Guest Blog by Barb Determan

What is a small town Iowa farmwoman doing in New York City on a panel of experts about antibiotics with a moderator from CNN? That’s exactly what I was wondering Thursday, November 15!

A few weeks ago I was asked to represent the pork industry in the New York City Food Dialogues sponsored by the US Farmers and Ranchers Alliance. The panel I was on centered around antibiotics in livestock, specifically pigs.  Two additional panels discussing GMOs and Marketing and the Media were also a part of the day. Here are my major take-aways from the experience.

First, our consumers are woefully uneducated about food production. Now I have been aware of this for some time, but participating in the panel brought this fact home! Highly educated people have some real misconceptions and misunderstandings about where their food comes from. And to complicate matters, they don’t know where to find good information.

Second, they believe antibiotics are fed to animals (especially pigs in my panel’s case) from birth to harvest. They think the antibiotics are added for no reason and at high levels. They don’t realize the use of antibiotics come with a veterinarian’s advice and are fed on a very limited and defined basis. Explaining our practices for meat production is a tedious process, but we must do it so we don’t have those assumptions circulating. This follows he age old public relations advice of you must tell your story, because if you don’t someone else will and you won’t like that version!

Third, livestock production has changed and this group does not understand that better health, genetics, and environmental practices are the result of these changes. Modern buildings with controlled temperatures and nutrition designed for each day of the pig’s life help us provide the world’s safest food supply at a reasonable price. Efficient production does not mean bad production.

Fourth, we have to be careful not to use what I call “ag-ese”, the words that only those of us in the agriculture production business use. Our ag slang only further complicates everyone’s understanding of what we do every day. We need to stop and think what those words mean and how we need to explain to a non-agriculture population.

Fifth, some reporters really do want to learn more about our food production system and are not judgmental about that learning process. Our moderator, Ali Velshi, CNN’s Chief Business Correspondent, did an excellent job making sure all participants were involved answering questions. He asked some tough but fair questions as well as handled audience, Twitter and email questions. His genuine curiosity made it easy to explain farming practices, both crop and livestock. My favorite line from him throughout the day was, “Seedless watermelons are GMOs? I’m in! What’s the problem?”

We as agricultural producers are proud of feeding our world but that doesn’t go far when the world doesn’t understand how we produce that food. We must participate in conversations with consumers at every opportunity. I am proud of the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance for starting these dialogues with both the pro and con sides represented. It’s the only way we can explain our story to others and not just ourselves.

Useful Links

• Click here for the Food Dialogues Website
• Click here to read tweets from the Food Dialogues: New York

Media, Marketing and Healthy Choices

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C7PAsU5r_I&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Antibiotics and Your Food

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYQh-iCs9oQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Biotechnology (GMOs) and Your Food

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdle5PvTBrc&feature=player_embedded

Guest blog post by Dan Gogerty, communications editor for CAST

The Farm Bureau posted their annual report regarding the cost of the typical Thanksgiving Day meal, and at approximately $5 per person, it seems a bargain. If you compare the menu items to what you’d get for $5 at most fast food places, you’d about have to say, “I’m lovin’ it.”

I looked up the prices for 1961. I was eleven years old then, sitting at a long, crowded table in Granny Faye’s house. She wasn’t much for hosting events, but even after my grandpa died, she kept up the Thanksgiving tradition. Apparently back then she could buy turkey at 35 cents a pound, potatoes at 8 cents a pound, and two cans of pumpkin for 29 cents.

Granny’s two sons both farmed within a half mile of the home place. Farms were closer together then, and these were filled with kids—fourteen between the two families. Most of us were boys growing up under the influence of Moe, Larry, and Curly, but we managed to sit quietly during the prayer, and we appreciated the accordion-paper turkeys and pumpkins that made up the table décor. No one wrote texts or tweets as we shaped our mashed potatoes into lake beds for the gravy. No noon football games on the black and white TV, but cousin Terry might have a beat up pigskin on his lap. We were itching to get outside to play ball—what kid really likes cranberry sauce anyway? A promise of pumpkin pie is the only thing that kept us from bolting.

