AgFax Blog: February 2007

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Kellogg’s Decision May Boost Jupiter Rice Acreage

From an LSU press release:

DELHI – An acreage increase for the medium-grain rice variety Jupiter is likely this year now that it has obtained acceptance by the cereal company Kellogg’s.

Those comments about the rice variety developed by the LSU AgCenter came during the North Louisiana Rice Forum Tuesday (Feb. 27) in Delhi.

"Since Kellogg’s is accepting Jupiter, I think you’re going to see quite a bit more acreage of it," said Dr. Steve Linscombe, LSU AgCenter rice breeder and director of the LSU AgCenter’s southwestern Louisiana region, which includes its Rice Research Station.

Linscombe said Jupiter, which made its debut a couple of years ago, has a yield advantage over Bengal, another LSU AgCenter variety released in the 1990s. It’s disease resistance also is better, he said.

"I think Jupiter would do extremely well in North Louisiana," the LSU AgCenter expert said. "But before I planted Jupiter, I would make sure I have a home for it."

Last year, Louisiana farmers planted 12,000 acres of medium-grain rice – with 6,777 acres being planted in Jupiter and 5,023 of Bengal.

Linscombe said the effort to remove the Liberty Link trait from the seed supply has eliminated the long-grain Cheniere variety from varieties to be considered this year by Louisiana producers. The Liberty Link trait also has been found in some Clearfield 131. Before planting CL131, make sure that your rice purchaser will accept it, he said.

Cheniere, Clearfield 131 and Cocodrie were the top three varieties planted in Louisiana in 2006. Linscombe said farmers may plant more acreage this year with the long-grain variety Cypress, developed 15 years ago by the LSU AgCenter.

Farmers also were advised by LSU AgCenter agronomist Dr. Dustin Harrell to be mindful of maintaining soil fertility by restoring nutrients. That will be more expensive this year, because the cost of fertilizers has increased considerably, he said.

Harrell said the price of triple superphosphate is costing a third more than it was last year, and the price of diammonium phosphate is up by 55 percent.

In another report, LSU AgCenter economist Dr. Gene Johnson said some changes in the amount of rice acreage could occur in the southern Louisiana and northern Louisiana growing areas.

"I think we’ll pick up some acres in Southwest Louisiana," he said.

On the other hand, he said, some North Louisiana farmers probably will shift rice acreage to corn and soybeans to take advantage of higher prices in those commodities.

Johnson said Louisiana farmers planted only 350,000 acres of rice statewide last year, compared to 530,000 acres in 2005. A large portion of the decline was in South Louisiana, especially Vermilion Parish where storm surge from Hurricane Rita flooded rice fields and left high salt levels in the soil.

The LSU AgCenter economist also said slightly higher rice prices are expected this year.

Dr. Bill Williams, LSU AgCenter weed scientist, cautioned farmers that herbicides often fail because weeds were incorrectly identified or because applications were made late – after weeds had grown too large to be killed by chemicals.

Stripe rust turning up in Louisiana wheat plots

Stephen Harrison, Louisiana State University small grains breeder, sent out the following advisory today:

Dr. Boyd Padgett (LSU AgCenter plant pathologist) visited the variety trial location in Alexandria, LA this morning.

Boyd reports that there is stripe rust present at low levels in the variety trials and noted that he observed stripe rust on AGS 2000.

AGS 2000 has some stripe rust resistance but is quite susceptible to some races. It had 80% stripe rust at Winnsboro in 2005, the last year stripe rust was a major problem. This may indicate that a virulent race is present in the state (or may not). Our stripe rust epidemics usually develop the first half of March and peak by early April when temperatures surpass the optimum for stripe rust development. Growers, consultants and agents should scout wheat fields for the presence of stripe rust and be prepared to apply fungicides if warranted.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Don't pay any attention to Jed Clampett

Jed Clampett, the hard-scrabble farmer-turned-millionaire on the Beverly Hillbillies, was once told to give someone a tip. Honestly, I can’t remember if it was for a taxi driver or a waitress, and this is one of those rare cases when I can’t find a reference to the quote on the vast expanse known as the internet.

Anyway, Jed rolled the suggestion around in his mind, then said rather brightly, “Plant your corn early!”

It sounded like a solid tip to anyone familiar with farming, but it’s not the kind of recommendation any of the South’s corn specialists are offering to growers this year. Their suggestion is more along these lines: find out when the recommended planting window opens for your area, and don’t start planting a day before then.

While making calls for our wheat report last week, 3 Extension specialists observed that extra corn seed – even in lesser performing hybrids – were practically nonexistent. If any replanting was necessary, it was doubtful that decent seed would be available from any source at practically any price.

We’ve already had an example of this in February, albeit with sweet corn. Frigid weather in the first half of the month ruined sweet corn plantings as far south as Palm Beach County, Florida, forcing vegetable producers to replant their initial acreage.

“Some corn planting already has started in Washington County and areas south of that," Mississippi Extension corn specialist Erick Larson told me last week. "I wouldn’t be so concerned if soil temperatures were adequate for germination. But they haven’t been. Temperatures have to be above 50 degrees, and I’m afraid there aren’t a lot of places to that point yet.”

Mississippi, like most states, divides corn planting dates into geographic areas spaces from south to north. The planting window for the south Delta doesn’t open until March 5, Larson noted.

Larson issued an advisory on what he terms “ultra early” corn planting. We’ve posted it on our home page. If you missed it in our weekend issue of AgUpdates, click here to download Larson’s recommendations.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Mexico pushes for self sufficiency in corn

Mexico is pushing for self-sufficiency in corn production, based on a DJ report filed over the weekend. High corn prices are at the root of the effort.

Click here for the Dow Jones report.

Whether the government there can pull it off is an open question. Can it efficiently bring together enough land, water, technology and inputs?

Mexico still has a flow of oil money, though not like it did a decade ago. Vast amounts of capital have been blown on impressive highways and government buildings. So, plowing money into making the country self sufficient in a staple grain doesn't sound like an illogical investment to Mexican politicians - especially considering how angry the population and labor unions were earlier this year when the price of tortillas doubled in places.

Making itself self sufficient in corn runs parallel to this country trying to make itself at least a little less dependent on foreign oil.

