Agriculture | Field 2 Field

October 30, 2019October 30, 2019

Hemp Production Rules in Place for U.S. farming

The U.S. Department of Agriculture hosted a press conference to announce the rollout of the U.S. Domestic Hemp Production Program. As long as farmers aren’t working in states that prohibit hemp farming by law, officials will work with farmers to help them establish an approved plan to produce industrial hemp on their operations.

Here’s the complete press conference audio from this week:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture officially announced the establishment of the Domestic Hemp Production Program. The program is designed to create a consistent regulatory framework involving hemp farming across the country. USDA Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs Greg Ibach says the agency will work with states and tribes to help producers establish federally approved hemp production plans, as long as hemp production isn’t outlawed by their states.

The interim rule also calls for a public comment period so USDA can take input on the final rule before it’s enacted. Ibach says the 2020 growing season will be a “test drive” so USDA can make any needed corrections before publishing the final rule. He talks about some of the key provisions in the interim final rule.

There will be a 30-day waiting period for USDA to license farmers who want to grow hemp in states or tribes that don’t submit plans for federal approval. Ibach says they’ve gotten a lot of questions during the development process surrounding hemp testing for THC.

USDA Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation Bill Northey says once state and tribal plans are in place, hemp growers will be eligible for various government programs in 2020…tape

If you have any more question, contact your local Farm Service Agency office. They can point you in the right direction. You can also find more information online at farmers.gov/hemp.

October 22, 2019October 22, 2019

Renewable Fuels Debate Continues Unabated

Here’s the complete podcast with Scott Irwin of the University of Minnesota, talking about his solution to the squabble between ethanol and the oil industry over the Renewable Fuels Standard. You can download and listen to it later or play it here.

Renewable Fuels seem like such a good idea to me. After all, fossil fuels are a finite resource, right? We grow lots of corn and other biofuel feedstocks. Why can’t we use some of them to stretch our fuel supply even further into the future? That’s rhetorical, of course. Big Oil has lots of money. One University of Illinois Professor says that money has put Big Oil squarely in the driver’s seat with the Environmental Protection Agency.

The clash between the ethanol and oil industries over the Renewable Fuels Standard is continuing with no end in sight. Scott Irwin of the Agricultural and Consumer Economics Department at the University of Illinois says there may not be a “win-win” deal in a debate like this.

Irwin wrote an article on the University of Illinois’ farm doc daily website called “Clearing the Logjam on the RFS and SREs: A Simple Proposal.” His idea would divide the refiners into large and small operations, while the ethanol proponents are treated as one group.

By doing it that way, the Environmental Protection Agency won’t be waiving any future volumes of ethanol. He realizes that the large refiners won’t be happy with his proposal, which Irwin says restores what the RFS was originally designed to do.

Irwin says his solution would satisfy two-thirds of the people and groups involved in the debate, which might be the best we can do. By way of comparison, the current situation is a mess.

Again, Scott Irwin is with the University of Illinois. Follow the link here if you’d like to read his full report on the Farm Doc Daily website.

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October 22, 2019October 22, 2019

Harvest season in MN requiring extra patience

Here’s another chadsmithmedia podcast, this time with Houston and Fillmore County Extension Educator Michael Cruse, talking harvest progress in southeast Minnesota.

Harvest season. Never a dull moment in farm country. It’s never an easy season for anyone, regardless of what the growing season was like. This year’s ridiculously wet growing season is going to make things even more challenging, which is not exactly a state secret.

The harvest season is officially underway in southeast Minnesota. A few days of drier and windier weather last week allowed some crops to come out of fields across the area. Houston and Fillmore County Extension Educator Michael Cruse said timing appears to be everything when it comes to fall harvesting in 2019.

“I’m glad you called me later last week, rather than on Monday,” Cruse said. “I would have been much more down on the situation earlier last week. However, a couple of windy days helped some farmers take some corn and beans out of their fields. In spite of that, we’re still behind and we’ll still be scrambling to make sure everything gets done before the ground freezes. At least we’re starting to make some progress.”

The excess rainfall this year means the crops will come out of the fields much wetter than normal. He said the recent windy days seem to have put soybeans into pretty good shape. But, the corn is still going to require some time in the dryer, which isn’t a big surprise this harvest season.

