Spring weather is always a fun conversation across farm country, whether in the local coffee shop, after church, or during a sidewalk stroll down any small-town street in America. I came across a recent article from the National Weather Service saying that March might have above-normal temperatures and was intrigued. So, I got on the phone for an assignment from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and began digging.
My first phone call was to Dennis Todey, the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. As far as the March forecast goes, the veteran meteorologist says it depends on one thing: location, location, and location.
“The farther north you go, the less chance you have of being above normal during March,” Todey said. “But we should begin to rebound fairly quickly after the recent cold stretch that brought snow into parts of the Upper Midwest.”
Dennis Todey is the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. (photo from climatehubs.usda.gov)
What you may not know is most of the cold that covered parts of the Upper Midwest was originally supposed to stay well to the north, especially up in Canada. Some of that cold worked its way into the North Central U.S., but it’s been limited mainly to the areas with snow cover.
As you go further west in the Northern Plains, there is less snow cover, so the temps haven’t been quite as cold. “The probabilities are not big, but the possibility of some warmer temperatures is there,” Todey said.
Looking out beyond March to the spring weather forecast, again, it all depends on which location you’re referring to. Out in the Eastern Corn Belt from Central Illinois and further east, they’ve had several storm events move through the area. The outlook in that location continues to look wet there.
“Planting delays are definitely on the radar in that location,” Todey said.
It’s the opposite in the Central and Southern Plains, where drought conditions have steadily grown worse in recent months as it’s been a dry and warm winter. The big question is whether the area is going to get any moisture anytime soon.
“It’s going to be interesting in the eastern Dakotas and parts of Minnesota,” he said. “They got some moisture late last year and recently picked up some recent snow as well.
“Places like Missouri and Iowa are more of a mixed bag right now,” he said. “Iowa still has some carryover dry soils, and then we have some dry soils in parts of Wisconsin in areas that keep missing out on moisture events.”
Speaking of dry weather, a good-sized part of rural America is short of moisture. The shortage in the plains begins in Nebraska and stretches to the south. It’s dry to very dry, but the lack of moisture doesn’t stop there.
“Parts of Iowa and Wisconsin are quite dry,” Todey said. “It’s quite dry in northern Illinois, which is a carryover from last year. Depending on which part you’re talking about, parts of the Dakotas had moisture while others didn’t get enough moisture for runoff for ponds and dugouts from a livestock standpoint.”
The winter wheat crop is really struggling because of the dry weather. The spring weather forecast hopefully has some moisture in it to help the wheat crop to at least somewhat rebound from the poor conditions.
As winter begins to wind down and spring gets closer, Todey has noticed an interesting trend in recent years when it comes to winter weather. Up here in Minnesota, we were able to take the dog for a walk in short sleeves or light jackets into November of 2021, which is almost becoming more of the norm rather than the exception.
“Winter has been showing up later than normal in recent years,” he said after some thought on the matter. “Let me frame this climatologically for you.
“The 90 coldest days on average for most of the Upper Midwest are typically December, January, and February,” Todey said. “That’s based on looking at data over the last 30 years. We’ve seen some of the coldest events of the winter occurring in late February.”
While late-winter snow isn’t uncommon, the larger events have been coming later and later, so “something is going on that’s a little different.”
Planting questions abound here in the late stages of winter. How many acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and other crops will get planted in 2022? The acreage battle is a hot topic of conversation in the markets and in coffee shops across rural America. This year’s acreage battle is far from over and actually began last year.
That’s the opinion of Joe Vaclavik of Standard Grain in Nashville, Tennessee. The long-time market expert says this has gone on for months for a variety of reasons, led by fertilizer issues.
Joe Vaclavik is the founder and president of Standard Grain in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo from mobile.twitter.com)
“Even going back to last fall, the market was very aware of upcoming fertilizer challenges,” he said on the phone from his Nashville office. “It was widely known that fertilizer prices were rising rapidly and would have an impact on this year’s acreage mix.”
He said for a moment in time, they saw the ratios and new-crop prices seem to favor corn. It appeared the market was trying to buy corn acreage back because of the potential of losing acres due to fertilizer prices. The fact of the matter is no one has a clue what the crop rotations are going to look like.
“There are several well-respected analysts like the University of Illinois that had an estimate of 96 million corn acres,” he said. “That would be an increase near 2.5 million over last year.
“And then, Farm Futures did a customer survey and came away with an estimate of 90 million acres,” he added. “The difference between 96 million and 90 million acres in terms of pricing implications, balance sheets, and fundamentals is phenomenal. Those are two totally-different markets and totally-different worlds.”
In any given year, Vaclavik says trying to predict or estimate what the acreage will be is a near-impossible task. Occasionally, someone will predict accurate numbers, but no one is consistently accurate. There are always “curveballs,” and this year will feature more curveballs than ever.
