nice.

This is actually a very ambitious and rather complex project, because those two houses were actually a single duplex that was moved to that site from another location. The duplex was literally cut in half, separated into two individual houses and garages. While it sat there on the big dollies that were used to transport it, they dug basements, poured foundations, then mounted them on the foundations, then gutted both of them, completely remodeled both, put on new roofs and gutters, did the brick and stone facades, did new heating systems, electrical and plumbing, basically completely rebuilt both of them.

So they took an unwanted old building, moved it to a new location, and turned them into two nice little houses that in the near future will be the pride and joy of their new owners.

It seems like a great idea, doesn’t it? It’s the ultimate in recycling. Instead of tearing down an old house, move it to a new location, remodel it, turn it into a desirable property. So if it seems to make sense to do this, why isn’t it done more often?

Cost, of course. I’d be willing to bet that the total cost of this project is going to be darn near as much as it would have been if they’d built both of those from scratch. Maybe even more.

Back in, oh, the late 1970s or early 1980s, a friend of ours bought a big old farm house. Big, sturdy, very well made. Bought it for $1. Seriously, one dollar.

The catch? He had to move it. In the end that $1 house cost him more than $40,000. And this was at a time when you could get one hell of a nice house for around $35,000. Heck, I could have bought an 80 acre farm with a small house and barn for $18,000 at the time. Wasn’t much of a farm, true, but still, $18K? The owner of a restaurant I’d used to work at in the early 1970s offered to sell me the restaurant, including fixtures, stock, inventory, equipment, etc, for $15,000. (Aside: The place is no longer there, but another restaurant about the same size, just a couple of blocks away, is now on the market for $169,000. So it goes.)

So If you ever wonder why they don’t do this more often, the reason why is the cost. Moving buildings is very expensive, very complicated (just think of the logistics involved in moving/lifting power lines, etc.) and very tedious. And once you do get them on site, they need extensive renovations, updating, etc.