Harvest season is underway in southeast Minnesota, all be it slowly, according to Michael Cruse of the University of Minnesota Extension Service. There’s still a long way to go in very we conditions. (Photo from UMN.Extension.Edu)

“The beans are actually drying down to the point that it looks like they’ll be okay,” Cruse said. “Just be patient with them. Obviously, the last thing you want is to get a big snowfall on top of them, but they seem to be coming along. However, the hard truth is that the majority of our corn crop will come out of the field too wet.

“No matter how long we wait this fall, we just won’t have the drying conditions to get that corn down to optimal moisture,” he added. “That’s probably why we see a lot of farmers working corn right now. They know there’s going to be a bottleneck while the corn has to sit in their dryers and it’s going to take some time. Get a head start because it’s going to take a while.”

September 11, 2019September 11, 2019

IFYE – the International Farm Youth Exchange Program

The International Farm Youth Exchange Program recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA and IFYE (iffy) will work together to promote cultural understanding between the U.S. and overseas countries. The MOU commends IFYE for its past and continuing contribution to international cultural understanding of rural areas across the world. Victoria Warren is President of IFYE. She says the MOU also means the USDA and her group will work together to continue the IFYE mission into the future.

The IFYE program sends young adults 19 and over to farms and rural areas in other countries and helps them learn to understand different cultures and ways of doing things. Warren says the experience isn’t just for young adults in rural America either.

Program participants should be interested in things like agriculture, foods, nutrition, or family consumer science to get the best possible program experience. Warren talks about what the participants will do when they’re overseas with exchange families.

Warren says IFYE isn’t like other exchange programs because participants aren’t there to go to school. However, that doesn’t mean the young adults don’t learn anything.

Warren participated in the program too. She made an overseas trip back in the late-1970s.

For more information about the program, go to www.ifyeusa.org.

September 1, 2019September 10, 2019

Weather turns cool but won’t last in Ag country

Here is the full podcast with Bryce Anderson. You can download for later if you like. Just click on the three dots on the right and hit the download box.

Weather and agriculture go together like husband and wife, hand in glove, or ball and chain. I caught up to a guy who knows a lot about agriculture and weather. He’s Bryce Anderson, Senior Ag Meteorologist with DTN.

Temperatures have turned cool in the Midwest recently and it has some farmers concerned about a potential impact on crop development. Anderson says that cool trend is going to continue for several more days.

He says the cooler-than-normal temps cover most of the Corn Belt. In some cases, certain locations in the Corn Belt have been double-digits below where they normally are in late August-early September.

Cool high pressure dropped down from Canada and took control of the weather in the Corn Belt. However, Anderson says that high pressure will begin to move away soon.

Because much of the crops in the ground went in late, all eyes are on the weather forecast and trying to anticipate when that first frost will be. While Anderson says an early frost doesn’t look likely, that may not be good enough for this year’s crops…tape

He says the weather during harvest should be good enough to help farmers get their crops into the bins quicker than last fall. Anderson says the bigger question will be how good the condition of those crops are when they’re taken out of the fields across farm country.

August 30, 2019August 30, 2019

Agricultural trade opportunities are still out there

Here’s the podcast with Jeremy Miller. If you want to download it for later, go ahead and click on the three dots on the right side of the player and hit download.

Agricultural Trade is a sore topic of conversation these days. The agricultural sector in Minnesota and around the country has been struggling for more than a year due in large part to trade disputes with other nations, including the biggest one with China. However, there is some good news out there in international market opportunities for Minnesota farmers. District 28 Republican Senator Jeremy Miller recently took part in an overseas trade mission to Taiwan July 21-26 and says there are opportunities out there for Minnesota farmers to find markets for their commodities.

“A representative from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago reached out to me earlier this year about leading a multi-state, bipartisan legislative leaders’ delegation to Taiwan,” he recalled. “Before we go any further, people have asked who paid for the trip. I want to make it clear that the trip was paid for by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The whole purpose of the trip was to develop relationships between the United States of America, specifically Minnesota, and partners in Taiwan.”

