Pork production in Canada

At the recent Iowa Pork Congress, Brownfield’s Jerry Passer talked with Karl Kynoch, chairman of the Manitoba Pork Board and learned that like in the U.S., pork production in Canada has been going through many of the same struggles.

AUDIO: Karl Kynoch, Manitoba Pork Board (3:00 MP3)

Sen. Johanns on the budget and spending

Brownfield’s Ken Anderson had the opportunity to sit down with Nebraska Senator and former U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns last week. Ken asked the Senator about his reaction to the President’s proposed budget.

AUDIO: Sen. Mike Johanns, Nebraska (3:00 MP3)

Resurveying corn and soybean growers

So just what is the process for resurveying growers who reported unharvested corn and soybeans in late November and early December? Brownfield’s Ken Anderson sat down with Joe Prusacki, director of the statistics division at USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service.

AUDIO: Joe Prusacki, NASS (3:00 MP3)

Farm goes back 13 generations

Farming in close quarters is a challenge, but former Cattlemen’s Beef Board Chairman Lucinda Williams says they’ve been living with it a good long while. The former Cattlemen’s Beef Board chairman says, including their kids, their place has been in the family 13 generations; even before their hometown of Hatfield, Massachusetts, was a town. Her biggest interest is getting the cattleman’s story told right and setting people straight.

AUDIO: Lucinda Williams (3 min. MP3)

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

There’s an odd psychology among many national ag groups – whether producer, input or processor – as well as among monster-big companies when it comes to “responding” to attacks from activists or ill-informed bureaucrats on what we do and how well we do it.  It generally comes down to waiting until the bomb has dropped or getting someone else to stand up and scream, “Enough of this junk.”  Those days have got to end.

If you plumb the motivation for this hesitance to confront our adversaries or to challenge the Big Lie(s) about production agriculture and modern food production, you generally get the following responses:  1.  “I/we don’t want to make a bigger deal out of this than it already is”, or 2.  “We don’t want to tick off (fill in the name of your favorite critic – private or government) because they might punish us with something worse.”

Forgive my frankness, but this kind of thinking is crap.

The groups, movements and individuals who attack us expect us to be reactive. They expect us to be timid, overly cautious and darn near afraid of going on the offensive. They understand how we think and how we act almost better than we do and they plan their attacks accordingly.
I spend a whole lot of time on the road preaching to farm groups across the country that they must get off their backends and start speaking up.  This does only mean we sing the song of happy agriculture, but that we start telling folks – whether consumers, government or media – that we’re the heroes in this story, not the villain.

So, when we find out a some author is heading to a publicly funded university to call us names, or a major network is going to do yet another “point-of-view” story on food will kill you, or we pick up an animal rights group is planning yet another frontal attack on our livelihoods, we shudder collectively, huddle together and wait for that smoke in the barn to turn to flames. Then, bless us, we debate about whether to call the fire department and when. 

When we know we have the angels on our side – we have our facts, our experience, our experts who will join with us – then we must get out in front of these episodes so that at the very least the unenlightened out there get both sides of a story at the same time, or at the very least we can blunt the effect of these attacks.  We must speak up loudly to ensure we’re heard, and we must exercise that freedom repeatedly.

Ohio getting out ahead of the Humane Society of the U.S., folks in Wisconsin who demanded a balanced forum when the university invited foodie activist Michael Pollan to speak, the men and women of Oklahoma who decided the state legislature would decide how animals are raised and handled, not the activists with the price of a statewide referendum. This is what I’m talking about.

Yes, in some cases it will be a gamble, and you must pick your battles. If it makes no sense to pour gasoline on an open flame, then control yourself and save your strength for another battle another day.  But in the grand scheme of things, we must take back the public debate.
Those who sit back and wait to react will never win.  Those who speak up, vent their frustrations and present their case in a logical and well-planned way will win the day. 

As they say during wedding ceremonies, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”  Amen.

The Biofuels Interagency Working Group

Following the announcement this week of the Obama Administrations biofuels strategy Brownfield’s Ken Anderson sat down with Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, and talked about the collaboration between EPA, USDA and DOE. Basically, Buis says he is encouraged by the strategy laid out by the administration.

AUDIO: Tom Buis, CEO, Growth Energy (3:00 MP3)

The lost art of crop rotations

Dwayne Beck, manager of the Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, South Dakota, has been conducting no-till research since the late 70’s.  Dwayne is a big proponent of diverse crop rotation systems, which he says consists of growing different kinds of crops in planned sequences.  He was a featured speaker at the recent National No-Tillage Conference in Des Moines, where we had a chance to visit with him about his work with farmers in central South Dakota.

AUDIO: Dwayne Beck (3 min MP3)

Creating a robust biofuels industry

USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Wednesday, February 3, announced a proposed rule for the new Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), a program designed to create a robust biofuels industry and rural jobs. Speaking with farm broadcasters Vilsack said that in order to meet the programs goals, biofuels cannot be specific to one region of the country.

AUDIO: Agriculture Secretary Vilsack (3:00 MP3)

There are some crop insurance changes this year

Tom O’Deen handles crop insurance for the M & I Banks in Wisconsin, he says there are some changes and some opportunities this year.

AUDIO: Tom O’Deen

Becoming the powerhouse in conservation

For Jeff Eisenberg, the first day on the job as CEO of the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) was Monday, February 1, the first day of the association’s annual meeting in Orlando. But already Eisenberg says he’s been impressed, in fact Eisenberg tells Brownfield he believes NACD can be the powerhouse conservation organization in the country.

AUDIO: Jeff Eisenberg, CEO, NACD (3:00 MP3)

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