“This uncertainty doesn’t just apply to corn and soybean acres,” he said. “You have another bunch of crops that also make money for farmers. Spring wheat makes money; oats make money; small grains make money.”
The “other piece of the pie” among the planting questions is that principle crop acreage has trended lower for the last 7-8 years. Things are in a state of flux, and he feels the unknown might actually be more supportive than not for the markets. The fertilizer question and its impact depends on where you’re located.
“I’ve talked to people who have their fertilizer needs covered, and they feel good about the situation,” Vaclavik says. “The thing is that most farmers really don’t want to change their rotations. I did a survey of my customers a while back and most said they’re rarely in favor of switching rotations, if ever.
“If they can stick to their rotations, that’s what they’ll do,” he added. “But it still could be tricky.”
Even a farmer who’s already locked in their fertilizer for the 2022 season can still run into fertilizer problems. Actually, getting the physical delivery of that product could be a different story because of serious supply chain issues.
Lots of interesting discussion surrounding what crops might be going in the ground during spring planting this year. (Photo from YouTube.com)
Corn is also a more input-intensive crop, so farmers can’t have their fertilizer not show up when it’s time get moving on spring planting. While not everyone is going to struggle to get fertilizer, there is still a risk going into springtime. Consequently, fertilizer will be a major deciding factor in answering those planting questions.
Small grains could be an interesting topic in the spring. Vaclavik says he would not be surprised to see more spring grains in the acreage mix. One thing that people might not be talking about a lot is some of the northern United States and even into Canada are still experiencing drought.
“Things are still dry in the Dakotas and over the border in Canada,” Vaclavik said. “They are still in a drought, and that will be an additional factor when it comes to acreage. It all depends on what farmers are comfortable planting into the dry conditions. I know it’s not as bad as last summer, but there is still a drought in that region.
“I haven’t seen a year like this in recent memory where it’s so hard to predict the answers to the planting questions that we’re asking,” he added.
Harvest 2021 is proceeding along at a good pace. Mike Zuzolo is the Founder and President of Global Commodity Analytics in Atchison, Kansas. He took a deep dive last week into the crop progress numbers and found a lot of variability in the results.
“Comparing the pace of the corn harvest 2021 versus the pace of the soybean harvest suggests that the corn yields are indeed a little more variable than beans,” Zuzolo said. “I hate to say lowered because of the issues that we’re seeing with the yields coming in. We’re seeing very good, very top-end yields coming in down in Kansas and Nebraska.
Mike Zuzolo is President and Founder of Global Commodity Analytics in Atchison, Kansas.
“My business clients and subscribers say strong yields are coming in through certain parts of Illinois,” he added. “However, my question is whether they’re top-end yields. Probably 90 percent of the producers I work with throughout Nebraska and Kansas would say ‘yes,’ we have top-end corn yields, and we’re close to wrapping up. However, central Illinois and central Indiana are probably around 50 percent complete, by comparison.”
Illinois and Indiana farmers are probably close to 75 percent done with soybean harvest 2021, but recent rainfall has slowed them down a bit. His clients in both states are saying they have top0-end yields in just 25 percent of their corn, but everything else is above average.
He thinks the numbers are showing the corn yields are more variable, especially because our corn and soybeans both have low moisture content. Six of the top 18 corn-producing states are at 50 percent or greater on corn harvest. About 29 percent of the national harvest 2021 is done compared to 24 percent at the same time last year.
“Those kinds of numbers are completely upside down when it comes to the soybean harvest,” Zuzolo said. “Just two of the 18 major soybean-producing states are at 50 percent or greater on harvest pace. The national soybean harvest is at 35 percent compared to 34 percent at the same time in 2020.”
Dry weather is a never-ending talker at the local coffee shops during the growing season, but even more during harvest. Farmers can get a lot of work done in a short time if the weather stays dry. John Baranick (rhymes with ”mechanic”) is a meteorologist with DTN, who says things might be a little drier as harvest continues to speed up across most of farm country.
Drying Off for Harvest
“A high-pressure ridge will continue to move into the Pacific Northwest and will block a lot of moisture from reaching the Upper Midwest for several days,” Baranick says. “Now through the last week of September should be pretty good for getting out there and harvesting the crops.”
The 2021 drought dried out a big chunk of rural America this year, but over the last several weeks, much of the American farm country saw consistent rainfall. Baranick, an Iowa State University graduate with degrees in meteorology and agronomy, says the consistent rain has recharged at least some of the deficit in soil moisture.
“It has,” he said. “We’ve seen some good rainfall in Minnesota, Iowa, the eastern Dakotas, Wisconsin, and Eastern Nebraska over the past several weeks. The level of drought keeps getting reduced in many of those areas. Some areas in the category of D3 drought were eliminated in northeastern South Dakota and northwest Iowa.
“Unfortunately, most of these areas have been so far behind on rainfall that getting almost a summer’s worth of rainfall in a month wasn’t enough to eliminate the drought,” Baranick added.
