Making Bedding

We just made large bales of cornstalks out of the stubble left on the fields after the fall harvest. It provides nice bedding for the cattle to lay on. It acts as insulation to keep them warm & dry. Darrell loads all of the bales onto the wagon and then we drive them out of the field and down the road to the various barns & sheds we store them in until we need them. Once there, one of our guys unloads and carefully stacks the bales using a skidsteer. Meanwhile, another person is tilling the fields that were already baled to get ready for spring planting.

Just because you see it in the paper...

Eating can be energy-efficient, too
By Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

With Americans looking to reduce their "carbon footprints," food seems an obvious place to start.
Choosing a diet with a smaller carbon footprint means choosing foods that are processed in ways that emit less carbon dioxide — a heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas — into the atmosphere. In general, experts say, it breaks down to these guidelines:

Cut down on meat. "That doesn't mean never eat meat, it means eat less of it," says Gail Feenstra, a food systems analyst at the University of California-Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute.

Meat is less efficient because we eat the animal that eats the grain instead of eating the grain ourselves. It takes about 15 pounds of feed to make 1 pound of beef, 6 pounds of feed for 1 pound of pork and 5 pounds of feed for 1 pound of chicken, the Department of Agriculture estimates. For catfish, it's about 2 pounds of feed per pound of fish.

Add to the feed the cost of raising, transporting and producing cattle, and beef is by far the least energy-efficient meat. Nathan Fiala, a doctoral candidate in environmental economics at the University of California-Irvine, estimates it requires about 15 pounds of carbon dioxide to produce 1 pound of beef.

"A family of four that gives up eating beef one day a week has basically traded in their pickup for a Prius," he says.

You will probably see articles like this in several places today. Unfortunately, the numbers they are using to try to make their point are wrong. For example, they are saying that eating beef leaves a large carbon footprint. The author claims that it takes 15 lbs of feed to make a pound of beef. If that was the feed conversion rate for cattle in this country, no one could afford to feed them. Cattle will normally convert between 6 and 7 pounds of feed into a pound of beef. Also, if you want to reduce the carbon footprint left by transporting beef - BUY & EAT LOCALLY! In order to make informed decisions, consumers need accurate information. It’s the job of producers to make sure that happens.

Earth Day

For a farmer, every day is Earth Day.

All Righty Then...

We were at an agricultural workshop (I won't say which one), but at the registration table there were two lines - one for "Farmers" and one for "Non-farmers". The lady in front of me turned to me and said, "well, I'm not sure which line I should be in, ya know - whether we're considered "farmers" or not." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "Well, we just bought 35 acres of land to build a house on, but don't actually work it." I couldn't help but laugh out loud, while a few other people inched in closer - grinning & mumbling under their breath (they were in the "farmer" line). I said, "Ahhh...well, I'd say unless you have sworn at a tractor a time-or-two, picked rocks for days & and lose sleep when your crops are flooded out & you're not sure if you'll have enough feed put up for the winter...you are NOT a farmer." She looked a bit shamed (which was not my intention), but got the point. She quickly moved over to the "Non-farmer" line. The old man behind me (wearing an old seed cap) let out a chuckle, raised an eyebrow at the lady and said, "All righty then..." which in old farmer lingo translates into, "Seriously....right???"

National Agriculture Week

This past week was National Agriculture Week. It is a week in March, set aside to to draw attention to the importance of agriculture and provide consumers with a reminder to think about the nation's farm families.

Did you know that agriculture generates 20% of the United States Gross Domestic Product? The farther away Americans get away from direct ties to the family farm, it is easy for them to forget just how much farmers do in the way of providing food, fiber & fuel for the general public. At present, each farmer produces enough to provide for 144 people. Compare this to the 1960's when each farmer provided enough for 25 people.

Americans only spend 9% of their income on food, compared to 22% in the UK, 26% in Japan, and 55% in Indonesia. In Wisconsin, agriculture generates more than $51 billion in economic activity and provides jobs for 12% of the state's workforce.

Just a little food for thought...