Minnesota Farmers Union

(February 28, 2010) - Type the phrase "farmers feeding world" into Google's search engine and "about 15 million results" pop up in "0.12 seconds."

Some results may surprise American farmers who, in good old U-S-of-A modesty, may have thought they had been, were and will be feeding the world. Not so, suggests the hunter-gatherers at Google.

"Smallest Farmers Key to Feeding World's Poorest," claimed a headline in the Feb. 11 edition of Scientific American. "Women Farmers Feed the World," declared the Yonkers (NY) Tribune last Nov. 28. "Organic Farmers can feed the world!" shouted a recent newspaper article from India.

Americans farmers need not worry; all-well, some anyway-have a role in filling the global food cart; "U.S. Soybean Farmers Feeding the World," suggested the Jan. 27 issue of Iowa-Illinois Soybean Review.

Despite this muddy picture on whom and how the world will be fed, one fact seems clear: In the future, the world will be needed to feed the world.

And, of course, it will be a more populous world. According to the latest United Nations estimate, global population will reach 9.07 billion by 2050, or about one-third more than today's 6.8 billion. (Population will top 7 billion by 2012, says the UN.)

(February 19, 2010) - To us there is a disconnect between agricultural export expectations in this country-particularly with regard to meats-and the stated intentions and market actions of China and Russia, which are the very countries being touted as US agriculture's export saviors. US producers are caught in the cross-hairs, hoping that those touting exports are correct and fearing that the rosy projections will once again come to naught.

Heather Thorstensen of AgriNews-Minnesota reports that at the recent Minnesota Pork Congress meeting, Nick Giordano, National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) vice president and counsel for international affairs, "told attendees there is no greater money-making opportunity for US pork than China. 'Everything pales in comparison to China.' He said, calling it the 'mother load.'"

Pork exports to China sky-rocketed in 2008 as the Chinese prepared to feed the influx of foreign visitors attending the 2008 summer Olympics at the very time China's domestic pork production plummeted due to disease outbreaks and weather-related death losses.

Despite the ban on U.S pork imports over the H1N1 controversy imposed in 2009 and continued drug-related issues, U.S. short-term optimism apparently presumes elimination of the ban and return to the glory export days of 2008.

(February 12, 2010) - The farm media is all atwitter over the announcement by the Obama administration that they have set a goal of doubling US exports in five years. This will include help for farmers in boosting their exports.

You will have to pardon us if we don't get overly excited about the implications of this export initiative for US farmers.

The lure of a permanent export-driven prosperity has been the holy grail of agricultural producers since shortly after the first Europeans settled in what is now the US. Tobacco proved to be a profitable enterprise for early settlers until a burgeoning supply from the colonies exceeded the demand and prices plummeted.

Over the next three-and-a-half centuries, there were years of export-driven agricultural prosperity, no question about that. But for major commodities, it is equally true is that export volumes typically accelerate for a few years then level off, grow agonizing slow, or decline.

The years of sharp increases were often caused by external political events or decisions.

(February 5, 2010) - The issue of universal-or near universal-health care has been in the news for much of the last year as the Obama administration has been seeking to fulfill a promise made on the campaign trail. The Senatorial election in Massachusetts, the State of the Union message, and the discussion between the President and the Republicans in Congress has forced a re-evaluation of how far health-care reform should go and what measures could be taken.

While health care issues take center stage about once every 20 years, it is an issue that we hear farmers talk about year-in and year-out. For many farmers, the concern is not universal coverage, it is their coverage and the coverage of their children who have come back to the farm or might be considering a return to farming.

This ongoing concern on the part of farmers caused us to think about the stake that farmers have in the current debate.

Some farmers or their spouses work for an employer who offers group health care coverage as a part of employment. At times, health care coverage is the primary reason for seeking off-farm employment and staying with it until Medicare kicks in.

(January 31, 2010) - Like Henny "Take my wife-please" Youngman, Steven Wright has built a comedy career on one-line jokes. A classic Wright one-liner unblinkingly and unsmilingly asks: "Twenty-four hours in a day, 24 beers in a case-coincidence?"

The question is clever and rhetorical; laughter is its only answer.

January seemed to brim with coincidences that, while perhaps not worthy of the full Wright deadpan treatment, somebody somewhere has to be laughing over these you've -got-to-be-kidding moments.

For example, at 10:28 AM, Tues., Jan. 26, the U.S. Department of Agriculture emailed journalists a list of 70 U.S. trade organizations that would split $234.5 million under USDA's Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development Cooperator Program (FMD) this year. The two programs, noted USDA, "help promote American food and agricultural products overseas."

One big winner of export cash was the U.S. Grains Council, a self-described "private, non-profit partnership of farmers and agribusinesses committed to building and expanding international markets..." This year, according to USDA's accounting, the Council will receive $4,033,859 to do just that.

