Monthly Archives: January 2010

The debate over animal agriculture

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Those of you Farm Bleat readers who also read the Daily Globe will notice a story in today’s edition regarding the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and its attack on animal agriculture.

It was the subject of a program offered Thursday morning at the International Poultry Expo here in Atlanta, Ga., and continued to be discussed throughout the day between those of us who attended.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t write about everything during the presentation – it lasted for nearly two hours – but I would like to use this blog to talk a little bit more about HSUS and the concerns our Minnesota farmers have regarding their propaganda.

Obviously, for me to use the word propaganda, you must realize that I don’t think very highly of the PETA people and other animal activists. My perception of them is that they know absolutely nothing about raising pigs, they can’t tell the difference between a dairy cow and a dairy goat and they wouldn’t have the slightest idea on how to properly hold a chicken.

Then again, they probably think I’m just a stupid farmer’s daughter. Apparently they think that of everyone who choses to live on a farm and work hard for a living.

Dr. Wes Jamison, associate professor of communications for Palm Beach Atlantic University, presented some rather interesting statistics regarding HSUS and the lengths they are going to in order to stop animal agriculture.

State by state, they are spending millions of dollars in lawsuits and lobbying efforts to get propositions passed. In Ohio, they were behind a proposition to end the caging of poultry. In Arizona, they were the instigators in getting farrowing crates banned. And in California, they may single-handedly destroy the poultry industry within a matter of a couple years.

But what about Minnesota? Is HSUS coming here?

The answer is yes. In fact, some of HSUS’s top officials have already visited with representation from Minnesota Farm Bureau.

John Zimmerman, a turkey, corn and soybean producer from Northfield and fellow MSR&PC See For Yourself mission trip participant, said it’s just a matter of time.

"In the last few years, we’ve seen more activity on the HSUS front," Zimmerman said. "We know they’re going to start coming into Minnesota."

What’s their agenda? Well, among the Minnesota farmers on the SFY mission, talk is that they want to end tail docking in the dairy industry. In Minnesota, approximately 80 percent of dairies have implemented tail docking in their cow herds as a means to improve sanitation.

Tails tend to get filled with mud during the spring thaw and summer rains. Cows don’t like the way those clumps feel on the end of their tail, so they swing them to knock the dirt loose. Those tails not only hit their hips and their rear udders, they also hit the automatic milkers and other sterile equipment used in milking parlors.

For dairy farmers, tail docking makes economic sense. Without the worry of mud getting into equipment, they have fewer worries about somatic cell counts being impacted, and the price dock that comes with higher bacteria levels.

There are other issues besides tail docking. Minnesota producers also use farrowing crates and poultry cages, both of which could come under attack.

In his presentation, Jamison said farmers need to band together and develop a common message. Whether that’s to counter-act HSUS and hand out T-shirts that say "I Love Meat," or to develop a positive media campaign that engages America’s consumers in the animal industry, farmers can no longer afford to sit back and stay quiet.

American agriculture … Minnesota agriculture … needs a strong voice.

Barges and Bourbon Street

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The Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council See For Yourself program participants arrived in Atlanta, Ga., just as the sun began to set this afternoon. After an evening of free time, we are geared up for the International Poultry Expo for the next two days in downtown Atlanta.

As a former poultry grower … we raised chickens and turkeys on a very small scale on our hobby farm south of Worthington … I’m looking forward to learning about the hot topics in the poultry industry and visiting with producers from around the globe.

Before I write anything about the great city of Atlanta (I’ll save that for a future blog), I must revisit our experience in the heart of New Orleans’ French Quarter.

Tuesday night was our only free night in the city, and for the two journalists on the trip (myself and Joan Olson from Farmer+Yoakam Advertising) who had to meet deadlines, it was a short but interesting experience to walk down Bourbon Street.

There were the Tarot readers who set up their tables on the sidewalks, the street peddlers, neon signs, stores with beads and more adult content bars, clubs and shops than I could have imagined.

I’ve always heard that Bourbon Street is an experience, and now that I’ve experienced it, I’m glad we’ve moved on. Every day has been an adventure, an opportunity to learn and a pleasure to be among such interesting Minnesota farmers and agribusiness professionals.

Our visit to New Orleans, while brief, was filled with loads of information for the group’s 23 participants, nearly all of whom are soybean producers. Before we left the Twin Cities on Monday, we learned all about the lock and dam system on the Mississippi and the journey Minnesota-grown soybeans take as they are shipped out from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Northwest.

