And, what's a Squidge?

I need a bumper sticker that warns "I STOP for Museums." My work as an agricultural photographer takes me to lesser traveled roads. Sometimes I think I keep doing this work just so I can poke around places that most people gave up on years ago. Unlike the interstate, there is always something to delight me on the back roads. I have visited museums in towns so tiny that there was a sign with a phone number on the door - "To See Inside, Call This Number." And, amazingly enough, someone shows up, opens the door and grants me entrance into their history.

But, once in a while I do get to a city. In February, I was in Memphis and decided to check out The Cotton Museum. You should go, even if you have never grown cotton, and more especially if you have never grown cotton. I guess somewhere there is a soybean museum, which tells that Henry Ford brought soybeans to the U.S. in the 1920s, but I don't think soybeans could ever take credit for the development of a whole culture and region.

The elderly and very elegant Cotton Exchange building is home to the museum, a perfect setting for re-telling the story of cotton. The museum is totally interactive and once a few buttons are pushed, you can stand back and view the 1939 trading board as you listen to folks like Billy Dunavent talk about his first job as a Squidge. For those of you who don't know, and I certainly didn't, a squidge is an apparentice for a cotton classer. Apprentice, that's a term you don't hear anymore. A 135-foot mural by artist David Mah relates the story of cotton, plus there is an authentic Western Union telegraph office used to relay prices for the trading board.

The Cotton Museum can be found at 65 Union Avenue Avenue, a few blocks from The Peabody. It's worth more than the $6 entry fee. Check it out at http://www.memphiscottonmuseum.org/

--Debra L Ferguson

Farm Program Cuts: Got Any Favors To Spare?

Among Southern Republicans in Congress, nothing brings out bipartisanship quite like the threat of cuts to farm programs. As you might recall, Congress last year overwhelmingly passed and then overrode President George W. Bush’s veto of the last farm bill, not once but twice. That second vote was required because 34 pages were missing from the originally passed version sent to the White House.

That's bipartisanship. It wasn't a perfect farm bill for the South, but it was better than it might have been.

Now, here we are with proposed farm support cuts in the next phase of President Barak Obama’s economic plan.

How will farm groups – especially those representing Southern states and Sunbelt crops – cobble together a defense moving forward? Republicans in the House and Senate have largely opposed any of the President’s economic stimulus points up until now. Nobody owes them any favors on that count.

Southern Republicans, in particular, also fought against bailouts for the auto industry, mainly to inflict damage on unions. Ironically, the auto manufacturers that populate the South – Asian and European car makers – favored the bailout because failure to prop up U.S. automakers meant a devastating blow to U.S. parts manufacturers. Those companies, in turn, make parts for all brands, regardless of where the home office is located. (Some analysts say that loss of parts suppliers also would hurt U.S.-based farm machinery manufacturers.)

Farm program cuts loom now, but Southern Republicans have gone out of their way to alienate even some of the more moderate folks who might help. Like it or not, things get done in Washington – no, make that in a democracy – because people owe you favors or anticipate something being done in return. On that front, the situation looks bleak. If favors could be stored in a bank, Southern agriculture would be starting the debate with an overdrawn account.

- Owen Taylor

Santa Rosa County: Shedding needed light on why ag matters

People in cities and towns have less and less of an understanding about agriculture. It’s not their fault. State and national ag groups do little and accomplish less when trying to foster any kind of goodwill among people in urban and suburban areas, much less those folks who’ve moved into transitional areas along the fringes of suburbia and suddenly complain loudly about livestock and slow-moving tractors.

Farmers who operate in these transitional areas all have stories about how their new non-farming neighbors misunderstand ag or lose patience with farming activities that impede on their lives. It's got to be a frustrating way to farm.

I sometimes see farmers vent about this on one of my favorite web sites, NewAgTalk.Com, a non-commercial agricultural forum. A thread on the subject turned up this week, and the stories weren’t that different than those I’ve heard before.

But the troubling difference this time was the addition of a sniping term, “citiots,” a melding of “city” and “idiots” to describe urban/suburban dwellers who don’t comprehend what farmers do or the role that ag serves in a modern economy.