I have little recall of the meal chatter, but Granny might inform us that turkeys were not always the guest of honor at Thanksgiving. “Back then,” she’d say, “we used to butcher and dress barnyard chickens for the feast. Not much fun steaming and plucking feathers on a chilly morning.” We kids had been present at poultry harvest times, so a cousin might start describing the chicken-with-its-head-cut-off ritual until he was shushed. Grossing each other out was a national pastime for us boys at that age, but the Thanksgiving table was not prime territory for it.

As the autumn sun shone through the large south windows, Dad might point out, “Even though today is perfect for football, we’ve seen Thanksgivings when the ground was covered with snow. When I was about your age, the 1940 Armistice Day blizzard surprised us all. Farmers were caught out in the cornfields, hunters were nearly frozen to death in duck blinds, and chickens were stuck solid to their roosts. No weather forecasts to warn us back then.”

Even at that age, I’d seen a Thanksgiving or two when the creek banks were lined with thin ice, and the morning sun lit up frost that coated woven wire fences and corn stalks left in the field after the harvest. But today had the brilliant light of a slanting autumn sun, and as soon as we hit the yard, it was all pass, run, argue, punt, fumble, and argue some more as we conveniently ignored the fact that someone was cleaning up after the big event. Back then, adults were like benevolent extraterrestrials who usually stayed in their own universe—until chore time.

“The cow needs milkin’,” some galactic overlord would announce. “And the steers in the lot across the road need five buckets of grain and eight bales of hay.” No holiday shopping excuses to save us. The advertizing Madmen of the 60s hadn’t come up with Black Friday Frenzy, which is now morphing into Thanksgiving Day Dilemma. We were bright enough kids, but the word “shopping” was not in our vocabulary, and  merchants back then didn’t even think of hoisting Christmas on us until Thanksgiving was over.

The day was for celebrating family, and the harvest, and kids playing outside in the sunshine or the snow. And the evening was for eating the meal that I liked best—the leftovers. Dark turkey meat, warmed-up dressing with gravy on it, Mom’s homemade bread, a slice of pumpkin pie—living was easy. Until the morning after Thanksgiving.

We’re trudging up the lane toward the yellow school bus that stops in a cloud of gravel dust and dread. In a tryptophan stupor and laden with books and gym clothes, I climb aboard the not-so-magic bus and plop down in a cold seat next to a lanky high school kid with a comb in his pocket and a sneer on his face. Now that’s what I call the real Black Friday.

by dan gogerty (turkey pic from blogher.com; school bus pic from schoolbusdriver.org)

“Musings of a Pig Farmer”
By Larry Sailer

Today I’d like to share some of the things for which I’m thankful.  There’s no way that I can cover everything, and that alone speaks volumes!

First of all, I’m thankful to live in a democracy where we’re afforded the freedom of speech.  I’m thankful for TheFieldPosition.com for giving me a platform to voice my concerns, as well to share why and how I farm with those who are interested enough to read my weekly “Musings of a Pig Farmer” blog.  I’m also thankful for you since you’re reading my post!  ?

I’m thankful for the ability to express my thoughts – this alone would have been unimaginable 10 years ago.  I can still remember my first interview as the State of Iowa Feeder Pig Chairman.  Farm broadcaster Von Ketelsen interviewed me during our last feeder pig show, which we were forced to shut down to help eradicate pseudorabies.  I answered many of Von’s questions with “yes” or “no.”  Such one-word answers should have been the end of my interviews.  Fortunately, Von called me again last week for another interview.  He must still think I have something worth sharing, and I’m thankful for second chances.

In addition to learning how to better communicate my message, over the years I’ve become a better listener.  Helping farmers and ranchers be understood by the folks, who are far removed from the farm, keeps me motivated.  I’m thankful for technologies like the Internet, iPads, computers and Smartphones that allow me to make friends across the globe.  Thank you, my social media network!  I feel blessed to talk with and learn from people all over the world – from my home office.