He estimates that dry weather has put most areas around 6 to 8 inches behind on their average rainfall totals. It’s even worse in western South Dakota. “I was talking to someone that farms out there, and he’s 10 inches behind on their average rainfall total,” he added. “We’re way behind, and it’s going to take a lot of rain to reverse that trend.”
Iowa State University graduate John Baranick is a meteorologist with DTN/The Progressive Farmer. (photo from dtnpf.com)
Baranick, a meteorologist with DTN since 2011, says the fall season will have a lot of variability in the systems moving through rural America. Early September featured some good rainfall, but for the rest of September into October and November, he says they don’t see a strong signal either way of above-normal precipitation that will eat into some of that dryness.
“Some areas may improve a bit while others could degrade,” he said. “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of movement either way through the fall season. We also don’t see a lot of moisture recharge during the winter season either,” Baranick said.
“Even with good precipitation over the winter, an extra inch or two isn’t going to bite into the five, six, or even eight inches of rainfall deficit we’re looking at,” he said. “We’re going to be dependent here in all these drier areas across the Western Corn Belt, especially the Northwest Corn Belt, for recharging our soil moisture and getting next season’s crop off to a good start.”
Plains Staying Dry Too
Dry weather is affecting he Great Plains from southern Nebraska down through Texas, which makes up the country’s largest winter wheat-producing area. A recent look at the Drought Monitor showed drier areas spreading out quite a bit across even more of Texas, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas.
“We’re looking for some rainfall in many of these areas because it’s also been hot,” Baranick said. “The temps have been above 90 and approaching 100 degrees on many days. The temps have been way above normal, and it’s sucking the moisture right out of the soil. Unfortunately, any systems potentially coming through this week don’t look like they have a lot of moisture.”
The Plains State have been and still are quite dry in 2021. (Photo from bismarktribune.com)
He says that high pressure setting up in the western U.S. will help keep systems at bay in much of the Plains as well. Unfortunately, the above-normal temps and dry weather in the forecast will continue to sap the remaining soil moisture.
Looking ahead to the fall and winter seasons in the south, we’re heading into a La Niña weather pattern, which typically means warm and dry weather in southern states. These areas seeing their soil moisture drying away don’t have a lot of immediate hope for building that back into the soil.
“For wheat production in the Plains, we’re going to be dependent on moisture coming into the region,” he said. “Hopefully, fall rains will be timely enough to get some good root development in wheat through the fall before they go dormant in the winter.
“We’re hoping that the rains turn on right away when we get out of the La Niña in the spring,” Baranick added. “If we don’t, the winter wheat crop in the Plains is going to be hurting.”
South Finally Drying Up After Storms
Hurricane Ida and Tropical Storm Nicholas brought a lot of extra water to the Southern States and the Delta Region. Moisture coming into the region off the Gulf of Mexico was difficult to turn off.
Hurricane Ida, followed by Tropical Storm Nicholas, brought far too much moisture and damage in the south. Drier weather is on the way, so hopefully cotton and soybeans can dry out in time for harvest. (Photo from wkrg.com)
“We will see some dry weather conditions finally get into the South,” he said. “That’s good because it’s going to take a bit for soybeans and cotton to dry off.”
Canadian agriculture has something big in common with U.S. producers this year.
In fact, Canada and the U.S. have more in common than just a border. The two countries are also sharing a lot of hot, dry weather. Shaun Haney of RealAg is an agricultural journalist and broadcaster in Canada who says the longtime trading partners are in the same boat.
Shaun Haney of RealAg is an agricultural journalist and writer covering Canadian agriculture, which has been hit hard by drought. (Photo from YouTube.com)
“Absolutely yes,” he said on the phone from his office. “The drought of 2021 in Northern Ontario and the Western Canadian Prairies has been compared to the drought in 1988. This summer has been extremely hot and dry.
“It’s obviously hurt the crop conditions,” Haney added. “In some ways, it’s even more urgently impacted the grasslands and pastures, which is forcing producer discussions on the future of the Canadian cow herd after this fall, depending on what the level of cow cull will be.”
The drought isn’t just confined to 2021. As with many dry areas in the States, the drought stretches back to last fall. Haney noted that many Canadians were saying that “you don’t lose the crop in March.” However, they could have used moisture at that time, which they didn’t get.
“It was so dry that we’d used up a lot of our subsoil moisture last year,” he recalled. “We needed to replenish that moisture through the winter, and it didn’t happen. As we made our way into the growing season and the weeks passed, the rain just didn’t come.”
Severe drought is making things tough on Canadian agriculture. (Photo from globalnews.ca)
As the rain continued to hold off, the area listed on the Drought Monitor began to expand. Early in the year, the drought ran in a tight band along the U.S.-Canada border, especially in the Southern Prairies of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. At the same time, that drought also affected North Dakota and Montana early on in the U.S.