This isn’t a particularly helpful phrase to kick around. People in urban and suburban areas have no real grasp of the complexities of farming because hardly anyone bothers to educate them. Granted, it’s a complex topic, and how you choose to educate city folks probably depends on the kind of agriculture you practice, the size of your farming operation and your location. Urbanites have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the “family farm,” but almost nothing has been done to educate them about the fact that family farms today also tend to be the same “corporate farms” that are slammed as greedy entities drawing subsidies and giving nothing in return.

What I do see, albeit rarely, is some local entity that makes an effort to educate.

Case in point: Santa Rosa County, Florida, which every year hosts a farm tour for people in town. The event, organized by local groups and the county Extension staff, sets up tours of local farms. Folks from town and even a nearby military base ride along on school buses from point to point across the west Florida countryside. Most years, the tour has a theme – cotton, peanuts, livestock, horses – and the buses visit farms involved in those enterprises. Farm groups serve snacks along the way, often featuring things grown in the county. If you like peanutbutter cookies, this is your kind of tour.

Santa Rosa County’s tour started more than four decades ago. There’s nothing fancy about it, but it regularly draws 200-plus people. The event creates goodwill on a local level and puts a human face on agriculture for people who are several generations removed from the land. It also reinforces to county officials – who often take the tour – that farming is an integral part of the local economy. And as a bonus it involves adults and children from the military base who will take with them a cognizance of farming and the people who do it, no matter where they live next.

Putting together the tour takes time and effort. But it at least sheds a little light on ag, which ultimately is the goal of a viable public relations campaign. F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to rural America as that “vast obscurity beyond the city.” That line comes from the next to the last paragraph in The Great Gatsby, a 1925 novel that has nothing really to do with farming. But in five words, Fitzgerald clearly describes the chasm between agriculture and the people it feeds.

In Santa Rosa County, farming is less of an obscurity because people in agriculture choose to shed light.

- Owen Taylor

For antique tractor lovers: the ultimate snowmobiles

Louisiana consultant Roger Carter forwarded a link that shows a fascinating bit of video - a promotional film of the Armstead Snow Motor, a type of running gear promoted in the 1920s as a way to turn tractors or automobiles into something like a snowmobile. But instead of tracks, propulsion was generated by counter-rotating drums with auger-like bands, kind of like fat, hollow screws.

I recall the idea of this twin-screw system being kicked around by a military contractor in the 1980s as a propulsion system in swampy terrain.

The 16mm film, shot in 1924, shows the contraption fitted to both a Fordson tractor and a Chevy automobile.

Click here for the video.

- Owen Taylor

Cotton: California dairy plunge may keep some acreage in cotton

How much will California cotton acreage fall in 2009?

Maybe not as much as expected. The reason: falling milk prices will decrease demand for corn silage, alfalfa hay and other raw materials needed by dairy producers. That means that at least some of the acreage expected to come out of cotton may, in fact, stay in the crop in 2009.

According to the National Cotton Council's planting-intention survey results, California upland cotton acreage might decline as much as 55% in 2009, plus the state could see some loss in extra long staple (ELS) cotton. If upland acreage fell that much in the Golden State, it would be the largest estimated decrease in non-ELS acreage in the U.S. this season among the major cotton producing states.

But as NCC pointed out in its press release, growers are still trying to figure out where other crop prices are heading as they determine how much cotton to finally plant. Plus, the survey was conducted in December before milk prices plummeted. Lower milk prices in California are further compounded by high production costs and surplus production capacity.

As dairy farmers ran short of cash, farmers who grow silage and hay for the dairy industry began to feel the pain, as well.

"Some farmers who grow silage for dairy producers still haven't been paid for a lot of last year's tonnage and may not be," said one of our contacts in the San Joaquin Valley (SJV). "We're hearing about bankruptcies and, worse yet, several cases where dairymen have committed suicide."

Another of our SJV contacts said dairymen have been trying to negotiate lower prices for silage, hoping to chop that cost by 40% to 50%. That send rowcrop producers looking for alternatives, and cotton keeps coming up on the list.

