Harvest 2011

Whew . . . It's been a whirlwind of a harvest this year.  So much so that I've been a bad blogger for quite some time.  While we nosed into corn the last week of September it was still a bit too wet (30% moisture) so we had to wait until mother nature had done her part by Oct. 1.  Since then we've been hard at it every day around here.  Here it is Nov. 3rd and I've got a few hours of free time!  I probably should go take a nap but since I haven't posted in forever (and since I'm a terrible nap-taker) I thought I'd share how harvest has been going.

This year it's been a challenge.  We have quite a bit of root-lodged corn.  Root lodging is what takes place when a high wind tips the corn plant over due to poor root strength.  The severity of lodging is directly affected by wind speed, soil saturation, stage of crop development, etc.  This year we had an 80mph wind on July 11th.  Called a derecho, it was a wide-spread, continuous wind that caught a lot of our corn at a very vulnerable growth stage as they had rapidly grown in height (6+ feet tall) and leaf area but hadn't yet formed the root bracing needed to anchor themselves to the ground.  Some fields were nearly laid flat.  Given some sun and favorable growing conditions the plants attempted to straighten toward the sky but in the process created a "gooseneck" at the bottom of the plant.  This "gooseneck" makes harvesting a real challenge.  Corn yields suffered too (probably around 10%) as the plant was forced to expend energy on regrowth rather than kernel development.

Coupled with the down corn have been a number of mechanical misfortunes this year.  Not sure why -- bad luck I guess -- as we thought we were well prepared going into the harvest season.  Usually we trade -in our combine after about 5 years for a newer model because experience shows that after about 5 years the mechanical reliability of the machine begins to suffer.  For a variety of reasons this year we decided to wait one more year.

Bad call.  By the time harvest is over it feels like I will have bought my new combine after all.

One part at a time.

Now I'm not sure what to do for next year.  So many things are newly fixed and the re-investment rather large, yet I lack confidence in the machine.  What's next?

Anyway, we've got about a week to 10 days left.  As long as the rains stay away and we keep the snow at bay we should be able to celebrate a Happy Thanksgiving.

And one of the things I will be most thankful for is being done with this harvest.

Setting the Record Straight

For those of you who know me, most understand that I have never been a supporter of direct farm subsidy payments to farmers.  It's a complicated issue, but in a nutshell I have always felt it is a poor use of taxpayer money.  Nevertheless, farmers like me have received them for years as an inducement to enroll in the federal farm program -- which has significant controls on the manner in which I operate my farm.  It is a carrot and stick approach to land management and food production -- and one that I feel I must participate in in order to stay competitive with other farmers also receiving subsidies.

However, given the recent budget battles I think it's time to help non-farm folks understand something important.  Eliminating farm subsidies are a red herring when talking about meaningful deficit reduction in the federal budget.  Here are some facts:

1. TOTAL federal "Farm Program" spending amounts to about 2% of the annual federal budget. 
2. Of that amount 75% of those dollars are used for food stamps, nutrition programs, school lunches, etc.
3. The remaining 25% (or roughly .5% of the annual federal budget) goes to farmer or farmland related programs.
4. Of THAT .5% roughly 25% (we are now down to about .16% of annual federal budget expenditures) goes to farmers in the form of DIRECT FARM SUBSIDY PAYMENTS.
5. Corn farmers like me receive approximately $24 per acre each year which immediately gets capitalized into the expense side of the ledger in one way or another.  It is not "free money" I keep.  Generally it gets spent on land.  In other words land owners get most of it (many of whom are not farmers).
6. This $24 in direct payments is a small fraction (less than 2.5%) of the total gross revenue earned on an acre of Illinois corn ground.  It is really rather unimportant.  A 15 cent move in the price of a bushel of corn (an often daily occurrence) has more impact.

What I am saying is this.  Go ahead.  GET RID OF THE ENTIRE DIRECT FARM SUBSIDY PAYMENT PROGRAM.  I'm all for it.  You should be too.  BUT DO NOT FOR A MINUTE THINK THIS WILL HAVE A MEANINGFUL IMPACT ON THE FEDERAL DEFICIT.  It's just too small.  It makes for good politics.  Farmers are a small voting block.  The ag sector of the economy is generally doing well.  

Farmers are an easy target.  But we are not an easy solution.