“As the weeks went by, the drought-impacted area continued to make its way further and further north,” Haney recalled. “It created a situation where the yields became more questionable on an increasing number of acres. The frustrating thing is some of those same fields started 2021 in great condition.”
The crops didn’t get the rain they needed for any consistent grain fill. Haney is located in Lethbridge, Alberta, and said a lot of the dryland in Canadian agriculture never had a chance. He described the 2021 Canadian growing season in one word: heartbreaking.
Crops hit by this year’s drought run the entire spectrum in Canada. Some crops handle adversity better than others, including chickpeas and lentils. However, Canadian farmers are especially concerned about the wheat and canola crops.
“I would say it’s even more so with canola,” Haney said. “From what I’ve heard, there are a lot of people harvesting some pretty light barley. But canola is the one where people are concerned they won’t have the yield. Canola is a fairly small seed, but it shouldn’t look like pepper.”
Canadian farmers do grow some soybean in Manitoba, where farmers may harvest bushels worth as little as $15. Producers also grow a little grain corn in Manitoba, as well as some in southern Alberta, that’s fed to livestock. Almost all of that corn is irrigated.
“There are some irrigated sugar beets in Alberta that are looking good as well,” he adds. “However, the list of struggling dryland crops is a long one.”
Haney says the one possible saving grace is good commodity prices. If prices were low during a drought like this, that would be the mother of all discouraging situations. He notes that if canola is around 20 dollars and you have ten bushels in the field, that’s 200 dollars an acre.
“It’s not a moneymaker on dry land, but it’s a lot better than a market with nine dollars,” he added. “This boils down to Mother Nature not cooperating with us, and it’s one of the variables that are out of our control.
“I can’t even imagine what it would have been like going through a drought like this in the 1930s and ‘40s when we weren’t in a minimum-till situation,” Haney said. “Thankfully, most of our fields are minimum or zero-tillage, which helps to conserve as much moisture as possible. It’s a good reminder of why we change our practices in Canadian agriculture out here on the prairies.”
Drought to an average person likely means “it’s dry.” And that’s fair. However, what you may not realize is drought, to a farmer, might mean “we’re struggling to stay in business because of something we literally have no control over.” It’s understandably a situation that non-farm folks have a hard time relating to.
In a more typical year, here’s a picture of the Roberts family selling their fresh produce at a farmers market. (Photo from Facebook.com)
The National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s News Service and the American Farm Bureau Federation undertook a project this month to put a human face on the challenges of drought, especially in the Western United States. That area of the country has been clobbered by a long and intense spell of dry weather.
Tyson Roberts is a farmer from Layton, Utah, who’s seen the challenge firsthand because he’s living it right now. I jumped on the phone with him on Tuesday of this week for an interview about what it’s like to face a drought of this magnitude. While drought is a big topic of conversation in 2021, he said the dry spell stretches back to 2021.
“We got started with this last year,” he recalled while on the phone from his Utah farm. “A lot of people may not realize that.”
It wasn’t quite as bad last year as it is in 2021. The water available for Roberts’ crops was below normal levels in 2020, but they still grew “pretty much” all of the crops that they would in a normal year. This year has been markedly different.
“We are a vegetable operation here,” he said, “and we grow fresh market vegetables for farmer’s markets.
“When you think about a tradition row crop farm, the producer plants in the spring and harvests in the fall,” Roberts says. “We work a little differently: we’ll start planting different vegetables in the spring and continue through most of the summer and into August.”
Their typical planting schedule came to a sudden stop. Roberts, the sixth generation of the Roberts family to work the farm in Davis County, Utah, got to the middle of June and figured out they wouldn’t have enough water to sustain the crops they have growing and grow the additional crops they’d be planting through the month of July.
“We ended up putting all of our planters away around the first of July,” he recalled. “About 20 percent of our property remained unplanted. We fallowed it because there just isn’t enough water to grow the amount of produce we normally plant in a given year.”
Drought is making the lives of farmers miserable in 2021, especially in the Western United States. (Photo from foxnews.com)
As someone who doesn’t live on a farm, imagine having to give up 20 percent of your income due to circumstances you had no control over. I don’t know about you, but a 20 percent drop in income would likely throw me out of my house and into the street.
The drought hasn’t forced Roberts to destroy any crops, but it has forced him to leave some crops in the field because they’re not harvestable quality, which amounts to the same thing. He offered up his sweet corn crop as an example.
“About 2/3 of the top part of our fields are pretty good quality and should get us good yields,” he said. “However, on the bottom end, we haven’t had enough water for all of the other plants. I guess you’d say we couldn’t get the water all the way to the end of the row.
“We’ve lost a lot of yield and in quality,” Roberts added. “In addition to the unplanted ground, there’s also a portion of the planted crops that are unmarketable.”
Crop farmers get paid when they harvest crops. Can you imagine knowing ahead of time that the one check you get for harvesting your crops won’t pay your bills? That’s what farmers face every year. These are the people that grow our food. It’s a rough way to earn a living.