"We're still looking at a decline in acreage, but loss of dairy production may result in some land going back to cotton that might have otherwise been planted in corn or alfalfa," he added. "Farmers figure that at least they'll get paid for what they grow."

One crop consultant said this week that a farmer who dropped out of cotton completely two years ago expects to plant at least 200 acres this year. His growers figure that "the government program for cotton is more certain than anything else." He expects at least some land to come out of grain and silage and go into cotton. "This will be a minor shift, I think," he added.

While upland cotton will take the biggest hit in California, high prices for ELS Pima cotton have caught the attention of growers. Coupled with disinterest in dairy crops, that might help maintain more acreage. "I'm hearing Pima prices at $1.40 a pound, with predictions that it will go to $1.50," another consultant said. "Some farmers say they can't make Pima pay for less than $1.50, but we've got farmers who pretty regularly make 3 bale/acre Pima averages in good years, and they can make money at even lower prices. If a grower has water to grow cotton, that's where he'll put at least some of his acreage."

California, the nation's leading milk producer, has high production costs, even without last year's sharp run up in fertilizer and fuel expenses. SJV land has been at a premium for at least the last decade. Cities expanded, taking up prime farmland, and dairymen sold out operations closer to the Pacific Coast and relocated to the SJV. Land for dairy development in some instances sold for $15,000 or more an acre. Tax incentives further spurred dairy expansion.

Plus, California has its own milk subsidy program, which has encouraged more and bigger dairy herds. But the rug was abruptly pulled out from under dairy farmers this month when the state cut its fluid-milk subsidy by more than a third from about $1.50 a gallon to around 97 cents a gallon. That led to the lowest farm-gate price for milk in 30 years, said Steve Lyle, the California Department of Agriculture's public affairs director. Some dairies milking 1,000 cows could be losing $3,000 or more a day, according to one estimate. Years of equity are rapidly melting away as producers try to hold on until prices rebound.

California sets milk prices based on dairy futures trades on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. With the recession, "world and domestic demand for dairy products have declined dramatically," he said. At the same time, inventories of milk and other dairy products have been on the rise. In mid 2008 the state's dairy industry made a big push to increase dry milk production to meet expected export demand, which has since evaporated.

One of our contacts in the SJV said that, ironically, some of that dairy surplus - in the form of cheese, dry milk and other foods - was being stored in a cotton warehouse.

Water, though, will be a limiting factor for cotton in parts of the SJV, especially on the west side of the valley where one major water district expects to have little or no water this year, based on current projections. Water in strapped districts will likely go to permanent crops.

-- Owen Taylor

How will the U.S. peanut industry dig its way out of this mess?

That's the question I keep asking myself. For the second time in two years, salmonella has been linked to peanut processing plants, both of them in Georgia. By one estimate last week, peanut butter sales were down 25%.

Jif – a brand in the clear – started running newspaper ads last week that emphasize the safety of its products, stressing that there is no connection between its peanut butter and tainted supplies.

Peter Pan, also blameless, was expected to launch a similar PR campaign. Both are including discount coupons to jumpstart sales. As one marketing consultant told the New York Times, it's unusual for companies to buy ads saying their products are safe unless they are being tarred with the same brush and taking a financial beating.

It would be surprising if this current outbreak of salmonella hadn’t taken a toll on the 2 mainline peanut butter lines. According to the last estimate, 8 deaths and 575 illnesses have been connected to tainted peanut products from the Blakely, Georgia, plant operated by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA). All hell began breaking loose in January, and every day for 2 weeks there were new reports of recalled products that carried peanut-based ingredients from PCA’s facility.

The crisis couldn't have come at a worse time.

U.S. peanut stocks are on the heavy side, so the last thing the industry needed was a slowdown in inventory drawdown. Plus, the country is in a recession. That’s not good news for the auto industry. But it would certainly be favorable for a low-cost snack and protein food like peanut butter. But any potential gain quickly evaporated when the first recalls started in January, followed by the federal government pulling peanut products from school lunch programs in three states after finding that the peanut-based foods came from the PCA plant.