Meaningful deficit reform will really only come from SHARED SACRIFICE.  Farmers will do our part.  But we all need to play a role.  Entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public employee pension programs, military spending etc. are where the meaningful budget cuts MUST take place to have an impact.  They are where the $ is.  Thanks to our leaders in Washington our deficit spending is now roughly 40% of our annual budget expenditures.  I wasn't a math major in college, but I'm not sure how .16% can plug that hole.

Don't be misled by popular rhetoric.  Demand real change!

This Budget Pennies video is a great demonstration of the point.

. . . And Now We're Done!

It's official -- we're done planting!  We finished yesterday just before the rains hit.  As we pulled out of the field, the rain began falling in earnest.  In fact, we got caught in a hailstorm on the drive home.  It was a new record for us:  3,000 acres of corn in just over 9 days.  We are all exhausted!  Thanks to multiple shifts, reliable equipment, a great weather window and dedicated employees the 2011 corn crop was planted in record time.

Time for a nap.  Then I gotta go spray . . .

. . . And Still With the Waiting

Tomorrow will make it 2 weeks.  2 weeks since we last turned a wheel in the fields.  My anhydrous ammonia applicator sits parked.  Idled tractor.  Idled hands.  Making busy work and counting the raindrops.  We are meeting today to discuss "plan B" in anticipation of an eventual clearing of the weather.

For those wondering what "plan B" is for us, it's the adaptation of a compacted planting schedule.  Basically think double shifts.  In our area,  the general rule is corn planting should be complete before the 10th of May.  After that date, final yields decrease in an accelerating linear pattern, beginning with about a 1 bushel/day decrease.  (1 bu. x $6.00 x 3,000 acres = $18,000/EACH DAY).  You can easily see why farmers hate delays and why timely planting is so important.  The more we get planted prior to May 10th the better.  Normally we can plant around 300 acres/ day or a little more in a 12-14 hour work day.  This year we will shoot to lengthen the day to 18-20 hrs when possible.  Hopefully this will help but is obviously taxing on people and equipment.

And then again, maybe the rain will keep falling.

And Now The Waiting

Every year around this time we farmers tend to get a bit nervous.  Not nervous, scared, mind you -- excited nervous -- the pent up all winter long kind of nervous.  You know what I mean.  We know spring is almost here.  We are busy preparing.  Working on equipment.  Ordering final supplies.  Uploading computer data. Arranging schedules.  Fitting in last minute meetings of importance.

Soon the dirt will fly.  In our shop we are busy modifying our anhydrous ammonia applicators to make them more accurate and just a bit more efficient.  We've gone over every bearing, every hose, every connection to make sure there are no problems -- nothing to slow us down.  Looking out the window of the shop I can see that the surface of the soil is drying off.  It's still too wet underneath but with a few days of warm, dry sunshine that too will change.

The hardest part sometimes is the waiting.  It's time to get dirty.

Interesting Corn Facts

S. 

• One bushel of corn weighs 56 pounds. That means U.S. farmers produce an average of more than 9,000 pounds of corn per acre.   Walter Farms produces over 11,000 pounds of corns per acre.
• If U.S. farmers used crop production practices from 1931 to produce an amount of corn equivalent to the 2008 crop, it would require 490 million acres—an area more than 120 million acres larger than the state of Alaska.  Instead in 2008 only about 86 million acres were needed.
• The U.S. produces about 40 percent of the world's corn – using only 20 percent of the total area harvested in the world.
• In 2011 Walter Farms will grow 99 million corn plants on its 3,000 acres of production.
• Individuals or families own 82 percent of corn farms. Another 6 percent are family-held corporations.
• Less than 15 percent of U.S. corn acres are irrigated.  We use none.
• Farmers today produce 70 percent more corn per pound of fertilizer than as recently as the 1970s.
• Corn farmers have reduced total fertilizer use by 10 percent since 1980.
• According to the USDA, one acre of corn… removes about 8tons of carbon dioxide from the air in a growing season…at 180 bushels per acre produces enough oxygen to supply a year’s needs for 131 people.
• The corn grown on Walter Farms removes 48 million pounds of carbon dioxide from the air each year and produces enough oxygen for roughly 400,000 people to breathe.  At the same time it produces enough food and feed ingredients each year to feed a town of about 1,500 people.
• Corn production has marched steadily upward for decades while using fewer acres.
• American farmers produced the five largest corn crops in history during the past five years. Even after supplying food-makers, ranchers, ethanol producers and grain exporters, America will again be able to save 10 percent of this year’s harvest for the future.
• Farmers today grow five times as much corn as they did in the 1930s — on 20 percent less land. That is still 13 million acres, or 20,000 square miles, twice the size of Massachusetts.
• The yield per acre has skyrocketed from 24 bushels in 1931 to a national average of 154 now, or a six-fold gain.
• Walter Farms yield per acre is even higher.  Now at nearly 200 bushels per acre, we have seen a steady average annual increase of about 1-2%.  At the same time we have continued to reduce the fertilizer, fuel and chemical use needed to produce each year's crop.