Advocating is just one of the challenges facing us in agriculture.  Every year presents new hurdles, whether they’re regulatory or weather-related.  This past year has been no different.  Lack of rainfall caused the 2012 crop conditions to decline week after week.  Yet, we raised a crop!  I am very thankful to have had the yields I did with the very short amount of rain that fell.

Last but certainly not least, I am thankful for my close family.  We’ve made it through another year with only minor bumps in the road.  Some of those bumps seemed big at the time, but looking back, you all handled things pretty smoothly.  A heartfelt “thank you” to my wife, Janice, for putting up with me for another year and for allowing me to spend time agvocating when I could be working on her “Honey Do List.”  (Janice, I promise to try harder next year!  Maybe I’ll even get that waterfall built in 2013.)  I also want to thank my kids and grandkids for helping me on the farm and for giving me so much pleasure as I follow their lives.  Thirty-five years ago, I never thought that would never happen!  I am truly blessed by all of you.

Thanksgiving gives us time to step back and reflect.  I hope you’ll take the time this week to say a prayer and count your blessings, too!

Now that the 2012 election is behind us and government officials are returning to work, new regulations are threatening agriculture.  I’m hearing the Farm Bill will be tied to something, perhaps conservation.  It’s as though farmers will destroy the world if we’re not threatened with something severe enough to make sure that we comply!

Actually, I find it ironic that regulators believe the proverbial stick will be more effective than the carrot when most farmers take great pride in being stewards of the land.  This whole idea of tying any conservation practice to some type of support is not a threat to me – or the great majority of farmers and ranchers.  Conservation is one of our top priorities anyway.  If we don’t take care of our land and soil, it’s not going to produce for very long.

I will admit that “back in the day” I did enjoy plowing the soil in the fall.  Plowing was a task where you could see what was getting done.  Turning the soil black and covering up corn stalks in preparation for next year’s crop was fun.  It was even fun 20 years ago, and the tractors we used then weren’t nearly as warm as those we use today.

As much as I enjoyed farming, I also realized it was a practice that I needed to reconsider.  That’s why I first tried no-till farming in the 1970s.  At that time, the types of equipment and weed control options available didn’t favor no-till farming.  We also didn’t s today’s higher-yielding seed technology, so I kept different types of minimum tillage practices.

I switched to no till about 5 years ago, but this fall I had to do some deep tillage because of effects from the drought and the fact that I use a lot of natural manure.  But even with this tillage pass, the ground is covered by a thick layer of organic matter and is protected from wind and rain.

Bottom line: It doesn’t take a government threat to make farmers do what is right.  Doing what’s right just comes naturally to farmers!

Musings of a Pig Farmer
by Larry Sailer

It’s election day!  Hopefully, you’ve made a list of the issues are most important to you and have studied how each candidate stand on agriculture. The rural vote is extremely important given such a close election.  The Farm Bill, ethanol and estate taxes are just a few of the hot-button issues with farmers.

Because I’m truly concerned about how the outcome of this election could affect my livelihood, I’ve spent quite a bit of time this fall answering questions from members of the media.  Reuters talked to me by phone. Fox News came to my farm during harvest.  I also spent parts of three day during fall harvest with a video crew from the NHK network from Japan, which I understand is comparable to our public TV.

It amazed me how these media found an old hog farmer in North Central Iowa, so I asked.  A producer from New York said he listened to an interview I did with National Public Radio.  Fox Network said my name kept popping up during Google searches.  Oh, the power of the Internet!

NHK collected hours of video for a documentary about our political process.  It seemed to me that these Japanese were more interested in the politics shaping our future than many of my fellow Americans!  They asked me about my concerns and why I believe there is a need for compromise.  Over the course of three days, I answered many of their questions.   They wanted to know how the Farm Bill affected my farming operation and how my crop insurance worked.