Even though the plant produces only a small fraction of the peanut products sold in the U.S., the entire industry fell into a public relations snake pit.

To make matters worse, PCA's CEO, Stewart Parnell, had been servicing on USDA's Peanut Standards Board, which advises the ag secretary on quality and handling standards. (He has since been removed.) Investigators are now trying to determine if the company knowingly shipped suspect products. We could see a backlash that affects standards and inspection regulations, not just with peanuts but with ag products well outside of Georgia. And how do you argue at this point that the foxes weren’t guarding the hen house?

Everybody pays, too. With all this uncertainty, farmers are having a hard time locking in contracts, according to a couple of reports, and the price of peanuts – which had been trending upward since late 2008 – slipped into a sideways pattern after recalls started in January. Argentina could use all this to nudge a bit more into U.S. export markets.

Admittedly, people will come back to peanuts, but how soon and how much?

I wish I knew since I've got a vested interest in the industry, myself. We publish PeanutFax, a weekly crop and pest report during the production seaon.

Beyond that, I'm also a consumer. About every 3 weeks, I go through a 28-ounce jar of Jif Extra-Crunchy. No kidding.

I saw firsthand how much confusion developed about what was safe and what wasn’t. At my local Brookshire's I overheard a shopper asking her husband if he really wanted to buy peanut oil for a fish fry. "Isn't that what killed some people?"

My 84-year-old diabetic neighbor asked if she should throw away a perfectly good jar of Peter Pan, fearing it would make her sick. Peanut butter has been an important part of her nutritional package, and I told her it was safe, then went next door and ate a tablespoon of it, myself, just to make my point.

Two years ago this month ConAgra recalled stocks of its Peter Pan brand and a generic it produced for selected stores. The Centers for Disease Control estimated that 46 people came down with food poisoning after consuming peanut butter believed contaminated with salmonella. Retailers pulled Peter Pan on such a wide basis that even Jif became hard to find.

If all that had happened 10 years ago, it probably wouldn't be important today. But that first outbreak lingers in the minds of some consumers, so yet another crisis – this one with funerals attached – will make the comeback harder and longer. So, what should the industry do? It can start by policing itself, independent of whatever steps are taken by state and federal agencies in the future. Put independent inspectors in plants on a regular basis and ensure that standards for cleanliness and safe processing are followed.

Plants would receive certification that they are following accepted, stated guidelines and would receive certification that could be carried forward to companies that incorporate those peanut-based ingredients into other products, like cookies, ice cream and snack foods. The certification, in turn, could be placed on the label of that final product.

Will this cost money? You bet.

How much? Don’t know.

The bigger question: can the peanut industry – from growers through final manufacturers – get itself together enough to do much more than it’s already done? For one thing, the industry seems “over grouped”: a national organization, a couple of regional bodies and a state association or checkoff body in most of the main producing states. Reluctance to give up sovereignty will impede whatever steps might be taken.

After the 2007 salmonella outbreak, nobody seems to have set up a disaster plan or given much thought to the idea that any of this could happen again. Most of the press releases I’ve seen from various organizations were merely reactions to initial federal findings. It took until last Friday for Jif to crank up its own run at damage control.

No organization enjoys thinking about such matters. But the potential for this kind of disaster always lurks around the corner when you grow and process something that goes go into school lunch programs.

I’m not an industry insider, just a guy on the edge who writes about insects, plant diseases and irrigation timing. But I’m in a somewhat unique position because I’ve also been following the almond industry in California. Later this month we’ll begin publishing a crop and pest report covering that crop. We’ve been building up to this for a couple of years, and I’ve been tuning into issues and trends with almonds.

Here’s the interesting parallel…

Over a 5-year period, California’s almond industry experienced 2 food safety incidents in which raw almonds were recalled after salmonella was detected. The almond industry, itself, determined that strong steps needed to be taken to prevent future problems. The industry invested in developing more effective and practical approaches to reducing germ-based contamination.

The industry, through the Almond Board of California (ABC), adopted what it simply called the Action Plan, which included phasing in pasteurization of most almonds going into the market. The federal government didn’t mandate pasteurization, but ABC pushed for it and then gained authority to require it for most almonds.