Other questions:

What will be rotated with the corn? Cotton, beans (edible, soy), grain sorghum? And how will that effect Mexico's position as a U.S. buyer of our commodities?
What effect will this have on demographics? If the country pushes for land consolidation to enlarge farm size and scales of efficiency, would that lead to more displaced peasants moving into the cities - above and below the border?
Are we seeing a repeat of the late 1970s when the U.S. imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union, with the subsequent expansion of grain production in South America? It could be argued that South American countries would have expanded grain acreage, anyway, but the embargo probably pushed expansion harder and faster. There's no embargo, but a good deal of U.S. grain will not be available for export, just the same.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

The Center For Food Safety (CFS) has issued a report arguing against the proposed merger of Delta & Pine Land and Monsanto. CFS, which has offices just down the street from the White House, describes itself as an "organization working to protect human health and the environment by curbing the use of harmful food production technologies and promoting organic and other forms of sustainable agriculture."

The report was jointly issued by CFS and the International Center for Technology Assessment.

I happen to know about the report because, out of the blue, a writer with Wired News sent me a copy of it and asked for my response.

Click here to see the report.

I'm sharing this with my readers because I'm curious about their reaction, both to the report and my comments.

The following is my response:

I've only had a few minutes to skim the CFS statement. I didn't see anything new. It's pretty much just the same old rhetoric.

The simple fact is that the vast majority of U.S. cotton farmers favor biotech approaches, and as the market has shaken out, a large part of that is built around DPL varieties and Monsanto's technology. Farmers can compare performance every year, both in their own fields and in non-biased university trials. They buy what works best.

Off hand, I can't think of a single U.S. industry that hasn't gone through consolidations like this over the last 10 to 15 years. New technological developments tend to concentrate market share in the hands of companies that successfully invest time and money in research. They create products that their customers judge to be superior. At the moment, those companies in the cotton industry happen to be DPL and Monsanto.

CFS, for its part, would just as soon both DPL and Monsanto dropped dead tomorrow, so it’s a bit disingenuous for the organization to say it’s trying to preserve glyphosate. Glyphosate doesn’t fit into organic agriculture. CFS would give us a world with farms that are too small to be efficient and not productive enough to feed the world's growing population.

While the idea of Monsanto and DPL merging has certainly been unsettling to many farmers, they would choose the merger over letting CFS remake agriculture in its image.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Ethanol Side Effects, Part 4

Aside from whatever corn acreage increase we will see in the United States, other North American farmers will plant an additional 6 million acres.

Mexican corn farmers are expected to plant 25.3 million acres of corn this year, up 4.3 million from the 21 million last year. The nation's corn growers' association also is pushing the government for an added 1.9 million acres of irrigation water for the 2007 corn crop.
Canadian farmers this year will increase the size of that country's crop by nearly 1.75 million acres. The Canadian crop is expected to hit 11 million acres, up from 9.27 million in 2006.

Ethanol Side Effects: Part 3

Coca-Cola Enterprises - the large bottler of Coke - cited rising corn syrup costs as one reason for a $1.71 billion loss in the 4th quarter of 2006. The company announced last week that it plans to cut about 3,500 jobs, or 5% of its global work force, after taking a $2.9 billion impairment charge in 2006.

“There has been a fundamental change in the sweetener market driven by corn, ultimately driven by the corn used in ethanol,” the chief financial officer, Bill Douglas, said in a conference call to analysts last week. Sweetener costs will rise at least 20%."

The other cost increase noted in the release was higher aluminum prices, which translates into an increase in the cost of cans. China's demand for aluminum has pushed up the price for that metal, company officials stated.

Monsanto will share soybean cyst nematode marker technology

From a Monsanto press release today:

Monsanto announced today that it will provide academic researchers and public institutions free access to its state-of-the-art cyst nematode marker technology. Scientists and soybean breeders are expected to use this technology to effectively develop new soybean varieties aimed at resisting the yield-robbing pest soybean cyst nematode.

"During the past seven years we have been investigating ways to identify soybean cyst nematode resistant traits in soybeans using genetic markers. By sharing what we know, researchers around the world will be able to more accurately identify resistant soybeans and breed for them," said Bob Reiter, Vice President of Breeding Technology for Monsanto.

Academic researchers and public institutions who request access will be given a royalty-free license for using the rhg1 marker under a patent that was granted to Monsanto in December 2006 (Hauge et al., U.S. Patent No. 7,154,021). Researchers are encouraged to contact Connie Armentrout with Monsanto's technology alliances team at (314) 694-5898 or connie.m.armentrout@monsanto.com for information regarding how to obtain a license or gain access to this technology.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Bookmarks speed you through our mobile web site

One of our readers who's now using our mobile web site on his cell phone said that the process sped up quite a bit once he figured out how to bookmark the screens he regularly visits. In his case, the main screen is the commodity listings for cotton, rice, soybeans, corn and wheat.

He is using Opera Mini, a free cell phone browser that we also added to our cell phones. Opera Mini allows the user to add up to 9 bookmarks on the opening screen - equivalent to a home page on a regular web browser. Hit the star (*) key, plus the corresponding number for the bookmarked screen, and you can bypass our mobile web site's main menu (and maybe a sub menu) and go straight to the screen you want.

We were aware of the bookmark feature but hadn't really tuned into it until today. We bookmarked the commodity quotes screen in Opera Mini, and that saved us going through 2 additional screens.

If you haven't been on our mobile site yet, point your cell phone's browser to agfax.com/m (think "m" for "mobile"). Along with CBOT grains and livestock contracts, we're posting pre-open, mid-day and closing commentaries for grains and livestock, plus closing commentaries for cotton and rough rice.

The pages are streamlined for quick mobile access, and we're not requring that you register and remember a user ID or password. The only charge will be whatever your cell phone carrier assesses for internet time (and some plans include web access at no extra charge).

Let us know what you think.

More on USSEC's biofuel process

We've carried a couple of items in the last 6 weeks on U.S. Sustainable Energy Corporation, a company now based in Natchez, Miss., that has announced it will begin producing a form of biofuel that extracts more gallons of fuel per bushel of soybeans than conventional biodiesel processing.

We've come across an expanded report on another blog that tracks renewable energy production. We don't know the blogger, Rais Imran, who identifies himself as a Malaysian living in New York state.

He goes into some detail about the USSEC process. Click here to read Imran's report.

Soybean rust: frost hits Florida's kudzu belt

The following was posted today on the USDA soybean rust web site:

Florida had a frost thorughout the panhandle Feb. 19.

Saturday, Feb. 17, Florida was hit with a more severe cold front that the rest of the eastern U.S. has had. The Panhandle of Florida had temperatures below freezing for several hours, dipping to the teens in many areas. Freezing temperatures extended to south of Lake Okeechobee, basically encompassing the entire kudzu infested area of Florida.