The Japanese also wanted to know how I work with my elected officials, so I contacted Rep. Annette Sweeney.  Annette was very gracious and came to my farm, so she could be a part of this interview.  Annette’s farming experience, combined with her position as Iowa House Ag Committee Chair, made for some great discussion.

As you can see in my video, we had a fun time.  This segment aired last Thursday on Japanese TV.  While I haven’t actually timed it, it appears they used about two minutes from the hours and hours of videotape.  So was it worth it? You bet!  It was a great experience talk with people from another part of the world, who had a totally different perspective than mine.  It also reminded me how fortunate American are to have the right to vote.  Remember, exercise your right to vote today!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/L1OjHo2rF1o[/youtube]

For the past few weeks, I had to move my “pork chronicles” to the proverbial back burner while corn and soybean harvest moved to the front burner. My priorities for the past eight weeks have been doing hog chores and combining row crops. I’ve managed to eat meals and conduct a few media interviews before catching a few hours of sleep each night.  Now that our crops are in the bin, I’m making blogging a priority.

More videos will be forthcoming.  In the meantime, I’m posting a few photos to help give you an inside view of my operation. One photo shows the “foil curtains” we put inside our hog barns as insulation. The heater provides keeps the pigs more comfortable when temperatures dip like this week when overnight lows have been below freezing. You’ll also find a photo of the controller, which coordinates all of the fans, heaters, curtains and misters that add to the pigs’ comfort.

The temperature outside was 28° when I did chores this morning, yet our pigs were snug and warm inside. When hail hit last Friday and snow showers fell throughout the northland, our pigs didn’t notice a difference. A consistent temperature allows our pigs to be comfortable regardless of the elements, and comforts such as dry and warm conditions keep them healthy.

The picture of the empty pen is my hospital pen. Although it’s empty right now, the hospital pen allows me to isolate a sick pig to give it special care.  Sometimes healthy animals will try to kill a sick pig; it’s nature’s way of trying to control a disease by eliminating the threat.  “Survival of the fittest” happens whether pigs are inside or not. One of the advantages of my barns is that I can closely observe my livestock and help protect the weak. Modern facilities such as these have made huge improvements in animal welfare.

Feel free to send me any questions you have about  modern pork production.

Related blog posts:

• Part I: Cleanliness is Key to Good Animal Health
• Part II: Farmers Recycled before “Green Efforts” Began

“Musings of a Pig Farmer” by Larry Sailer

Weather and politics are always tops of mind for farmers and for very good reason – both greatly impact our livelihoods.  At this time, both are weighing heavily on my mind.  That’s why today I’m going to begin with a brief recap of the weather, followed by a summary of a few political issues.

We’ve been fortunate enough to receive some rainfall over the past two weeks.  I’m looking for the silver lining here, and this is the best that I have:  “Subsoil moisture improved and is now rated 60 percent very short and 34 percent short.”  According to yesterday’s report by the Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship (IDALS), only 6% of our soils have adequate moisture.

“Record low precipitation totals” have been making the headlines for nearly a year now.  The 2011 harvest proceeded rapidly because there were few days when farmers had to shut down the combines due to rainfall; the same holds true for this fall.  Even the spring and summer months were dry.  A summary of the summer months shows Iowa received 6.61 inches less than normal, and now we’re behind 16 inches of rainfall!

Creeks and ponds have been drying up, but thankfully a few streams are flowing again after recent rains.  There is a trickle of water running from tile lines in my fields (see photos above), but more precipitation is needed for a good crop in 2013.  There is an 80% chance that North Central Iowa will be hit with thunderstorms tomorrow night, and I’m hoping it amounts to more than a few booms of thunder and a few flashes of lightning.  A good inch or two of steady rainfall would be greatly appreciated!

While folks here are praying for a good rainstorm, there is another storm brewing on the political front.  Farmers must get engaged especially this election year as there are so many issues of great consequence being discussed.  The Farm Bill is one of the biggest political hurdles we face, especially as we address how to feed a growing and hungry world.