He sums up the situation on his farm rather succinctly: “We’re in survival mode right now,” he said grimly. “With the unplanted acres and the loss of yield, we’re just trying to stay afloat. And I think that’s fair to say for a lot of farmers around us and across the state, as well as throughout the Western U.S.”
So how do farmers like him find a way to keep moving forward and get through this?
“I serve on the Utah Farm Bureau Board of Directors, and we met last week to discuss how we can help keep our farmers in business,” he said. “Every state has received a fair amount of COVID assistance, which is some help. We’re looking at the best ways to help the livestock farmers, the crop farmers, and get them the help they need.
“We’re looking into government programs to help them stay in business,” Roberts added. “I hate to say it, but sometimes a company or a farm may need a little help staying afloat when they face the challenges that we have for nearly two years.”
Roberts and his wife, Danna, have six children who each help on the farm, and Tyson’s parents, Dix and Ruth, also operate the farm with him.
Ag economy. Have two words ever been gloomier in rural America than they’ve been for the last several years? Well, we’ve had a bit of a turnaround, but my assignment was to find out not only the current state but what might be ahead in the future.
Dave Widmar is an agricultural economist with Agricultural Economic Insights in West Lafayette, Indiana. (Photo from www.aei.ag)
So, I gave Dave Widmar of Agricultural Economic Insights in West Lafayette, Indiana, a call to find out more about the ag economy. He has more than enough experience to make a rational judgment. Before launching out on his own, Dave was a researcher in the Economics Department at Purdue University, as well as the economist for the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
The first thing he told me was that the ag economy turned around quickly. “Not only is it a big difference from 2020 to 2021, but the turnaround also took place in a short period of time,” he said on the phone from his Indiana office. “Last summer, the outlook was very bleak, and it was hard to put together a list of positive things going on.
“Now, just past the midpoint of 2021, we have a very strong outlook with a long list of positive things going for us,” he added. “The biggest piece is higher commodity prices, which have really turned around.”
That turnaround didn’t start until last September, and it has played out quickly over the past several months. That rise in commodity prices has been especially good for corn and soybean producers.
While it’s not as true as it was earlier in 2021, another thing the ag economy and farmers were benefitting from was a low-cost environment. “Over the last six months, fertilizer went from about $9 an acre in the fall of 2020 to between $130 and $140 an acre today,” Widmar says. “Farmland values and cash rental rates have increased as well. But it’s important to recognize that last year and early in 2021, the lower cost structure helped profitability.”
Dairying in Ireland was an irresistible topic to a writer who grew up working at the Gerhold Brother’s Dairy of Castlewood, South Dakota. While on vacation in Ireland, Frank Costello, the gentleman that rented a beautiful cottage to us, put me in touch with a local dairy farmer named Tom Clesham. One phone call and a couple of texts later, I was on my way to visit the Clesham Farm in County Mayo, near Cong.
It was so much fun to talk to Tom Clesham, a dairy farmer from Cong, Ireland. I hadn’t been on a dairy farm in years. He was very kind and easygoing to visit with and had a lot to be proud of at his farm. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
The 96-acre dairy farm stretches back several generations through his family tree. However, Toms’ father, Tim, and the rest of the Clesham family milked cows until 1990, when Tim switched to beef cattle. Over the next several years, the father-son farmers bred pedigree Limousine cattle alongside their commercial beef herd after leaving dairying.
But Tom became frustrated with the volatility of the Irish beef sector, something American beef farmers know all too well. So, looking at the books, Tom felt it wasn’t financially doable to keep raising beef animals. After 23 years, it was time to go back to dairying, and the work began in 2013.
“The process wasn’t too bad because a lot of the milking facility was still here,” Clesham recalled as the milk truck pulled into the yard. “Originally, when we took the equipment out, we filled the pit with clay, put plastic over it, and then covered that with cement. When we went back to dairying, I just undid that process.”
He runs a six-unit parlor that Clesham would like to make larger as he plans to expand his herd. When he redid the milking parlor, Clesham planned ahead by leaving room for a total of eight units. Once the cows are inside the parlor, Clesham hits a button to dispense feed into the automatic feeders to keep the cows busy while they give their milk.
“Every time I hit the button, I know they’re getting .6 kilos of ‘nuts,’” he said. “It’s a dairy pellet ration, or a ‘nut,’ as I like to call it, with a load of different ingredients. The cows are currently getting a 14 percent protein nut called ‘Grass Match,’ and is for feeding at lower levels while still giving a higher level of minerals and things for when they’re out on the grass.”
Tom Clesham’s six-unit milking parlor can be converted into an eight-unit stall when he’s ready to make the move. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
“At the end of the year, I’ll start giving a little more protein in their pellets because they won’t be out on the grass as much,” Clesham added.