Surveys will determine how much the kudzu was affected. Undoubtedly the kudzu leaves will be lost; we will not know if the vines were also burned back for another few weeks. North Florida is forecast for high's in the 70's next week. If the vines survive they will be pushing new leaves. If not, the kudzu will have to resprout from its roots.

For detailed information on Florida weather visit the UF weather site at http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/. This is a network of automated weather stations throughout Florida originally designed specifically for frost prediction.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Adaptive DSL may explain rapid service expansion

Last week on the blog, I suggested that people with Bellsouth telephone service check to see if DSL service was now available for their locations, even if they lived in rural areas where DSL had not been available before. The reason: when AT&T acquired Bellsouth, it agreed to make a more rapid "build out" of DSL service to rural areas. One of our readers in central Mississippi told us that he had suddenly been able to have a DSL line, and he was told by an installer that the AT&T-Bellsouth merger agreement was the reason for the service expansion to his home, which is 3 miles outside of Lexington, Miss.

It was surprising how quickly the service expanded in that area.

I posted an item on one of the ag forums this week, trying to see if anyone else had stumbled across new areas with DSL service.

Nobody commented specifically on availability in Bellsouth's old territory, but Ed Boysun with Boysun Grain, Inc. in Wolf Point, Montanta, said that DSL was expanding into more rural areas in eastern Montana, and he explained why he thought telephone companies now have a little more "reach" into rural areas with DSL service. Here is Ed's comment:

I'm just guessing here, but our rural TelCo made what they call 'Extended DSL' available over regular copper lines. I quizzed one of the techs about just what it was that seemed to have the magical properties of breaking the old 3 copper mile rule for DSL. He told me that they essentially replace the old line loads with something they call adaptive line-loads. If decent copper is already in place, and conditions are ideal, they are extending the service out to 14 miles. It's likely that that technology was used to make the faster service available to some that were previously out of range. As you near the fringes of the extended DSL, it does start to become flaky, though. A more realistic limit might be 10 copper miles.

Since then, a better alternative has emerged in our area. Feds have made a pile of dollars available to erect cell towers for what they call 'life-line' phone service. It makes basic cell service available to participants for $1/month. The co-op has decided to install wireless Internet service on these same towers. We're seeing near 1 meg speeds for DSL prices and with a bunch of new towers, we're talking a wide blanket of coverage for rural folks. Until we get glass buried to the premises, this wireless is the way to go for rural residents where we measure miles/customer instead of customers/mile.

Friday, February 16, 2007

No wheat report this week - too cold.

Frigid weather continues to blanket much of the South's wheat crop, and that has stalled out field work, crop growth and the chance for much to happen in the way of pests or disease pressure. So, we won't be sending our wheat report, AgFax: Southern Wheat, this week. Not much to write about.

How cold has it been?

Temperatures dropped into the high teens as far south as Interstate 20 earlier this week. Little Rock, Ark., had a dusting of snow in the last 24 hours.

In Kentucky, the first 12 days of February have been the second coldest for that period in the last 112 years, according to an advisory from the Univeristy of Kentucky.

We'll be back next week with the wheat report, provided it warms up.

Soybean rust found on soybeans in south Texas

The following is from USDA's soybean rust web site. Hidalgo County is nearly the southernmost county in Texas. It borders Mexico.

National Soybean Rust Commentary (updated: 02/16/07)
Soybean rust was found in volunteer soybeans and in soybeans left behind after harvest in Hidalgo County, Texas. This is the first report of soybean rust on soybean in the United States in 2007, and the first report of the disease in Texas this year. Texas also was the first to report rust on soybeans in 2006. All other reports of the disease have been on kudzu this year. Soybean rust has now been detected in eight counties in Florida and five counties in Georgia and Alabama, along with this new report from Texas. The pathogen continues to overwinter on kudzu in parts of Florida, and in a few, small kudzu patches in urban areas in Georgia and Alabama along the border with Florida. Rust has also been detected in the Mobile area of Alabama as well in the city of Montgomery (the furthest north the disease has successfully overwintered). In some cases these overwintering sites have been destroyed mechanically or have gone dormant due to recent cold temperatures. There have been no reports of soybean rust surviving the winter in South Carolina, Mississippi or Louisiana. Scouting efforts are continuing in many southern states for both soybean rust overwintering sites and signs that kudzu is breaking dormancy in these Gulf Coast States.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Rice: Early N increases growth, yield

From Robert H. Wells, Delta Research and Extension Center

STONEVILLE, MISS. - Research is proving what rice growers have suspected for years - that a low rate of nitrogen applied to rice in the 1- to 3-leaf growth stage has a positive effect on production.

“Collaborative research in 2005 and 2006 with the University of Arkansas, Mississippi State University and the University of Missouri showed that rice plant height was increased by about 2 inches when 20 pounds of nitrogen per acre was applied to two-leaf rice,” said Tim Walker, assistant agronomist at MSU’s Delta Research and Extension Center in Stoneville. “Yield, when averaged across 3 preflood nitrogen rates, was greater when ammonium sulfate or when diammonium phosphate was applied as the early-season nitrogen source compared to when none was applied."

In addition to Walker, researchers from the Mississippi River Delta rice-growing region - including Rick Norman of Arkansas and Brian Ottis of Missouri - began the early-season N research as a way to quantify the true value received from the application, especially as the price of nitrogen has continued to increase.

“Growers, professional consultants, Extension personnel and scientists have often noticed that applying a relatively low rate of nitrogen to rice in the1- to 3-leaf growth stage changes the appearance of rice,” Walker said. “Rice is often greener and more lush, and growers often say that they feel they flood this rice sooner than rice where no nitrogen has been applied.”

Researchers used ammonium sulfate, diammonium phosphate and urea as nitrogen sources in the study.“The application should not be counted toward the total nitrogen budget because only about 10% of the 20 pounds of nitrogen applied at the 1- to 2-leaf stage is taken up by the plant,” Walker said. “Researchers will now try to identify methods to apply lower nitrogen rates and still achieve the same early-season growth benefits so that this application is more efficient.”
The variety in each state was Cocodrie, grown on Sharkey clay.
When the rice reached an average of 2 leaves per plant, researchers applied 20 pounds of nitrogen per acre in the form of 3 different sources: ammonium sulfate, diammonium phosphate or urea. If a substantial rain did not come within 3days after application, they flush-irrigated the plots to incorporate the nitrogen fertilizer.
When rice reached the 5-leaf stage, researchers recorded plant height and total above-ground biomass and then applied three preflood nitrogen rates at 90, 120 and 150 pounds of nitrogen per acre. Biomass was recorded again at boot-split, and grain yields were obtained at maturity. Researchers used biomass samples at 5-leaf and at boot-split to analyze rice for N content and to determine total nitrogen uptake.