Sources of Information: USDA ERS, FAO, EPA, USDA Census of Ag, USDA FAS and NCGA.

Why Corn?

A couple of days ago I had the opportunity to visit with a very pleasant woman with a very interesting job. She's involved in community wellness and was particularly interested in trying to promote healthier eating in our schools.  As readers of this blog know, it is an interest of mine as well. Jamie's Food Revolution (His Not Mine). But as we visited it quickly became apparent that as farmers we need to do a better job explaining to people why we grow what we grow.  What often seems obvious to us is decidedly not so to much of our consumer public.

In our conversation she was eager to understand why farmers like me weren't working hard to grow fresh veggies and fruit for the dietary needs of our local schoolchildren.  There IS (thankfully!) a movement afoot to get healthier, fresher, less-processed food into our schools and she obviously felt a perfect storm existed where our local farmers could shift their production to such food and supply a great local market.  In her mind it was a WIN-WIN.

If only it were that simple.

And there lies the rub.  I think many good-intentioned consumers mistakenly think it is that simple.  They want to eat fresh, eat organic, eat locally-grown.  Oh, and don't forget -- they want to eat affordably too!  And make sure everyone else in the world has plenty of food they can buy and eat too.

This is why farmers need to speak up.  We need to explain ourselves.  We need to explain to consumers that there needs to be efficiencies in production.  There are real differences between the soils, climate, infrastructure, markets etc. that allow certain foods to be produced in certain geographies.  There are important reasons I grow corn and not cauliflower in Northern Illinois.  Likewise a California cauliflower producer probably shouldn't be growing corn either. Our short growing season, our temperatures, our soils, or insect and disease profiles, etc. do not favor growing fresh market fruits and veggies.  Sure we could grow some for a short period of time during the summer.  But what do we eat the rest of the year?  And what do we do about the fact that because of my climate, soils, insects, diseases etc. I can only grow half as much cauliflower as that farmer in California?  At the same time, the farmer in California can't efficiently grow corn.  He might only get half the crop I can get and doesn't have the natural rainfall nor infrastructure to handle the huge volume of commodities produced.

Sure, I'm over-simplifying here.  Global food production is immensely complex.  But over time markets have a way to naturally adapt to create efficiencies.  I grow corn here because there are few places in the world where someone else could grow as much, as cheaply, and as able to transport it around the world to those who need it.  Bucking those natural efficiencies can be done.  I can grow cauliflower.  I can supply fruits and veggies to my local farmer's market.  I can even grow organically.

But there is a cost to our global society in doing so.

The next time you see a hungry child in Africa or a food riot in the Middle East, pause for a moment and think about the organic cauliflower you bought at your local farmer's market.

Was it worth it?

Budgets and Farmer Subsidies

Gulp.

I have said this before to any who would listen, but this is the first time I have written these words, for the record, in a public forum.

Farm subsidies in the form of direct payments to farmers need to go.

They are bad for the industry, bad for farmers and bad for taxpayers.  They are an easy mark for the media,  the socio-political elite, and the under-informed public.  They get all the attention in the "multi-billion dollar" farm bill yet are only a very small part of the overall spending -- a distant cry from the food and nutrition support (food stamp) portion of the bill.  At today's prices they amount to less than 3-4% or so of the gross income on every acre of grain production.  Even then, ag economists are generally in agreement that they are capitalized into the expense side of the production equation (especially in land costs).  Yet the general public sees them as "income" or welfare payments to farmers.  They are not.  Famers merely pass them along to landowners, equipment manufacturers and other input suppliers.

Farmers are rightly seen as frequent fiscal conservatives.  As a group we tend to tilt to the right, favoring free trade, smaller government, and reduced market intervention.  Yet when talking about direct payments, farmers, our industry representatives and farm belt legislators tend to circle the wagons.