On Tuesday, we had a first-hand look at the Port of New Orleans by both land and water. While the port doesn’t work specifically in grain, they see barges and ships filled with agricultural commodities pass through the port daily. Some of the barges are headed farther down the Mississippi to places like the CHS operation in Myrtle Grove, which we toured Tuesday afternoon.

Up river from the Port, at Destrehan, La., Bunge operates a grain handling facility and soybean processing operation. We visited that plant this morning, and watched as soybeans were unloaded from one barge, as another barge moved into position for unloading. At the same time, a Panamax ship was being loaded with soybeans for export … most likely to China.

We learned today that it takes Bunge approximately 48 hours to load soybeans onto one ship. A Panamax can hold 2 million bushels of soybeans. It’s difficult to imagine what 2 million bushels of soybeans looks like, and equally as difficult to imagine the 50,000 to 60,000 acres needed to produce 2 million bushels of soybeans.

It takes a lot of farmers to produce that much grain.

What was most interesting about the Bunge facility is that any beans that do not meet quality standards for export are transferred to the soybean processing facility on site. The by-products, soybean meal and soybean oil are then exported, with much of the oil product sold to South American countries, and the meal headed to Asia.

The Bunge facility is capable of unloading 22 barges in 24 hours, and is working its way up to moving 1 million bushels of grain per day. Another 125,000 bushels of soybeans are crushed daily in the processing plant.

For the second day in a row, the Minnesota contingent was told that the northern crops, beans raised from St. Louis, Mo., northward, are the best quality of U.S. soybeans produced.

As we flew out of New Orleans this afternoon, we had one last glimpse of barge traffic as it maneuvered down the Mighty Mississippi. As our plane continued to climb, I thought … wow, we really did "See for ourselves" the journey our Minnesota soybeans take as they make their way through the export market.

The flavor of New Orleans

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As I’m writing my blog tonight from Bourbon Street in New Orleans, La., a sidewalk musician is playing, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Certainly, it isn’t something I could ever expect to hear outside the window of my home back in Worthington. It’s just one of the many experiences I’ve had in a mere two days on my excursion with the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council’s See For Yourself program.

I will leave the facts and figures about soybean production for the articles I’m writing this week for the Daily Globe. My blog, on the other hand, must be about food today.

On our first night in New Orleans, our contingent of nearly 30 people went to the Sake Cafe, a quaint Japanese restaurant in the heart of the city.

Now, I must admit, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of sushi … and I wasn’t alone. I am with a group of farmers, after all. If they are anything like my folks (and I’m pretty sure they are), they are the meat and potatoes kind of Minnesota farmers. Anything other than that is outside of their comfort zone.

As we took our seats around one big table, one of the group leaders told us the reason for the restaurant choice … Asia is the biggest purchaser of U.S.-grown soybeans and, as part of our International Marketing study trip, we needed to experience a bit of the Asian culture.

Therefore, we would be sampling sushi … among many other foods. The emphasis is on many, because by the time we finished our meal two hours later, we had devoured 17 different foods and were so miserably stuffed we couldn’t wait to get back to our motel rooms and into more forgiving clothing options.

Not only did we have to sample sushi, we had to use chopsticks … for the entire evening.

If you can picture any farmer using chopsticks, well, at the very least you should chuckle a bit. I know there was at least one guy in the group who gave up after the third course and requested a fork.

I, meanwhile, attempted to use the one-handed method, followed by the two-handed method, followed by the "I’ll just stab it with my chopstick" method. There was no need to be embarrassed, we were nearly all in the same boat.

I managed to get a listing of all of the foods we sampled and, with the exception of the Miso soup, we used our chopsticks (and our fingers) for the rest. They included edamame (edible soybeans), baked salmon wrapped crab, wok-fried calamari (squid tentacles), pan-seared sea scallops, po boy roll, snow crab naruto, lava roll, hard rock roll, salmon naruto, New Orleans roll (this was shaved cucumber wrapped around raw fish), tempura, shrimp teriyaki, ginger duck, akita snapper and karuma shrimp.

The only food I can say without a doubt I will never eat again is calamari, otherwise all of the versions of shrimp, scallops and snow crab were excellent.

There are so many flavors to sample in New Orleans, but the seafood is a definite must.

I tried my first bowl of gumbo today, and I now know not to order that ever again. (I picked out the shrimp and dirty rice and left the oysters in the bowl.) And tonight, well, I’m thinking it will be more seafood of some kind … just not raw!