It was the second trip Miller has taken overseas, with the first one taking place in South Korea back in 2011. He said the number one focus of these trips is to “meet people,” with the number two focus of “looking at opportunities.” The third and most important focus of the trip is “developing relationships” to see what kinds of business dealings can evolve in the future.

“The potential is there for a lot of different relationships between Minnesota and Taiwan,” he said. “By far, the biggest opportunity I see in Taiwan is for agricultural trade. Minnesota already exports a good number of crops, especially soybeans, to Taiwan. I think there’s even more opportunity there, whether it be for corn, more soybeans, and especially for pork.”

Miller looked into the numbers and found that Minnesota exported about $413 million worth of goods to Taiwan in 2018. However, that number is likely to go higher. “Last year, there was a agricultural trade mission to Taiwan that both Minnesota and Iowa took part in,” he recalled. “On that trip, Taiwan signed a $1.5 billion-dollar deal to buy 3.9 million metric tons of soybeans from both Minnesota and Iowa before 2021.

“What I’m driving at is there are even more opportunities for Minnesota and Taiwan to increase the amount of business done,” Miller said. “But, it comes down to keep lines of communication open and building on those relationships once they’re established.”

August 12, 2019August 12, 2019

Trade dispute puts U.S. agriculture right in the middle

Trade is important to agriculture. There, I said it. American agriculture is the best in the world. When you produce goods at the rate we do, there has to be somewhere to sell it overseas. However, thanks to the trade dispute with China, as well as recent disputes with some of our top trading partners, trade isn’t happening with the regularity it needs to.

In turn, when trade doesn’t happen the way it should, prices drop and farmers can’t make a living. I wanted to find out more about the trade dispute and what’s really going on. When you want to learn something like that, you find someone with skin in the game that can teach you the ins and outs.

Dan Ujczo (YOOT-zoh) is an international trade lawyer with the Dickinson-Wright Law Firm of Columbus, Ohio. I’ve known him for over a year now, ever since the dispute began. In typical Chad Smith fashion, my first question is “what the hell is going on here?” How’s that for direct and to the point?

“There was never going to be a deal in which things would go back to the way they were prior to January of 2017, when President Trump was inaugurated,” Ujczo said. “When Trump met with President Xi last December, they both thought we’d have a deal inside of 90 days. Then we heard they would make a deal in May.

“We never thought there would be a deal in which tariffs were completely rolled back,” he said. “Certainly not on the items from List One and List Two, which were an initial 25 percent duty on $50 billion worth of goods.”

When it comes to the items on List One and List Two, Ujczo says the U.S. government talked with industry and looked at the future of manufacturing, deciding then that these are the items we don’t want China taking the lead on. “Tariffs probably weren’t ever coming off those items,” he said.

Here’s the full conversation:

August 8, 2019August 8, 2019

Markets Expert Talks Trade War, USDA reports

Markets occasionally confuse me. However, one part of a career in journalism/broadcasting that I really enjoy is calling people who can educate me on things I really don’t have much expertise in. The older I get, the more fun it is to learn (and try) new things, but I digress. I was working on an assignment with the National Association of Farm Broadcasting the other day and had to find out how the trade dispute between the U.S. and China is affecting commodity markets.

Well, here’s the thing. Commodity markets are not my area of expertise, so I called up Mike Zuzolo of Global Commodity Analytics and Consulting in Atchison, Kansas. He’s been in the markets for 2.5 decades so if you have a question, he’s the guy that can answer it.

As a farm broadcaster/editor, I was curious about how the China announcement that they wouldn’t be buying any American farm products right now was affecting the markets. Obviously, the effect wouldn’t be a positive one. However, as you’ll hear in the conversation, it could have been even worse.

And believe me, before we progress any further I need to stress that no one is saying things aren’t bad right now in the agricultural sector. I wanted to find out what the market reaction was to the announcement from China. Mike said the key reaction market reaction took place in the currency and stock markets.

“Quite frankly, Chad, I think this is maybe one of the few glimmers of good news, or potentially supportive news, for the commodity markets,” he said. “I think we’ve done a fairly good job in the markets of pricing in a good portion of the end result of these trade frictions turning into the beginnings of a trade war. It’s going to be playing out in the currency markets as we go forward.