Growers’ check-off dollars sponsored the early-season nitrogen research through the Mississippi Rice Promotion Board.

Louisiana Farmers Predict ‘A Lot Of Corn’

From an LSU press release today...

RAYVILLE, LA. – Farmers Dan Bedgood and Erick Cherene of Madison Parish have a quick answer when asked to describe the upcoming growing season in North Louisiana. "A lot of corn," they said in unison.

The farming partners were among more than 200 people who attended the LSU AgCenter Corn and Soybean Forum Tuesday (Feb. 13) at the Rayville Civic Center. Bedgood and Cherene said they planted 1,000 acres of corn in 2006, but they will plant up to 4,000 acres of corn this year. They still plan to have some acreage in soybeans and cotton, but they said they’re not sure how much of those they’ll plant.

"For sure, less cotton," Bedgood said.

LSU AgCenter county agent Keith Collins of Richland Parish said last year’s Louisiana corn acreage of more than 300,000 acres could double this year, and the state’s soybean acreage of 830,000 acres is projected to remain static – although Collins said he expects Northeast Louisiana farmers to have an increase in soybeans. Last year’s state average soybean yield set a record with 35 bushels an acre.

LSU AgCenter grain specialist David Lanclos said with higher commodity prices, corn farmers will be considering fungicides, even though fungal diseases on a corn crop typically do not have devastating effects on yields like the diseases on rice and soybeans. He said research results are mixed concerning whether fungicides can help corn yields. "We are not recommending fungicides be applied on corn this year," Lanclos said. "But I encourage you to try some on a few acres and leave some untreated test strips for comparison."

Lanclos said tests conducted by some of the agrichemical companies suggest there may be some value in applying fungicides to increase yields of corn, adding, however, that more research is needed before the practice could be recommended by LSU AgCenter scientists.

In another report during the forum, Wyly Gilfoil, director of the Port of Lake Providence, said work is progressing on an ethanol facility at the port.

When the plant is ready by late 2008 or early 2009 it will have the capacity to use 30 million bushels of corn a year to produce 100 million gallons of ethanol, Gilfoil said. The Massachusetts company building the plant, BioEnergy International LLC, has plans to double the facility’s capacity in 5 years, he said. Gilfoil said government funding to maintain a navigable channel to the port is needed to allow access for barges hauling corn. In addition, he said negotiations are under way for rail service. Gilfoil said the plant expects to buy corn from grain dealers and directly from farmers. It will have storage facilities for a 10-day to two-week supply, he said.

That was good news for farmer Vic Jordan of Rayville. He said the limited storage capacity at the plant could mean farmers will be paid to store their grain until the ethanol facility needs it.

Jordan is expecting a good year for 2007 from his anticipated acreage of 2,100 acres of corn, 1,200 acres of soybeans and 500 to 700 acres of cotton.

"This will be the first year in a long time that we could see an actual profit," he said, adding that the 2007 crop will benefit from this winter’s rainfall.

Winter still beating back soybean rust

From USDA's soybean rust web site:

National Soybean Rust Commentary (updated: 02/14/07)

Miller and Thomas counties in Georgia have been set to "confirmed, no longer found" after the recent scouting activity in that area. The pathogen continues to overwinter on kudzu in parts of Florida, and in a few, small kudzu patches in urban areas in Georgia and Alabama along the border with Florida. Rust has also been detected in the Mobile area of Alabama as well in the city of Montgomery (the furthest north the disease has successfully overwintered). In some cases these overwintering sites have been destroyed. There have been no reports of soybean rust surviving the winter in South Carolina, Mississippi, Texas or Louisiana. In 2007, soybean rust has been reported on kudzu from five counties in Alabama and Georgia, and from eight counties in Florida. Scouting efforts are continuing in many southern states for both SBR overwintering sites and signs that kudzu is breaking dormancy in these Gulf Coast States.

On a related note, Boyd Padgett, LSU AgCenter plant pathologist, said that Asian soybean rust does seem to be emerging earlier since it was first found in the United States more than 2 years ago. So far this year, he said, it has been detected in five counties in Alabama, eight in Florida and five in Georgia. That tends to suggest weather patterns have kept the disease away from Louisiana, Padgett said, but it’s not known whether Asian soybean rust spores are present in Mexico, which could affect Louisiana.

Ultrasonic waves boost soy protein, sugar yields

Adding ultrasonic pretreatment to soy processing boosts and improves the yield of protein that can be added to foods, said Samir Khanal, an Iowa State research assistant professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering. In Iowa State laboratory tests, exposing ground and defatted soy flakes to ultrasonics has increased the release of soy proteins by 46%.

The student, Bishnu Khanal, said the ultrasonic treatment also breaks some of the bonds that tie sugars to the soy proteins. Separating the sugars from the proteins improves the quality of the proteins. It also boosts the sugar content of the soy whey that's left after processing. Ultrasonic treatment boosted sugar yields by 50 percent.

The low-cost, sugar-enriched whey can replace an expensive compound used to grow lactic acid bacteria, Khanal said. The bacteria produce nisin, a valuable natural food preservative that's also used in cosmetic and health care products such as mouthwash and toothpaste.

"Our preliminary economic analysis showed that the proposed technology could generate revenue up to $230 million per year from a typical plant producing 400 million pounds of soy protein isolate," says a summary of the research project. "This is a major breakthrough in the soy processing industry."

Khanal said the technology has boosted protein and sugar release in batch-by-batch lab tests. The researchers will now try lab tests to see how it works in the same kind of continuously flowing stream that would be used in a soy processing plant.

- Source, Iowa State University press release

An eye toward ethanol from sweet sorghum

For the first time, ethanol will be on the schedule when the National Sweet Sorghum Producers And Processors Association (NSSPPA) holds it annual convention, February 22-24 at the National Parks Resort Lodge in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.

The Sweet Sorghum For Ethanol Conference will be in cluded with the association's conference. For more info on the ethanol sessions, call Laura Karlen at 515-320-3552.

I've wondered why more attention hasn't been paid to sweet sorghum as an energy source, since the plants tend to be somewhat more drought resistant than corn and can be grown on a wider range than sugar cane, even into the Midwest.

NSSPPA has an FAQ page that's worth visiting. An excerpt:

"The syrup was an important sweetener for many small communities well into this century and even today is still locally important. In the 1860's sorghum cultivation was concentrated in the Midwest, but by the 1890's it had become predominately a southern crop. Production reached a peak of 24 million gallons in the 1880's and then declined over the next century in the face of competition from glucose syrups. By 1975, the U.S. Agricultural Census reported just 2,400 acres producing less than 400,000 gallons of syrup. There has been a recovery from this low production with 25,000 to 30,000 acres planted for syrup today."