Cows get wiped pre-milking with a paper towel, and he’ll pre-draw them to check the cows, milk them, and then he applies teat dip from a spray bottle. “It’s also got a peppermint smell to it, and I think that helps with the flies,” he added.
As American dairy farmers know firsthand, expanding a parlor is a big undertaking. Clesham bought secondhand Pyrex parlor equipment over 20 years ago. The steelwork in the parlor will stay, but he plans on replacing everything else, including his milk pump, which is a diaphragm, in favor of an electric pump.
“It really wouldn’t be a difficult process, but it will be an expensive one,” the 40-year-old farmer said with a grin. “I got the equipment you see here off a well-known online platform in Ireland called ‘Done Deals.’”
From the first discussion about returning to dairying to the first milking, Clesham estimates it took two years to complete that particular journey. He spent a lot of time in meetings with the local milk cooperative on the way to running a full-time dairy and is quick to credit his father Tim’s knowledge of the business in getting it running.
“I also have a neighbor down the road named Martin Jennings who’s about the same age as I am and was a great help to me,” he added. “He’s a great friend of mine and is always at the end of the phone to ring him up and ask him about things I didn’t understand. Mark was a great help in that regard.”
During the conversation with Tom Clesham, the local milkman showed up to drain his bulk tank. Clesham has won national awards over the past couple of years due to low Somatic Cell Count in his milk production. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
It was at this point in the conversation that the milk truck was backing into the yard to hook up to the bulk tank. For the last few years, the milk coming out of the Clesham’s bulk tank won awards from Animal Health Ireland for its low Somatic Cell Count. “It doesn’t make you any more money,” he said with a smile, “but the cows stay healthy, and that’s important in dairying.”
Clesham credits that success to the cleaning routine and the drying-off process he uses for the cows. “Last year, I started doing a few culture tests on the cows,” he recalled. “That’s going along with my veterinarian and knowing what sort of bacteria we may be fighting by getting the right antibiotics.
“I’ve also been fairly strict when it comes to drying off cows,” Clesham says. “I won’t do too many at a time. I also never dry off cows in the evening; I dry them off in the morning. They’re standing up for a bit longer in the day and seal up. We treat them with dry cow therapy and teat sealers. If we do it in the evening, they’re probably laying down for the night soon afterward.”
Irish dairy farmer Tom Clesham has put in eight years of hard work to return to dairy farming after he and his father, Tim, left the beef industry due to price volatility. (Photo by Chad Smith)
With a big smile, Clesham added, ”Some people may say you’re daft, but it’s just the silly things I do.” Each of his dairy cows has a minimum of eight weeks when they’re dried off, not milked, and can recover to put on condition to calve again.
Calving season on the Clesham farm usually begins around the first of February. He gets the bull out to the cows and aims for them to calve in a six-week period. “I generally try to have the cows dried off by December,” he added, “and they’re off in January and hopefully calving by the first of February.
“I breed all my replacement cows,” Clesham said. “The only calves I keep for myself are Friesian females. All the rest of the calves will get sold.
“There’s a push now in Ireland that emphasizes the welfare of dairy-born calves that will be finished and put into beef,” he says. “The push says that that the animals are worth something even if they won’t bring you a lot of money. Family farmers in Ireland will still call the vet for a sick bull calf even if that might cost more than what he’s worth.”
Ireland has new regulations in place to ensure proper animal care for its 1.55 million dairy cows, including one that prohibits farmers from selling calves until they’re at least 10 days old. “It’s just to make sure the navel is dry, the calf is reasonably hardy, and it keeps two-and-three-day-old calves from going into the market, which is a good thing,” Clesham said.
Clesham milks a herd mostly made up of Holstein-Friesian cross cattle, although he will throw other breeds in from time-to-time to improve the protein and butterfat content of his milk, which Irish cooperatives are now paying premiums for. (Photo by Dr. Greg Bourgond)
Most, if not all of the milk produced in Ireland, comes from grass-fed cows. Clesham, one of more than 18,000 dairy farmers in the country, says that’s the most profitable way to do dairying in Ireland. In fact, the Irish dairy industry markets itself as selling “grass-produced milk from small family farms.” He said that is what makes Ireland dairying unique.
The temperate Irish climate allows farmers to grow large quantities of grass over a long season, so the 40-year-old farmer rotates his 80-cattle herd through a handful of different pastures, called “paddocks.” It’s going to get a little trickier over the next several weeks as the grass “slows down a bit come July” when grass gets a little “stemmy.”
“During this rotation through the paddocks, I’m going behind the cows and mowing the paddocks, which I call ‘topping,’ and trying to cut back any stringy grass that they won’t eat at this stage,” he said. “I think it allows the grass to come back a little better when I mow after the cows eat all they can get to.
“Some guys think it’s better to mow the grass before the cows come into a paddock,” Clesham added. “Other guys say it’s better to skip paddocks entirely and make baled silage out of it. We do cut some silage here in addition to running them out on paddocks.”