Direct payments are not a sacred cow.  Nor should they be -- especially not now.  Budgets at the federal, state and local levels are a mess.  Some would argue that direct payments are such a small part of the overall budget mess that the public is being misled as to their overall significance.  I couldn't agree more -- and that's part of my point!  We need to focus on the big-ticket items.  Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, meaningful Health Care reform, military and public-sector employment spending.  Direct Payment ag subsidy spending IS a drop in the bucket.  Focusing on it is a game of smoke and mirrors.

Am I against all public spending support of agriculture?  Not necessarily.  There are some expenditures which I believe the public gets a positive return on their investment dollar.  Crop insurance, some conservation programs and (historically) renewable energy.  Even then, I think we need to take an honest look at them and do a better job of justifying their continued need.  In future blog entries I will try to discuss the merits (or lack thereof) of some of those programs.  But for now, I intend to put my money where my mouth is -- literally!

Direct Payment subsidies for all farmers should go.  And the sooner the better.

Grain Exports

I just got back a couple of days ago from the U.S. Grains Council annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.  The Council is an organization composed of stakeholders of the export industry doing business in barley, sorghum and primarily corn.  Several hundred smart folks were there (most unpaid volunteers) doing their part to promote the export of the corn I, and so many farmers just like me, produce every year.

It is an exciting time in agricultural exports.  Currently farmers export about 2 billion bushels of corn every year -- that's about 15% of our annual production.  United States farmers produce almost 40% of the global supply of corn every year.  Our exported corn goes all over the world, but mostly to destinations in Asia.  Important trading partners include Japan, Korea and increasingly China.  There is growing talk about the prospects of increased exports to India too.  The basic idea is this -- as people in third-world countries experience increasing economic success one of the first things they spend their rising incomes on is improving their diet.  Usually this results in a rapid increase in the amount of animal protein consumed.  In other words, meat becomes more of a staple food rather than a rare treat.  It takes grain (such as corn) to feed these animals (like chicken, pork and beef) and many of these countries do not have the ability to produce this grain in sufficient quantities internally.  Hence the need to import.

This shift to the "middle class" in countries like China and India are HUGE!  That's a market with over 2 billion people!  This shift is the basic cause of much of the increase in food prices around the world -- more so than ethanol, inflation, energy prices etc.  It is the basic law of supply and demand.

While in New Orleans I also had the ability to visit the Zen-Noh Grain Exporting Terminal.  This is the largest single grain export terminal in the United States.  Typically they unload barges and trains from the interior U.S. filled with grain and then load ocean going vessels with that grain for destination primarily to Japan and SE Asia.  They can unload around 30 barges and load a 2 million bushel ship simultaneously in roughly a 24 hour period.  They move almost 400 million bushels through their facilty annually, 24 hrs./day, 364 days/year.  Below is a video of their barge unloading and logistics center.

Precision Guidance

Our Agrivator group (more on that another day) is arranging a demo-day for several companies that sell precision farming equipment.  I had somebody ask me recently if guidance/autosteering really pays.  The answer is a resounding "YES!"

By using GPS, we can dramatically improve efficiency.  It allows us to reduce overlap, increase speed and decrease operator fatigue.  This saves a bunch on inputs (fuel, seed, fertilizer, labor etc.) and helps us get more out of the very expensive equipment we run over our fields.  At the same time, we're able to be a little gentler on our environment too! Below is a little video of a common device.

It's Alive!

Yep.  Still here.  Blog not dead.  Am working to resuscitate.  Yesterday went to listen to Troy and Stacy Hadrick of www.advocatesforag.com/.  You may have seen Troy's "Yellow Fail" video on YouTube.  If not check it out:



Troy and Stacy gave an excellent presentation on social media for agriculture.  As a follow up, today I participated in a National Corn Growers Webinar on the same topic.  Suffice to say, I am becoming a true believer.  Truth be told, however, a big reason I have failed to post for some time is that I have struggled with feedback.  It takes time to put together cogent thought and I wasn't sure I was getting any meaningful Return on Investment.  Without comments on this blog I had no way to track whether anybody cared.  And maybe they don't -- but yesterday and today convinced me I should try again and should invest in some new tools (to me) that until now I had avoided.

Get ready Facebook (and maybe even Twitter) another newbie is coming.