Until the early 1980s, USDA operated a sweet sorghum research station in Meridian, Miss. A couple of long-time sorghum syrup makers told me at a recent farmer's market visit in Jackson, Miss., that they're still producing syrup from varieties that came out of the breeding program.

Don't confuse sweet sorghum syrup with mollasas, which is a byproduce of regular sugar processing.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Africanized honey bee map updated by USDA

The map of Africanized honey bees' spread in the United States has been updated. It is now posted on the Agricultural Research Service's (ARS) website. The bees, if you haven't seen a map lately, have been confirmed across the bottom tier of counties in Arkansas and in one interior county, plus parishes in western Louisiana.

Click here to see the map.
Click here for the latest USDA info on the bees.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Advisory on following Newpath with grain sorghum

A couple of our readers in Louisiana forwarded an advisory regarding planting grain sorghum behind Newpath herbicide. The advisory was from Alvin R Rhodes, BASF Tech Service Rep. The memo follows:

"With the growing interest in planting grain crops in 2007, your assistance would be appreciated in reminding producers to guard against possible followcrop issues. Specifically, there is some interest in rotating some 2006 rice acres to grain sorghum in 2007. As you know, there is an 18-month followcrop restriction for planting grain sorghum following an application of Newpath herbicide. Newpath was likely applied on any CLEARFIELD rice field planted in 2006. Rotation to field corn following a Newpath application is only an 8.5 month period, therefore field corn planting is not a followcrop concern."

Reader Comment (Anonymous): Based on personal experience, grain sorghum is hard to grow following rice. It emerges, then turns red and purple, and grows at half the rate of grain sorghum following cotton or soybeans. Phosphorus tie up is usually the culprit.

Forum Indicates Sugarcane Farmers Wanted In SW Louisiana

From an LSU AgCenter press release...

LAKE CHARLES, LA. - Southwest Louisiana farmers who are looking for an alternative crop should consider growing sugarcane to meet the increasing demand created by the syrup mill at Lacassine. That was the message Thursday (Feb. 8) at a sugarcane and ethanol forum held in Lake Charles by the LSU AgCenter.

Willie Danos, president of the Lake Charles Sugarcane Cooperative, said the current acreage in the area is only 8,000, but the goal for the mill is 30,000 acres of cane. Danos also said an ethanol plant will be built next to the syrup mill within 2 years, and that will give the Colombian corporation running the mill the extra flexibility of producing the fuel supplement or syrup that is converted into sugar at a plant near Jeanerette.

"We are committed to this project," he told a group of farmers and agricultural consultants. "I have 10 years invested, and I’m putting everything into it to make it work."

Danos said many southwestern Louisiana sugarcane growers previously grew rice, and one had never farmed before. Danos also said farmers would not have to plant all their acreage in sugarcane but that they could start with a portion of their fields and gradually increase the amount.

The Lake Charles Cane LLC will provide custom services, such as planting and harvesting, which reduces the most expensive labor and equipment expenses, he said. Danos said doubts have shadowed the Lacassine facility, "but we’ve been persistent." He said the first years have been plagued with drought, low prices and transportation problems. At one point, sugarcane acreage in the area topped 16,000, he said, but that declined after a price drop.

Completion of the mill was delayed by hurricanes in 2005, so it did not start processing sugarcane until the fall of 2006. But Danos said once the mill started running, it was a race to keep up with the demand for feedstock. Harvesting continued 24 hours a day, Danos said, but "we couldn’t bring in enough cane."

Two freezes in early December caused the sugar content in the cane to drop, he said, and processing stopped on Dec. 29.

Jerry Whatley, LSU AgCenter county agent in Calcasieu Parish, said the potential exists to make money from sugarcane. When rainfall has been adequate, yields have been respectable, he said.

During the meeting, LSU AgCenter economist Dr. Kurt Guidry gave an overview of a budget that shows what growers could expect to spend on converting land to grow sugarcane. Cathy Denison-Wicke of the Louisiana Business Grant and Loan Program also told producers they could receive grants or interest-free loans to help them recover from Hurricane Rita. She said seafood producers also are eligible for the program offered by the Louisiana Department of Economic Development.

Click here for more info on the loan program.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Short corn seed supply may curb early planting in Arkansas

Depending on how the weather shapes up, corn planting may start a little later than normal in Arkansas, says Jason Kelley, Arkansas Extension Corn Specialist. Typically, corn planting starts in the southern part of the state in early March or even in the last few days of February.

“In the last couple of days, I’ve seen tractors running on some of these sandier fields that have dried up enough for people to either reshape beds or work ground to rebuild beds,” says Kelley. “I don’t think, though, that some people will be quite as quick to jump in and plant as early as they might. Corn seed are in such short supply that it’s questionable what would be available if any replanting was needed. I think we’ll see some growers waiting a bit, just to play it safe.”

Cotton acreage looks mostly stable in SE Alabama

While cotton acreage is expected to be off by as much as a third in parts of the South, cotton plantings in southeast Alabama will probably remain “mostly stable” this season, William Birdsong told me this week. Birdsong, Extension Area Agronomist based at Headland, said that most of the production capacityi that part of the state is non-irrigated, and people are reluctant to plant much corn without irrigation, especially after last year’s drought.

“We’ll have some increase in corn acreage where people can irrigate, but we won’t see a lot of dryland corn in this immediate area,” he said. “North of Headland, the soils are somewhat heavier and have higher moisture retention capacity. We might see corn acreage go up a little there but, if anything, growers may plant a few more acres in soybeans.”

Peanuts are a question mark right now, he added. The most recent contract offers he heard were for $415 a ton.

“Most growers are waiting for better offers,” he said. “The peanut ball is way up in the air, and nobody knows where it will land. My best guesstimate is that peanut acreage will remain about the same or maybe drop 10%.”

Not likely to be the kind of cap anyone gives away

A GPS-enabled cap? That's how SkyKap Advisor bills its product.

Designed for golfers, its voice recognition module can record information - like scores - as the golfer moves along the course and track his course.

There's gotta be some use for this in the field, too.