“The net result is the commodity markets didn’t react as negatively as they could, simply because the strength of the U.S. dollar was dropping,” Zuzolo said. “When the dollar goes down, it makes our goods cheaper to export. At the same time when we had the news out of China, the gold market was making fresh, 6.5-year highs. That too is commodity supportive.”

Here’s the full conversation with Mike Zuzolo.

August 8, 2019August 8, 2019

Japanese Hops Invading Southeast Minnesota

Japanese hops is and invasive weed that’s overtaking the banks of the Root River in southeastern Minnesota and growing onto adjacent property. Weed experts at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) are asking for the public’s help in controlling the weed and reporting new finds.

Infestations are popping up along the Root River from Preston to the confluence of the Mississippi River. Small infestations of Japanese hops have also popped up in Winona; however, these have been controlled.

Japanese hops are annual vines native to eastern Asia that can grow up to 35 feet in a single growing season. With this explosive growth, the vines smother native vegetation and even grow into trees. Leaves are approximately 2-6 inches long and have at least 5 lobes that are shaped like a hand with the fingers extended. There are separate male and female plants that are beginning to flower this time of year. Seed production then follows.

Minnesota is also home to American hops. It is a native perennial vine that looks similar but often has 1-5 lobes and does not have more than 5 lobes on the leaves.

“We don’t know how they got to the Root River; but now that it’s here, we need to work together with the public to control this invasive weed,” said Christina Basch, Noxious Weed Specialist at the MDA. “Since Japanese hops is a prohibited noxious weed on the state’s eradicate list, it’s important that we find infestations and work to get rid of it.”

For successful Japanese hops control, the dispersal of mature seed must be stopped. This can be done by pulling or cutting the vines at the base or with herbicide treatment. Herbicide treatment is the only practical approach for large infestations that can’t be mowed. Experimental torching of seedlings appears to be effective for control of small infestations.

If you find Japanese hops on your land and the infestation is beyond what you can manage, report it to the MDA’s Arrest the Pest line at arrest.the.pest@state.mn.us or 1-888-545-6684. It is helpful to include photos with the report. It is also important to report infestations other than those on the Root River.

Work is already underway to control Japanese hops in the Root River area. Through a grant from the MDA, the Fillmore Soil Water Conservation District and Houston County Planning and Zoning are conducting hops treatments on the Root River banks. Fillmore and Houston County officials, with grants from the Board of Water and Soil Resources Clean Water Fund, are also using Conservation Corps Minnesota (CCM) to control hops along the Root River Trail. The MDA is working with landowners and CCM to control hops on private lands. The MDA’s work to control Japanese hops and oversee the coordinated efforts is supported by the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizens Commission on Minnesota Resources.

July 11, 2019July 11, 2019

July WASDE is nothing more than a “placeholder”

The July World Ag Supply and Demand Estimate Report (WASDE) didn’t make many changes from the previous month. In fact, it wasn’t worth much at all to a lot of the industry. USDA admitted it will have a better picture of planted acres in the U.S. after resurveying producers this month and releasing the updated numbers in August.

Joe Vaclavik, founder and president of Standard Grain in Chicago, says this month’s WASDE report was considered by many to be a “placeholder.”

He’s not surprised that the number didn’t change a great deal from the last report…tape

There weren’t a lot of surprises on the demand side of the WASDE report…tape

Vaclavik says the grain stocks numbers likely aren’t accurate…tape

With this round of WADE reports done, Vaclavik says the markets are very much locked in on two things. He tells agweb.com that markets will be watching weather and the August report. “Because of the variability in both crop conditions and crop progress, it’s very, very difficult for anyone to look at a weather forecast or pattern and say if it’s bullish or bearish,” Vaclavik says.

He says a lot of farmers might be looking for a rise in prices because this year’s crop is anticipated to be very small. “Just because the crop is light doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to go higher,” Vaclavik says. “You don’t want to completely abandon any semblance of a marketing plan. We’ve been hoping to get to these corn prices, and it took five or six years to finally get back here.

“Be ready for volatility,” he added. “The environment will continue to be volatile until we learn more about the crop in August.”

Again, Joe Vaclavik is President and Founder of Standard Grains.