As with most American dairy farms, the milk goes to a local cooperative for processing. Clesham says Irish co-ops are now paying bonuses from dairy farmers for higher-quality milk, so the higher the protein and butterfat content, the higher the check. Clesham works on what’s called an “A, B, C Milk Payment System.”
While walking on the road running between different paddocks, Clesham stops in front of a new building to house the cows before they head into the barn for milking something American farmers might refer to as “stanchion barns.” The cows lay on rubber mats in each of their cubicles. While some Irish dairymen may put down chopped straw or sawdust, he puts down lime in each cubicle.
“The manure pit is down below where the cows walk,” Tom said. “We spread it out on our land here. It’s mixed around and stirred before it goes into vacuum tanker vehicles that put it down on the land.”
Speaking of caring for the land, an American Farm Bureau survey in November 2020 showed that Americans trust their farmers to do the right things when it comes to sustainability and the environment. Clesham feels the Irish hold their dairy farmers in equally high regard.
“What we produce is grass-based, and I suppose, is more environmentally friendly than big barn systems that feed a lot of grain,” he said.
Clesham’s beautiful Springer-mix hunting dog Ivy was more than happy to join us as we walked down the gravel road between the paddocks. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Carbon emissions Is another topic that American farmers understand, and the conversation has also begun in Ireland. The dairyman says there’s “been a little bit of flak” when it comes to farming and carbon emissions.
“I’m not an expert on the topic, but I do think some folks have been led a bit astray on what it is,” Clesham said thoughtfully. “There are some cattle on lands across Ireland, but there are also huge plots of land that absorb carbon too. On my farm, I can easily say I have more trees than cows.”
That in no way means Clesham isn’t concerned about caring for the environment. After all, if he doesn’t take care of his land, he won’t be able to continue dairying into the future, something he clearly loves doing. “As we talk here, you can see I’ve planted a long row of flowers I call my ‘Bee Bank,’ he said. “That’s to help the bees in my area stay healthy.”
Clesham planted a row of flowers he calls a “Bee Bank,” something he put in just to keep the pollinators around his field happy and healthy. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Clesham is currently milking 47 cows and looking at more. He has visited with a government-run advisory service (Teagasc) that helps farmers with their dairying plans. At one point, they discussed not having any heifers and just having milking cows on the acreage.
“I might be able to milk over 70 cows then, but that would lead to other troubles,” he said. “I’d have to find a source for heifers. I’m definitely going to milk a few more next year as I have 16 in-calf heifers that will add on to the milking herd.”
Dairying is not the only thing keeping him busy: He’s working at the Falconry School on the grounds of Ashford Castle near Cong, Ireland, and raises pheasants for future hunting opportunities.
Renovation is usually one of my favorite topics. It involves retrofitting old structures to make them new again. Those assignments involve me talking about and photographing old structures, something the urban explorer in me really enjoys.
The Harmony, Minnesota, Historical Society is kicking off a fund drive to renovate the old McGlaughlin Elevator, first built in 1879. They’ll host open house events July 3 and 4 from 11-2 each day. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The past and future stand guard at the entrance to Main Street in Harmony, Minnesota. The McMichael Grain Elevator was built in 1879 and stands on the west side of Main Street, where it meets the curve of State Highway 52. On the east side of the street is the much newer and more modern Harmony Agri-Services. A group of Harmony citizens is working to make sure the past and future of grain handling in the area watch over Main Street for many years to come.
Harmony sits smack dab in the middle of Minnesota farm country, so they needed elevators near railroads to process and store harvested grain, as well as move it into large freight cars for transportation. The A. & T. McMichael Grain Company of McGregor, Iowa, built the original elevator structure, one of several facilities they owned and operated in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and North and South Dakota. It included the elevators in Preston, Mabel, and Canton, Minnesota.
Farmers drove in here and dumped their grain for storage down through the floor grate in the old Harmony Elevator. The town’s Historical Society is kicking off a fund drive to raise money for renovations and turning it into a historical landmark. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Joel Wolsted bought the facility in 1914, and his family would hang on to it for a long time. He passed on the operation to his son, Ron Wolsted, who ran it as “Harmony Feed and Fuel.” As the new Harmony Agri-Services facility went up on the other side of the road, the old structure was gifted to the City of Harmony and the Harmony Area Historical Society by Jeff and Barb (Wolsted) Soma of Harmony Agri-Services in 2019.
Understandably, the then 140-year-old facility was in rough shape when the historical society first opened the doors. Ralph Beastrom is one of the historical society’s elevator committee chairs. With a laugh, he said the place was “full of stuff” when they looked inside it.
“We had a crew come in and clean the bins,” he recalled. “They went down inside the bins (which are long gone) and shoveled them all out. We also had a soda blaster come in and clean everything up inside the building. There were cobwebs, bird droppings, and dirt everywhere you looked in here.”