Engadget.com posted a brief report with a photo. Click here to see the report.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

LSU: '07 foundation seed LL-free

From an LSU AgCenter press release today:

CROWLEY – An independent lab has determined that rice seed to be sold this year by the LSU AgCenter’s Rice Research Station is free of Liberty Link, according to Steve Linscombe, the station director. "All seed stocks that will be offered for sale have tested negative for all Liberty Link traits," said Linscombe, who is the LSU AgCenter’s regional director for southwestern Louisiana, including the rice station.

Sampling was conducted by personnel from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, Linscombe said, and the analyses were conducted by a private, independent seed lab in Wisconsin certified to conduct such analyses. The stocks to be sold include foundation class seed of the varieties known as Bengal, Cheniere, Cocodrie, Dellrose, Ecrevisse, Jupiter, Pirogue, Trenasse and Toro-II. In addition, seed of the variety Della, which is being offered for sale as a non-certified class, also has tested negative for Liberty Link traits.

Linscombe added that all headrow seed lots that will be planted on the research station for future seed production also have been tested and that the results were negative for the presence of Liberty Link traits.

Cottonseed oil powers rural cell phone systems in India

A pilot project in India is using biodiesel - including oil from cottonseed - to power cell phone base station generators in areas that don't have electrical service. Biodiesel is seen as a better alternative to gasoline, which tends to be of poorer quality and contaminated in rural parts of the country.

The project was proposed by several major phone companies, including Ericsson. The idea is that fuels can be grown locally. By mid 2007, the project's coordinators hope to have 10 biofueled base stations up and running in west India. A similar project in Nigeria has been powering cell phone base stations with peanut oil.

Click here to read a report posted on the BBC web site.

Mississippi shifts mite recommendations

After 2 seasons of battling spider mites in cotton, Mississippi has changed its treatment recommendations in a way that will likely prompt earlier treatments.

As Angus Catchot, Extension Entomomogist explains it, the treatment trigger had been when 50% of the plants had spider mites 5 nodes down from the terminal and mite populations were increasing.

"It (the recommendation) now states that when 40-50% of the plants have spider mites and conditions are favorable for increase," Catchot says.

That may seem like a subtle difference, but the new recommendation looks at the entire plant, not a specific area. And the new approach only specifies that "conditions are favorable for increase."

This is a more preemptive strategy and somewhat tracks along with treatment triggers followed in California where spider mites are a regular problem.

At this week's Mississippi Agricultural Consultants Association meeting in Starkville, Catchot gave a presentation on spider mites. He showed maps that plotted initial pockets in 2006, mainly in the western side of the Delta, then followed with maps that plotted the wider spread of the pest as the season progressed.

"Mites have been considered a late-season pest," Catchot noted. "But over the last 2 seasons, we've seen them develop in early cotton, and that's the situation that really scares me."

He stressed the idea of picking materials that proved most effective in early season conditions if that's when treatments are needed. Some of the older mite control materials have not performed as well in early periods. Catchot theorized that mite egg laying was extremely active, and some of the established compounds did not have residual activity in those situations. Later in the season, these compounds actually worked better. By then, the populations probably were more heavily weighted toward adults, he said, and the older chemistry worked adequately.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

China advances on Africa. Will ag be next?

China increasingly looks to Africa for oil and other raw materials. Chinese President Hu Jintao has just completed an 8-nation tour of Africa, and the Chinese are pumping billions of dollars into developing African infrastructure in areas like mining, railway transportation and oil.

Ag production doesn't seem to enter into China's plans yet, but that would appear to be a natural extension of trade connections. It wouldn't mean that the Chinese were directly farming in Africa, but the country has the resources to bolster Africa's production of crops like cotton.

China already buys a certain amount of cotton from Africa, although westerners who know about the Chinese cotton industry say it tends to be of relatively poor quality.

However, with technical guidance and some of those U.S. dollars that China has banked away, it could theoretically move African production more toward its desired standards. China is pushing to modernize its ginning sector, replacing 10,000 mostly antiquated gins with 2,500 modern facilities. How much trouble would it be to ship those less-efficient gin stands to Africa where they probably would be better than most of the local equipment?

China recently moved past Great Britain to become Africa's third largest trading partner, with the U.S. and France in the first and second spots, respectively.

Back in the 1980s, the Japanese helped finance some of the infrastructure improvements in South America countries that allowed Brazilian farmers to expand their agricultural reach. So, a push into African agriculture by China isn't that far fetched.

China has a couple of advantages when dealing with African countries. First, it was never a colonial power, so there's no negative history with African nations. Second, during the Cold War when many African countries were swinging toward socialism, China provided financial and technical support and built early relationships in parts of the continent.

Ethanol Side Effects: Part 2

Mexican consumers and labor unions are protesting the rising cost of tortillas, which is mainly being blamed on the ethanol-driven price of U.S. corn. The tortilla is Mexico's staple food, the equivalent of our white bread.

In late January, tens of thousands of people gathered in the center of Mexico City, demanding lower tortilla prices. The price of a pound of tortillas has gone up more than 50% in spots, and a few shops have more than doubled what they had charged.

Last month, Mexican President Felipe Calderon signed an accord capping the price of tortillas at 8.5 pesos per kilogram, but the price control is not being enforced, wrote Sara Miller Llana in a recent issue of The Christian Science Monitor.

Politicians are calling for, among other things, a renegotiation of NAFTA that would drop tariffs on corn and beans, Llana reported.

Ethanol Side Effects: Part 1

Increased feed prices are translating into somewhat smaller chickens at the supermarket, based on a conversation recently with a poultry producer in central Mississippi. She contracts with the processor, who supplies the birds and feed, and the processor schedules when to take the birds to the plant.

"We have been feeding out to 6 pounds, but now we're told that the birds will be shipped at 5 pounds," she said.

The way things work, the older and larger the chicken, the more feed it costs per ounce to add additional weight. Getting the chicken up to 5 pounds takes X amount of grain per pound. Pushing the bird to 6 pounds means more grain per pound than it took to, say, move the chicken from 4 pounds to 5 pounds. That last pound, in other words, has become uneconomical to produce due to the cost of feed.

The faster turnaround is bad news for producers since they are paid by the pound.

Bellsouth rural customers: ask about DSL

If you've been told by Bellsouth (a.k.a "The New AT&T") that DSL broadband service is unavailable in your area, ask again.

As part of the approval of its takeover of Bellsouth, AT&T pledged that a substantial part of its new broadband installations would be in rural and disadvantaged areas. That "buildout," as it's called by internet service providers, may already be underway, based on a conversation I had yesterday at the Mississippi Agricultural Consultants Association meeting in Starkville.

I happened to ask Virgil King, a crop consultant who lives in Holmes County, if he was still on a dialup connection. (I frequently ask my readers about their connection speeds so that I can judge how much content to add to my web pages.)