Drastic as that sounds, it went a long toward regaining confidence in an industry that already had 2 strikes against it. California exports significant portions of its almond crop to both Europe and Asia, and its public image could not sustain another recall.

ABC can move more decisively because California is where the almonds are grown, at least the ones that matter. It was easier to gain consensus on new approaches where everyone was operating within the same state.

With peanuts, how do you build consensus across 8 states that have varying acreages, interests and regional outlooks? I don’t know.

Coming up with money would be the easiest part. Moving everyone in one direction, now there’s the trick.

-- Owen Taylor

Higher oil prices funding ag expansion in other places

Countries short on arable land but heavy on cash -- think the oil kingdoms of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates -- are buying up farmland in Cambodia. Billions of dollars of it, in fact, according to a recent article in my favorite newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor.

Food shortages are prompting more of this agricultural outsourcing, according to the piece, written by correspondent David Montero. Japan, of course, has been buying up production capacity in Brazil for years. South Korean entities have purchased large tracts in Madagascar. For American farmers, this means that some long-term customers could be reducing their dependence on U.S. commodities as they find more ways to expand their own production globally.

Cambodia is the new growth market for foreign land ownership. Out of potentially 15 million acres of arable land, only less than half is actually farmed, Montero writes. Local and international groups worry about the potential to push aside farmers and their families, plus potential for environmental damage. But with billions of dollars at stake -- plus the promise of modernizing agriculture in the country -- the land rush won't likely slow down soon.

Click here to read the piece, Insecurity drives farm purchases abroad.

-- Owen Taylor

Pickin' Up Pawpaws? You've got fo find the trees first.

I've sung about pawpaws far more than I've ever eaten them. Like me, you may remember that summercamp ditty, "Picking Up Pawpaws"?

It's regarded as America's largest native fruit, with some of the larger varieties producing pawpaws that weigh in at over a pound. Ohio recently declared the pawpawits official state fruit.

One thing that goes against pawpaws is their flower. There's nothing wrong with the way it looks. It's a rich, reddish-purple color and measures about two inches across, but it smells like rotted meat. Some pawpaw producers actually hang road kill in their trees to draw more pollinators. Not surprisingly, blowflies are a major mover of pollin.

The fruit itself -- best harvested after it's ripened and fallen on the ground -- tastes much like a banana.

Kentucky State University has had a pawpaw breeding program in place for the last 20 years, the only full-time pawpaw research project in the world. One goal is to improve the species and position it as an alternative to tobacco production.

A handful of companies produce pawpaw trees, but available planting stock is sometimes as hard to find as pawpaws in the grocery store. Peterson Pawpaws, a leading pawpaw tree producer, is already sold out of its 2009 inventory.

-- Owen Taylor

Off-Topic: For any man looking for a new suit

In the market for a new suit? Check out the documentary, "Jack Taylor of Beverly Hills," which is once more airing on The Sundance Channel.

Taylor was arguably the tailor to the stars on the West Coast during a career that spanned 60 years. He made the shirts that Elvis wore on stage and pretty much everything Monty Hall wore on "The Price Is Right" (maybe you remember some of those loud sport coats that defined Monty's car-dealer kind of look).

But Taylor is best known for his suits. Frank Sinatra was buried in one of Jack Taylor's classics. While styles changed from decade to decade, Taylor remained constant to a certain look -- no cuffs in the pants, mostly a one-button coat.

And he fitted his customers to look trim. Jackie Gleason, whose weight went up and down during his grueling TV season when shows were live, had Taylor make each of his suits in three sizes so he'd always have one that fit.

This documentary is like a history lesson in men's fashion, and it's worth watching if you're in the market for a suit, whether you've already got a closet full of them or simply need to replace that one "marrying-and-burying" suit you keep in the back of the closet for special occasions.

"Jack Taylor Of Beverly Hills" airs on The Sundance Channel on the following schedule:

• Thursday, February 12 at 7PM
• Friday, February 13 at 2AM
• Monday, February 23 at 2PM
• Tuesday, February 24 at 1PM
  

-- Owen Taylor