Food security was at the forefront of discussions last week when world players gathered in Des Moines for the annual World Food Prize award and symposium.  Of course, these great leaders talked about sustainability and all the different angles that word brings with it.  Food is the most basic of the basic needs.  Wars have been fought and governments have collapsed due to food shortages.  We can all talk about conservation and sustainability, but if people do not have enough food to eat, none of the rest matters!

It’s time to make policy with compromise… that makes sense!  Feeding the billions of people with a finite amount of resources is going to take all of the imagination, skill and technology we can imagine.

This is an important election, so I’m encouraging all of my family members and friends to do a little homework and see where each candidate stands on important issues.  Do you know where the candidates stand on agriculture?

It seems that I’ve had to do my share of compromising over the past two weeks.  I should have been focused on getting my crops harvested, but major media outlets wanted me to take time to meet with them and discuss everything from how corn is grown to how my business is affected by the Farm Bill – or lack thereof.  Just as soon as I got my combine rolling smoothly, it broke down and I lost another day of prime harvest time.  Once again, I found myself having to compromise what I wanted to get done with what the repairman could get done.

Regardless of your profession, I’m sure you can emphasize with my situation.  There is progress to be made but you find yourself stymied by the current events.  My own corner of the world seems to be paralleling what’s happening on the national level.  Each day – as the election draws nearer – there are several news reports and advertisements reminding us of how two opposing sides are unwilling to settle and reach an agreement.

Politics are mired in a standoff between our two main political parties.  The Left thinks we need to spend to expand the economy through more spending.  The Right thinks we need to cut spending and reduce restrictive regulations. My concern is that if the United States doesn’t get its deficit under control, it won’t matter who’s on the Left and who’s on the Right because we simply won’t be able to help the people who need it most.  Food, shelter and education for a future job should be the basic goals.  I also believe education is key to helping others help themselves.  Other folks believe cell phones should be added to the list of “basic necessities.”  It’s obvious that some compromise must be reached – and soon.

Such issues return my thoughts to the 2012 Farm Bill and to the Food Security Act.  An article in The Des Moines Sunday Register on Oct. 14 quotes the 2001 World Food Prize Recipient as saying that “the problem is not that the world is running out of food but that many people lack access or knowledge about how to grow it.”

Food stamp rolls have soared 18.5 million since 2008 to a record 46.7 million people, according to that same Register article.  About one in seven Americans now receives government help to buy food.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported last month that Americans are having a harder time getting food than ever before as the economic downturn continues to weigh on households throughout the country.

While it’s a challenge for Congress to pass a Farm Bill that includes food stamps and ag subsidies, one could make the case that there is a natural tie between farming and food security.  Farming, after all, produces mainly food.  Farming also produces other useful products like cotton for clothing, pig heart valves and ethanol to name just a few.  Agriculture is a huge renewable economic machine.  (“Renewable” is a key word here.)

America needs agriculture!  That’s why it’s imperative to bring the U.S. budget under control.  Everyone loses if we hit the fiscal cliff that is getting closer and closer.  Let’s compromise and move this country forward.  It’s time to find solutions to some very big problems.  It’s time for some compromise!

“Musings of a Pig Farmer”
by Larry Sailer

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity. Not only am I trying to get my crops harvested, but I’ve been swamped with calls from the media for interviews. In just two days’ time, I received calls from Reuter’s, Fox News Network and a network from Japan! This is on top of the Franklin County’s Harvest Tour 2012 for bloggers.

These media inquiries really took me by surprise and served as a real eye opener to me about the power of the Internet. A hog farmer — in the middle of farm country in North Central Iowa — is not someone or someplace that comes readily to mind as the center of media attention. Through Google and interviews and blogs, however, it’s not possible to hide on the farm any more.

When I set out to share the story of farming and to listen to what people removed from the farm were concerned about, I didn’t really think about how exposed I would become. I have to tell you this farmer would just as soon hide in the hog barn as be in the spotlight. Yet, here I am being featured by national media outlets. Crazy!