"I just go DSL," Virgil said. "It's great!"

I knew about where Virgil lived, which is not in town or even close to it, and I asked, "How is that possible?"

"A friend who works for the phone company said this is part of the merger agreement, and the company is apparently trying to get these new installations going," Virgil replied.

Because this is all happening fast, the tricky part may be finding someone at the phone company who can give you valid information about whether DSL can be brought into your home or business. Virgil, in fact, had contacted the phone company to ask, once again, whether DSL service was available at his location, which is about 3 miles out of town.

"I was told over the phone that we weren't in a DSL service area," he said. "But my friend with the phone company said that they already had hooked up someone near me for DSL and that I should be in the service area."

Virgil kept on digging and finally confirmed that his home could, indeed, gain a DSL connection.

That's not to say every rural Bellsouth customer can immediately get a DSL hookup. But if Virgil's experiences are any indication, it doesn't hurt to ask, even to the point of stopping a Bellsouth technician and asking him or her. The people in the field may, in fact, have a better feel for where service is available.

Farm policy and the gravity exerted by a Quarter Pounder with cheese

The governor of a Midwestern state was interviewed recently on CNBC and made the statement that the farm programs will no longer subsidize production. Instead, they will subsidize conservation.

The political reality is that it is more popular right now to put money into so-called "green" programs than those aimed at producing an abundant, cheap food supply.

Things, of course, change.

My old friend and mentor, Syl Marking, once commented during a Soybean Digest planning meeting that public perception and attitudes swing as if they're on a pedulum. "They only have so much momentum in one direction," Syl said, "and then they stall out briefly and swing back the other way."

Conservation has only so much momentum. What will slow it down? I suspect it will be the gravity exerted by the price of a Quarter Pounder with cheese (QPWC). After all, it combines both the meat and dairy food groups, both of which are fed by grain production.

An ag economist somewhere should start tracking the price of a QPWC and compare it to public attitudes about farm policy and such. Start now because the price of a QPWC has not been severely affected yet by the ethanol boom or whatever new farm program comes into play.

I suspect that when the price of a QPWC creeps up another $2 that Americans will be demanding cheap food again.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Consultant planting estimates for Mississippi track NCC intentions survey

I spent part of today at the Mississippi Agricultural Consultants Association meeting in Starkville. When I asked consultants there about their farmers' planting intentions, the responses pretty well matched with the National Cotton Council's planting intention survey results, which we posted last week.

One consultant said he estimated that his cotton acreage would be down 30% "at a minimum."

Another said he had only talked to 2 of his growers, so far, and they would plant 35% less cotton between them. "At this point, I dread visiting the rest of them."

A consultant said that one Delta operation - which grew 4,500 acres of cotton last year - would not have a single acre this year. "It's all going to be grain," he said. "Their pickers and boll buggies will sit out the season."

The ripple effect throughout the industry already is being taken into account. A consultant in north Mississippi said that the local gin turned out 18,000 to 19,000 bales in most seasons (with last year's drought knocking it down to about 12,000). "This year, even with good weather, I don't see how more than 12,000 bales will be ginned there, based on the amount of cotton people say they will plant."

Most of the shift is into corn, although a couple of people mentioned that at least some of the ground will be planted in grain sorghum. Several reasons were cited. Grain sorghum prices have been tracking corn, so there's a strong market. Grain sorghum doesn't require as much water, so that would help reduce pumping costs. Plus, corn seed - at least for the desired hybrids - aren't available, and some people are opting to shift at least some acreage to grain sorghum and plant a more or less proven variety.

A couple of people said that crop insurance guidelines for 2007 - according to some interpretations - seem to make grain sorghum a safer bet, even in terms of doublecropping it behind wheat.

A couple of consultants said they were trying to discourage their growers from following wheat with a second crop this year. Aside from concerns about rust hitting later beans, dryland doublecrop is something they see as a sure loss, and even aggressively irrigated soybeans might not produce well enough to offset the extra costs for pumping and late-season pest control.

J.C. Coovert, Photographer Of The Cotton South

Our friend Linda Bassie of Cleveland, Miss., sent along a link to a striking web site that presents the work of J.C. Coovert, a photographer who documented the Midsouth and its cotton industry during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Coovert, born in Kentucky, lived and worked in Greenville and Yazoo City, Miss., for a time, then established a studio in Memphis where he became a prominent photographer whose work was published throughout North America and Europe.

Click here to go to the site.

His images capture a wide range of subjects and events, from daily plantation life to floods and overflows along the Mississippi River.

The site is maintained by D. Gordon and Jane Adams, who live in Carbondale, Ill. Adams is an anthropology professor at Southern Illinois University. Gordon, her husband, is a photographer who has collaborated with her on a number of research projects.

Gordon and Adams, who have lectured on Coovert's work, point on the web site that Coovert photographed people - including African-American laborers - with a quiet dignity. You probably have seen his images at some point in a history or text book.

BBC offers a look at India

For those of you with a satellite radio, the BBC has been airing an excellent series, India Rising, which profiles that complex country. India figures into ag trade, cotton politics and the pace at which some developing countries are modernizing. In the perception of most Americans, India is overshadowed by China in terms of size, population and economic growth. While there remain swaths of abject poverty across the subcontinent, it has made strides in technology that wouldn't have seemed possible 2 decades ago.

A few Indian companies are now strong enough to actually begin buying some of their Western competitors. Late last month, for example, India's Tata Steel paid over $11 billion for Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus.

One odd numeric fact came out of the report I heard this morning that goes a long way toward putting India's population in perspective. The total television audience of India - keeping in mind that many poor people there don't have TV sets - is larger than the population of Europe.

Monday, February 05, 2007

California farmers want to see snowier vistas

California's monthly snow pack measurement - one measure of how much water will be available to irrigate crops and, thus, a potential limitation on cotton and rice acreage - found levels as low as 37% of average, according to this morning Food & Farm News, the daily report of the California Farm Bureau Federation. The report was based on the snow pack summary from Friday.

The bad news, so far, less snow. The good news, the state's reservoirs are running somewhat ahead of typical capacity for early February.

"Overall, the Sierra snowpack stands at only 43% of average, following a dry January," the newsletter reported. "But water officials note that rainfall patterns can change quickly, and that much of the winter remains ahead. Water storage in the state's reservoirs remains above average for the date."

For cotton, the kind of advertising you can't buy

Did you catch CBS Sunday Morning yesterday?

Amongst all the Super Bowl features, the show slipped in a profile of American Apparel, the Los Angeles manufacturer of casual wear, which actually does make all of its goods in the U.S. and bases a good deal of its line on cotton fabric, both conventional and organic.