(January 29, 2010) - January is meeting month for agricultural producers: producer group meetings, general farm organization meetings, and all the dealer meetings. At most of these meetings, industry officials and other experts offer advice to producers on ways to increase profitability through improved production practices and more attention to marketing.

Independent livestock producers are reminded that marketing begins with decisions about which heifers or gilts to retain for breeding and which bulls or boars are purchased. Providing what the consumer wants is paramount, and all decisions should take that into account.

Livestock producers are also encouraged to develop relationships with their buyers or brokers long before their livestock are ready to sell. Such reminding and advice are aimed squarely at the grass-roots, individual-producer level.

Industry experts also communicate directly with consumers via public relations campaigns, lobbying, advertising, and news releases, depending on the type of organization. They do these activities as representatives of one or more of the various segments of the livestock industry, including livestock ranchers and farmers, slaughter or packing houses, processors, wholesalers, and retailers.

(January 22, 2010) - Last month, I wrote a piece about the new economy, and the need for farmers to be at the table, and part of the discussion as policies develop.  Precinct caucuses are a perfect example of how to get involved and have influence in the process and the development of agendas.

Tuesday night February 2, all across Minnesota, voters will have the chance to attend their precinct caucuses in their local communities.  Minnesota is unique in the fact that the precinct caucus system allows for grassroots level involvement, whether with the GOP, DFL, Independent, or Green party.  All parties are open to those who want to be a part of the political process and to offer their ideas.  With health care, climate change, animal care, environmental concerns, and other issues, it is as important now as it has ever been for farmers and rural Minnesotans to take a couple hours out of their day and attend your caucus.

In Minnesota, there are over five million people, yet about 80,000 are listed as "farmers," which is another reason to attend.  Minnesota will also elect a new governor in 2010 and the precinct caucus is the first major step in that process.

(January 22, 2010) - The impending loss of Monsanto's patent on its Roundup Ready soybean in 2014 raises a number of important policy issues in addition to those raised in DuPont's anti-trust case against Monsanto and the opening of an antitrust investigation of Monsanto by the US Department of Justice.

Monsanto's Roundup Ready genetics is used in 90 percent of all soybeans grown in the United States. Other major crops containing the Roundup Ready genetics are corn and cotton.

The advent of this technology in soybeans in 1996 spelled the end to bean walking and bean bars as a means of controlling weeds in soybeans. Spraying glyphosate on soybeans with the Roundup Ready gene killed the weeds while allowing the soybean plants to continue growing and providing farmers with a superior weed-control technology.

While the technology did not affect yields appreciably, it saved farmers time and effort. The Roundup Ready technology also provided weed control for no-till agriculture.

One of the contractual obligations farmers accepted in buying Roundup Ready soybeans was a prohibition on the saving of seed as had been common among soybean farmers before the advent of the technology. In addition to paying a higher price for the seed, farmers pay a technology fee.

(January 15, 2010) - A recent news article paraphrased a comment made by a producer of meat animals as, "The effort to ban antibiotic use in animals is led by activists who want to shut down all animal agriculture."

The assertion was made in response to House and Senate bills, (HR 1549 and S 619, respectively) introduced as the "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009." The proposed legislation seeks to limit the nontherapeutic use of 7 classes of antibiotics in animals raised for food. It does not restrict the use of these antibiotics for the treatment of disease in these animals. Note the phrase "nontherapeutic use of."

For the last 20 years, every time we have gone to the doctor with a sore throat and asked for an antibiotic, the doctor has done an ear, nose, and throat examination. More often than not we have been told we have the flu-a virus that does not respond to antibiotic treatment-and sent home with the advice to bundle up, use a saline nose spray, and wait for the flu to run its course.

(January 8, 2010) - It would not be a stretch to assert that Chinese imports have driven the recent growth in soybean production and exports by the US, Brazil, and Argentina. Between 1995 and 2009, Chinese imports of soybeans grew by 1.459 billion bushels (from 0.029 to 1.488 billion) while the rest of the nations of world increased their imports by 0.183 billion bushels (from 1.168 to 1.351 billion).

China now imports 53 percent of all raw soybeans in world trade. While Brazil and Argentina have captured the lion's share of the import growth, any change in the rate of growth in Chinese soybean imports would have serious price and production-growth consequences for the US as well as Brazil and Argentina.

When it comes to decade-long growth rates the size of those recently experienced by Chinese soybean imports, it is always dangerous to extrapolate such rates years and decades into the future. In this case, it is likely even more dangerous to make continued high-growth assumptions because, well, because it is China we are talking about.

China's imports of soybeans stand in contrast to its behavior in virtually all other major agricultural commodity markets. In the case of grains, China exports more than it imports, shipping between 1 and 2 percent of its major-grain crops out of port in 2009.