The first interview with Reuter’s was pretty painless. We talked on the phone for about 10 minutes, discussing the “Farm Bill”. Pretty easy stuff. I always try to talk about what I know and what affects me here in Iowa. The Farm Bill is such a complicated piece of legislation that I’m not surprised it’s so difficult to reach consensus. Not only is farming and ranching very diverse across this country, but the SNAP program and so many other issues are wrapped up in the same bill. On top of that, Congress is trying to reduce the budget. No wonder the Farm Bill has yet to pass!

Fox News wanted to talk about the upcoming election and what I think are the most important issues. Now I know they’re going to trim what I say into about 15 or maybe 30 seconds. Believe me, that does not cover my thoughts. I can’t wait to view it this Thursday to see what Fox chose as my sound bite. They did video our soybean harvest to give viewers a farming flavor.

The next video crew was from Japan, and they were on my farm for two full days. This will have to be a whole new blog, which I plan to post in a couple weeks.

I do want to talk about our Franklin County Harvest Bloggers Tour, which is held (1) to showcase our county’s tourism attractions and (2) to help non-farmers understand how their food is raised. This is the second year that I’ve been involved with this event. I’m including pictures shared by Deb Brown. Pictures show the people involved much better than I can describe this tour.

The first bloggers tour in October 2011 is the reason I blog. That and the help and patience of Shannon Latham, who lets me share a guest blog every Tuesday on TheFieldPosition.com.

I survived last week and even harvested some crop with the help of my family. Special thanks to my wife, Janice, who kindly made food and ran after me for three days. My son Corey and grandson Devin drove combine plus daughter Charlotte helped make food and brought along more Grandkids, Darin and Carlie, to make my place a little more video friendly.

I can understand why many farmers resist doing this type of sharing because it does take time and effort. Plus, it exposes a very personal part of our lives to the world. But if we want to have a conversation with the people who consume what we produce — and help them understand why we do what we do — then we need to be transparent. We must let them see inside our operations.

Farmers raise corn and soybeans, which make the feed for our hogs.  By feeding grain to our hogs, we add value to the raw corn and soybeans.  The process of growing pigs and producing that great tasting bacon also generates “natural fertilizer.”

Natural fertilizer is another name for manure, and it’s not waste – it’s a valuable asset!  A grain farmer thinks of manure as a valuable asset because it’s a very effective fertilizer, which is needed to produce high-yielding crops.  The natural fertilizer that my pigs produce is in high demand by area farmers, who put down it on their farm ground to serve as plant food for next year’s crop.  You might even say that farmers were recycling manure before the rest of society started adopting green efforts.

One advantage of recycling manure is that it helps reduce the cost of crop inputs.  Commercial fertilizer is very expensive, so using manure helps reduce crop input costs.  Using this locally produced fertilizer is a win-win deal: crop farmers need fertilizer and livestock farmers must dispose of manure in an environmentally sound manner.

Applying manure is heavily controlled by regulations.  I’m required to file a Manure Management Plan with county officials and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.  This plan includes soil test results, crop rotation plans, soil types and the erodibility of the soil.  Every detail you can imagine needs to be spelled out in this document!  What it all boils down to is this: it’s against the law to pollute the surface or ground waters of the State of Iowa.

While I support efforts to protect the environment, I also believe we need to exercise some common sense.  These laws, which prompt rules, often begin with the best of intentions.  Not all regulations produce the desired outcomes, however.  For example, all of the regulations that groups like Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) helped pass have resulted in many smaller producers calling it quits!

Regulations can be extremely costly to farmers, and this is one reason I’ve become so active in trying to control regulations.  Lawmakers need to hear how laws and rules will impact farmers.  The general public, which largely influences those political votes, also has a need to be in the know.  That’s why I’m inviting you to watch my video blog series to learn more about how and why I raise pork.  Please contact me with any questions you have about modern day hog production.  I’ll look forward to some online dialogue!