The piece also was a profile of Dov Charney, the 38-year-old Canadian-born CEO who has steered American Apparel into the retail end of the market, opening 143 stores in 11 countries over the last 3 years.

One shopper, interviewed for the feature in one of the stores, said she tended to favor the company's goods because they weren't made in sweat shops and were "100 percent cotton." For the cotton industry, it was the kind of advertising you can't buy.

Charney rates an appearance at the next Beltwide Cotton Conference.

Click here to go to a synopsis of the piece.

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Friday, February 02, 2007

Upland cotton down 14.1%, based on National Cotton Council planting intensions survey

The National Cotton Council just released its planting intentions survey.

High points:

Overall, down. U.S. cotton producers intend to plant 13.21 million acres of cotton this spring, down 13.6% from 2006.
Upland down. Upland cotton intentions are 12.85 million acres, a decrease of 14.1% from 2006.
Extra long staple (ELS) up. Intentions of 361,000 acres represent a 10.9% increase from 2006.

Click here for the full report.

Second Harvest: Proposed farm bill undercuts the poor

America's Second Harvest -- the largest charitable domestic hunger-relief organization in the country -- charged today that the proposed farm bill will reduce the ability of it and similar groups to feed the hungry.

"The proposal recommends a repeal of a critical federal provision that currently enables food banks to receive priority consideration for the distribution of TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) commodities," said Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of America's Second Harvest. "This food supply is vital to the ability of food banks to serve 25 million low-income Americans, including 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors, in every community of the United States each year."

The proposal recommends a repeal of a federal provision that currently enables food banks to receive priority consideration for distribution of TEFAP stocks, Escarra said.

The group also took exception to provisions relating to food stamps.

"We urge Congress to take an aggressive approach in passing a Farm Bill in 2007 with a strong nutrition title that ensures that none of our neighbors go to bed hungry," Escarra said.

The organization's 200 member food banks and food-rescue organizations serves all 50 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Its network secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually and supports approximately 50,000 local charitable agencies operating more than 94,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs and Kids Cafes. Last year, the America's Second Harvest Network provided food assistance to more than 25 million low-income hungry people.

Click here for full statement.

Reactions - foreign and domestic - to proposed farm bill

If you want to get a good overview of upper level reactions to the farm bill proposed by the Bush administration, download Keith Good's report for today. It's a summary of reactions from Arkansas to Australia, and it looks at the proposed bill's effect (or lack of it) on the Doah Round and other trade negotiations.

We post Keith's daily report on our web site (see the Related Material section in the middle column at agfax.com). Keith, who lives in Illinois, is an economist and attorney, as well as a journalism fellow with the German Marshall Fund. He also posts regularly to his blog at farmpolicy.com.

Biofuels part of $500 million research project funded by BP

Major oil company BP announced Thursday that it will give $500 million over the next 10 years to a partnership led by the University of California at Berkeley to develop new biofuels. Two other institutions - the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - will participate.

According to an announcement yesterday in California, the stated goals include: finding ways to make more fuel from plants; improve the extraction of oil from existing fields; and reduce carbon release into the atmosphere. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged $40 million in state funding toward the projects.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

LandsofAmerica.com and Farm Credit Associations announce property listing agreement covering several Southeast states

LandsofAmerica.com announced today a strategic partnership with Farm Credit Associations in 12 Eastern and Southeastern states. The partnership will provide over 20,000 farms, ranches, timberland and recreational properties for sale on their websites. Visitors browsing these associations' websites can search what the company claims is the largest database of rural land listings in the U.S.

Links provided include the following:

Florida land for sale: LandsofFlorida.com
Georgia land for sale: LandsofGeorgia.com
Kentucky land for sale: LandsofKentucky.com
Tennessee land for sale: LandsofTennessee.com
Virginia land for sale: LandsofVirginia.com

Click here for the announcement.

Mississippi expecting 10% increase in peanut plantings for 2007

We just posted this report on our web site.

Mississippi looking for 10% increase in peanut acreage

Group claims Bush farm bill proposal will cost more than leaving 2002 program in place

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released its assessment of the Bush administration's farm bill. The group praised parts of the bill but chided the administration for leaving in place what it considers a traditional farm-program structure.

The interesting thing about the CAGW statement is that it says it would have been cheaper to simply leave the 2002 farm bill in place.

The group said that the administration claims the proposed farm bill is a component of the president's deficit reduction plan and that it spends $10 billion less than was spent over the
previous five years.

"In fact, it spends $5 billion more than would be spent with a simple extension of the 2002 farm bill, the most costly farm bill in history," the group said in a press release this afternoon.

Louisiana growers appprove promo, research for rice

The Louisiana Rice Research and Promotion Referendums were both approved by an 85% for to 15 % against today, according to a memo from Howard Cormier, Extension Agent in Vermilion Parish. Vermilion passed it by 92.3%.

This keeps the program in place for another 5 years.

The research and promotion propositions are voted on separately. Just over 500 growers voted in each portion, according to a spread sheet Cormier sent along.

LL contamination affects Miss. rice variety options in 2007

What are Mississippi rice growers' options this spring with the loss of Cheniere? Robert Wells at the Delta REC sent us an overview article this afternoon. It's posted at:

Contamination affects Mississippi rice planting decisions in 2007

Golden starts up new Georgia peanut oil refinery

From a company press release...

Alpharetta, GA (PRWEB) February 1, 2007 -- Golden Peanut Co. LLC a major supplier of peanuts and peanut products to the food industry announces the start up of their new multi million-dollar peanut oil refinery. Golden Peanut has located this new peanut oil refinery on site of their existing peanut oil crushing and peanut shelling plant in Dawson, GA, creating additional efficiencies. Shipments to customers will begin in February 2007.

This additional peanut oil capacity will essentially double the production capacity of refined peanut oil in the US and will keep up with the growing demand for peanut oil. Refined peanut oil is a trans fat free, heart healthy, highly stable, pleasant tasting oil that is finding new uses in many food products.

Dial "M" For Mobile: AgFax.Com Goes Wireless

This is an update to a previous post...

Our mobile web site has a new address:

http://agfax.mobi

You'll find commodity quotes for grains, cotton and rice from DTN, plus closing rice reports from the Arkansas Farm Bureau and closing cotton analysis from Doane.

Check in our AgFax Daily Highlights section for our staff's selection of the latest agricultural and commodity news.

And we also provide a wide range of weather maps, forecasts and advisories.

- Owen Taylor