Several of the farmers I’m with, on the other hand, were practically salivating about the free night in New Orleans and free choice of food options … aka "Steakhouse, here we come."

For another blog about the SFY mission trip, written by fellow ag communicator Joan Olson, see www.mnsoysfy.org.

Seeing for myself

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After two months of anticipation, the day is finally here … the first day of an international marketing mission trip sponsored by the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.

Throughout the week, I plan to post updates of the places I’ll see and the people I’ll meet in my Farm Bleat blog.

Other than having an itinerary, I really don’t know what to expect about this mission. I will be touring Cenex Harvest States, a soybean export facility, this morning in Inver Grove Heights before we take off for the airport and a flight to New Orleans, La.

I have been told the mission will follow the Mighty Mississippi all the way to the Gulf of Mexico for a look at soybean exporting. On Tuesday, we will tour the Port of New Orleans by both land and water, and on Wednesday, we will fly from New Orleans to Atlanta, Ga., where we will attend the International Poultry Expo.

I’m traveling with a group of 23 farmers from all across Minnesota, including MSGA President Bill Zurn, two MSGA board members, representatives from Minnesota Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, the Minnesota Turkey Board, Minnesota Broiler Board, Midwest Shippers Board, grain merchandisers, an ag lender and more than half a dozen soybean farmers.

As the only media representative on the mission, I will be taking notes, taking pictures and conducting interviews with the Minnesota contingent.

Throughout the week, our mission is to see the journey our Minnesota-grown soybeans take from field to fork.

I’m excited to be going on this journey, I want to thank whoever it was that nominated me, and I plan to share what I learn with readers of The Farm Bleat and the Daily Globe this week.

Geographically speaking

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Geography has never been my strong suit.

Oh, I can correctly identify where nearly every state in the United States is (I get a little fuzzy on Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware), but if you ask me to point out Zimbabwe or Uzbekistan, expect a blank stare.

I don’t know what I was doing during geography class, or even what year I took geography in school. Don’t even ask who taught it, I can’t remember that either. It’s obvious to me now that it apparently didn’t mean that much to me while growing up.

Perhaps I thought of it as I thought of Algebra … I’m never going to use this when I get out of school, so why must I waste my time learning about it.

Well, after I grew up, I realized Algebra wasn’t so much about being able to solve complicated mathematical equations as it was learning simply how to solve problems. Algebra taught me to keep at a problem until I found a solution. Some times it takes longer than others!

While I managed to make it through the college-level algebra classes, I’m still miffed at the professor who taught World Regional Geography. There are two very good reasons for my attitude … No. 1 being that he failed me (It was the first class I ever flunked … ever!) and No. 2, my college advisor told me after I failed the class that it wasn’t even required for my major. Chalk it up to a student who thought he’d help me with orientation and signed me up for physics, biology, chemistry and world regional geography all in my first semester at SDSU. It’s a wonder I survived!

Any way, I shall offer no excuses for my big, fat "F" … unless, of course, you want to hear me whine!

What I didn’t learn in World Regional Geography, I’m learning today. Do you suppose I can use that to try and get my transcripts changed? Yeah, probably not.

So, apparently, if I’d applied myself in geography years ago, I would have learned that the Philippines are southwest of Japan, and that the Aleutian Islands are near the Alaska Peninsula.

I’ve learned both over the years in my interviews with World War II veterans.

Now in the midst of a special project to keep the Southwest Minnesota Honor Flight in the news, I’m interviewing a World War II veteran each week and writing his story to share with readers of the Daily Globe. I’m learning all about the places they went, the battles they fought and the triumphs they reached.

But to come back home (I’ve written nearly all of the veteran stories from home because it’s extremely quiet there), and begin to share the story, I’ve had to look up maps and charts on the Internet. The maps were OK, but they focused on a very specific area. I needed something that could show me where the Philippines were, say, in relation to Minnesota. I needed a world globe.

It just so happened that my mom had one … packed inside one of her basement closets … still in the box with the red clearance sticker marking the $5 find.

Though I’m only "borrowing" the globe, I can say that in the few days I’ve had it in my home office, it’s already been well worth the $5 she paid.

I never realized there were so many islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t know the Philippines was just a cluster of land masses. Oh, the veterans have been telling me they are … but I didn’t see it for myself until just a few days ago.

I just may pay my mom the five bucks and keep the globe at my house. Not only is it helping me trace the travels of the veterans I interview, I think it makes my computer room look worldly. It may even make me look smarter.

Oh, laugh all you want … I can’t hear you anyway!