“That’s protected outside of state government for us to dedicate those funds for new nutrient efficiency and water quality programs — and really try to focus a lot on on-farm research where we can manage nutrients better to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous losses through tile drainage and runoff,” says Jean Payne, president of the IFCA.

She tells Brownfield the ag industry wanted to step up to the plate – so - a specified tonnage amount of fertilizer sold in Illinois will go to the protected fund established with the support of ag and environmental groups.

Carol Lorenzen is a professor and meat extension specialist with the University of Missouri.

“I’m not sure the consumer is getting that message,” Lorenzen tells Brownfield, “We have seen the plants that have been making this reducing their workforce and even closing.”

Lorenzen says it would be a different way of processing for regular beef plants to pick up the slack.

“It does have some specialized equipment. There are some other processes that are similar to this. Right now, I think that the future of Lean Finely Textured Beef is in question,” Lorenzen says, “Hopefully, because of the education that has been put forth by a lot of people and the media that maybe consumers will accept (it) in the future.”

Lorenzen says there are some processors who use different ways of killing bacteria in the product other than the “puff” of food grade ammonia used during the LFTB process.

“It’s amazing how quickly it can change from having plenty of moisture or maybe having too much to being dry. It’s very widespread in the state of Missouri. Southern Missouri is tremendously dry.”

The state has seen very little rain in the past few weeks and has had higher than normal temperatures for much of that time. Hurst says he just talked with former Missouri Farm Bureau President Charlie Kruse – who farms in Dexter, in southeast Missouri.

“He said the cotton growers down in the Bootheel are trying to water enough to get their cotton up and a lot of them have quit planting. This drought is rapidly becoming very serious.”

Hurst says the dryness is becoming a problem in northwest Missouri where he farms.

“Most everybody is getting near the end of bean planting but I talked to a couple of farmers that had pulled the planters out of the field waiting for rain. And, of course, everybody is concerned about getting the late planted – the last planted beans out, so, it is a worry.”

Missouri’s state climatologist says the state is on track to have the warmest spring on record.

Corn was higher on commercial and technical buying. Corn’s keeping an eye on weather but given the faster than normal development, yields in some areas may already be below the early projections. In any event, near term commercial demand is neutral, edging towards bullish. Ethanol was modestly higher.

The wheat complex was lower on commercial and technical selling, along with spillover from the outside markets, especially the dollar. Wheat’s also keeping an eye on weather with some rain expected in dry parts of the Black Sea region and eastern Australia. However, while the pattern for the Northern Plains is favorable, the Southern Plains should remain hot and dry over the near term. Ukraine’s Ag Ministry reports 99% of the spring grain crop is planted as of Monday. According to Dow Jones Newswires, South Korea may buy 550,000 tons of feed wheat for October-December arrival but note price is a bigger factor now than in previous months, with feed grade wheat back at a premium to corn.

In a recent speech on the Senate floor, Grassley noted that LightSquared hired dozens of lobbyists, including a former governor and nine former members of Congress, to push for approval of its planned high-speed wireless network.  But Grassley says while those lobbyists provided entry into the FCC and the White House, they couldn’t change the fact that LightSquared’s network couldn’t co-exist with GPS.

The FCC granted LightSquared a conditional waiver last year to develop the network, but later pulled the waiver and blocked the network after tests showed it would interfere with GPS devices. Many agricultural groups opposed the LightSquared plan, fearing it would interfere with farming GPS devices. 

Grassley says he still wants to know why the FCC granted LightSquared the conditional waiver in the first place.

“It seems strange that a project that was so obviously flawed was allowed to go so far, but LightSquared had help,” Grassley said, pointing to the influential lobbyists.

The FCC has denied giving LightSquared any special treatment.