One of the leftover shovels that Harmony Elevator employees had to use to unload train cars by hand in the late 1800s when the elevator was built. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The local Falk Foundation gave the project a grant to help pay for the soda blasting. If you don’t know what that is, it’s like sandblasting, but workers use what’s essentially baking soda.
He said there are a few pieces of equipment left behind, including what are called “fanning mills” that sort the grain. Once the mills and other left-behind equipment get cleaned up, they will become part of the historical site.
Machinery left behind at the old elevator in Harmony, Minnesota. The local Historical Society is raising funds to renovate it and make it a historical landmark the town can be proud of. (Photo by Chad Smith)
“Our overall renovation plan is to work on the outside first,” Beastrom said. “We’ll do the siding and fix up the doors, so they work smoothly again. At some point, the inside will get renovated with some new lighting and some interpretive information. Whether we’ll do anything electronically, I’m not sure yet.
“We also need to get the windows taken care of, which will probably be our next high-dollar item,” he said. “Then, it’ll be time to work on the doors and close any openings that the swallows are using to get in and build their nests.”
The Harmony Historical Society is working with a preservationist in Spring Grove to do the work necessary to get the site into the Historical Registry. “We’ve already determined it’s eligible for the Registry, we just need to get the paperwork finished up,” he added. “That should be completed this year. It should open some doors for extra funding to get the renovation work done.
“Preservation architects have already told us the building is solid,” Beastrom added.
Beastrom, who also serves as Treasurer for the Harmony Historical Society, says the goal isn’t necessarily to restore it to the original condition. The goal is to preserve the building and make it look good because it “sits right at the entrance to our Main Street, and we want it to look good in that spot.”
Ralph Beastrom gave me a tour on a very windy and rainy day in Harmony. He’s helping to lead the effort to restore the old McGlaughlin Elevator and make it a historical landmark. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The Harmony Historical Society will host a couple of Open House Events over July third and Fourth from 11 am-2 pm each day. They’ll have the interior on display for the public, including some of the old machines and signage as well. The Open Houses will be a kickoff to a major fundraising push for the renovation project.
“We lost an entire year to COVID-19,” he added. “Nobody could come to meetings or get any work done. We hope that the Fourth of July will really get this project going in the right direction again.”
The total cost of the renvoatioon is estimated at $200,000, so the Historical Society needs help from the public. For more information, you can contact them at hahs@harmonytel.net. Feel free to reach out to the elevator renovation chairs, including Ralph Beastrom, Richard Kiehne, or Vicky Tribon.
Water is a touchy subject, especially when it comes to our agriculture and environmental discussions these days. I have to admit that I was worried about this from day one. The Environmental Protection Agency announced it intends to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.
Zippy Duvall, first elected president of the American Farm Bureau Federation in 2016, is very concerned about the EPA decision to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Act. (Photo from fb.org)
American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall his organization is very concerned about the idea and its potential impact on the nation’s farmers.
“The American Farm Bureau Federation is extremely disappointed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s announcement that it intends to reverse the environmentally conscious Navigable Waters Protection Rule,” Duvall says, “which finally brought clarity and certainty to clean water efforts. Farmers and ranchers care about clean water and preserving the land, and they support the Navigable Waters Protection Rule.
“Administrator Regan recently recognized the flaws in the 2015 ‘Waters of the U.S. Rule’ and pledged not to return to those overreaching regulations,” he added. “We are deeply concerned that the EPA plans to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which puts the future of responsible protections at risk. We expected extensive outreach, but today’s announcement fails to recognize the concerns of farmers and ranchers.”
Duvall, a third-generation Georgia farmer, says this is an important moment for EPA Administrator Michael Regan and will be pivotal to his ability to earn the trust of farmers on this and other administration priorities. Duvall says the EPA boss must “keep his word” to recognize the efforts of agriculture and not return to flawed, overly-complicated and excessive regulations.
EPA Chief Michael Regan announced that his agency is planning to reverse the Navigable Waters Protection Rule put in place by the Trump Administration. (Photo from eenews.com)
“We call on the EPA to respect the statute, recognize the burden that overreaching regulation places on farmers and ranchers, and not write the term ‘navigable’ out of the Clean Water Act” Duvall says. “On this issue, and particularly prior converted croplands and ephemerals, we also urge Secretary Vilsack to ensure that we don’t return to the regulatory land grab that was the 2015 ‘WOTUS’ Rule.
Duvall adds that clean water and clarity are paramount, which is why farmers shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and consultants to farm.
From a personal perspective, why can’t we meet in the middle here? You do realize that farmers don’t get to stay in business and pass on the operation to their kids if they don’t take care of their environment?
Am I anti-environment by being concerned about farmers? I’m not. I’m saying there has to be a way to preserve the environment and still allow farmers to make money. After all, they do feed us, remember? Food doesn’t just show up at Safeway.
