The Senate Ag Committee held the first of four scheduled farm bill hearings this past week, focusing on energy and rural development issues. In the coming weeks there will be hearings on conservation programs Feb. 28 and nutrition issues on March 14; and most importantly, a hearing on Title I – the farm safety net programs – is scheduled for March 21.
As the Senate began to prepare for the hearings, over 80 agricultural organizations sent a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the Senate and House Ag Committees urging passage of a farm bill this year.
“The 2012 farm bill is among the most important pieces of legislation the U.S. Congress will consider this year,” the letter stated. “We ask you to reject calls for delay and aggressively act to ensure that a new, comprehensive farm bill is passed this year. Farmers need a safety net that works more effectively, and they need access to tools that help them be good stewards of our natural resources.”
The letter also stated that a temporary extension of current policy would create uncertainty without addressing important issues such as job creation hunger prevention resources.
Major commodity, social welfare and environmental organizations from the American Farm Bureau Federation to the World Wildlife Fund signed on to the letter, indicating the diverse interests in the legislation for agriculture, food assistance and conservation.
It’s always great to see farm broadcasters as featured speakers at events, so it was fun to see our good friend Dale Minyo with the Ohio Ag Net as luncheon speaker at the Conservation Technology Information Center tour August 9 in Northwest Ohio.
Dale talked about the importance of messaging for agriculture. “Sometimes we’ve got to clear up the message,” he said, using the example of increasing profitability in farming. “The way we’ve been able to make a profit is we’ve become more efficient,” Dale said. “It’s more about efficient, it’s about environmental concerns, it’s about being more effective about what we’re doing.”
Dale was pleased that the CTIC chose the Ohio region around Lake Erie to showcase some of the important initiatives that farmers are doing.
The luncheon where Dale spoke was on the Mavis Farm near Edgerton, Ohio. The corn and soybean operation is a fourth generation farm owned by Gary Mavis (pictured) and his wife Pat with son Scott and his wife Jenny. Gary says they follow a corn-soybean rotation on nearly 3,000 acres and divide each field into different yield zones. “We started yield mapping back in ’95 and after a few years of collecting data was able to established yield zones that we felt comfortable with,” he said. “Now we’re applying fertilizer based on those yield zones and we’re varying the rate as we go across the field it might varying 150-200 pounds depending on what the soil test has showed.”
That results in more efficient use of fertilizer and lime, less pounds applied, and money saved.
John Deere has been a partner with CTIC since the T stood for Tillage. Now the T stands for Technology, and John Deere’s relationship with the Conservation Technology Information Center is stronger than ever.
“John Deere was a founding member with CTIC back in 1982,” said John Deere product manager Pauley Bradley on the recent CTIC 2011 Conservation in Action Tour. “John Deere needed a partner where education was required.”
Pauley says CTIC and John Deere have evolved together over the years. “In 1986, there was the realization that conservation was going beyond tillage that that’s when it was re-named the Conservation Technology Information Center,” he said. “And that’s when we started focusing on other aspects of farming besides just seeding and tillage.”
John Deere Solutions Specialist Kim Fletcher gave participants on the bus tour a little pop quiz about the history between John Deere and CTIC – watch it below and see if you know the answers!
“We’re thrilled that we had to add an extra bus,” said one of the organizers of this year’s event, Steve Davis with the Ohio USDA NRCS. “We wanted to show people the agriculture in northwest Ohio, the good work that many Ohio farmers are doing, and also talk about the challenges that still lie ahead for us.”
“This is by far our largest tour ever,” said tour chairman Larry Clemens of The Nature Conservancy. “I think that as CTIC we’re learning that our tours are enjoyable for people, they’re gaining in reputation, and we’re going to have to make some adjustments on how to handle over 200 people in the future.” Despite the very large group, the tour went smoothly, on time and without a hitch. Next year’s tour is slated to be in the Mississippi Delta region.
Did you know that grasslands evolve by being grazed? And that taking grazing out of the equation damages the environment? I didn’t until I sat down with Jeff Smeenk, one of six Environmental Stewardship Award Program winners announced during the Cattle Summer Industry Conference. Smeenk explained that on his ranch, cattle serve the niche of grazing the land and helping to keep the grasslands healthy and thriving.
The ESAP program recognizes cattle producers with outstanding environmental and conservation practices and I asked Smeenk how he came to be such an environmental steward and role model.
He answered that he was very fortunate to have parents that when he came back to the operation allowed him to run the operation the way he saw fit. “But I just started to become very environmentally conscious at a young age and I think the next generation of Americans are extremely environmentally conscious. I think it’s very important that we as producers do the right thing and then make sure that we let consumers know that we are doing the right thing.”
In South Dakota, where Smeenk’s family ranch is located, water is the limiting factor in his area, which has been in a drought for eight years. His ranch partnered with NRC and they helped him add a well, put in a pipeline, storage tanks, and water tanks. Utilizing other partners, he also fixed up some dams that had been damaged and now during drought years, water shouldn’t be such a make or break factor.
Conservation doesn’t necessarily pay itself back right away, but Smeenk said he is looking long-term and planning for several generations in the future. In his case, over the long-term his environmental and conservation efforts will not only save him money- but might even save his ranch.
USDA resource soil scientist Frank Gibbs likes to dig in the dirt a lot. He is a certified professional soil scientist and classifier and chairs the Ohio Soil Scientist Certification Board for the Soil Science Society of America. When it comes to soil, he really knows his stuff and he has a great perspective on how lucky we are in this country to have such productive land.
Watch his entertaining and informative presentation on the soil pit he dug on Dean Farms:
Participants on this week’s he 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour in Ohio heard a clear case for cover crops from farmer Allen Dean in Williams County.
“For several years now we’ve been watching our watersheds when we get these large rainfall events and it’s been interesting to see where we have some type of cover crop, water coming off those watersheds is virtually clean – you could actually drink the water, it’s so clean,” Allen said. He demonstrated the difference to the tour group with jars of water collected off fields after recent rains. He’s holding the jar with water from his fields.
Dean Farms grows wheat and non-GMO soybeans on 1900 acres where they plant a variety of cover crops, including annual rye, cereal rye, clover and radishes. “We’ve been using radishes for 4-5 years now,” he said. “They’re called a daikon radish and the advantage of radishes is they’ll actually open up the soil, they’ll drill down deep into the soil, they have a long tap root and a lot of ladder roots.” When winter comes, the radishes die and start decomposing and come spring “the soil is clean as far as any type of residue.”
The 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour concluded with a visit from Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) who represents the district that includes much of the area of Ohio that we visited today.
This 15-term representative is an advocate for agriculture and conservation in her district and was pleased to take time to meet with the tour group. “My main message was to thank them for being in the greatest tradition of the United States – our love of the land, the ethic of conservation and land stewardship that is rooted deep in our history,” she told me in an interview.
Challenges to the water quality of Lake Erie was the main focus of the CTIC tour and Marcy just participated in a ceremony Monday announcing a new $1.3 million wetlands restoration project in the latest round of Great Lakes Restoration Initiative awards at the Lake Erie Center in Oregon. She says the manufactured wetland will filter e.coli and phosphorus “in a very creative way, perhaps even being able to reuse phosphorus where it is needed.”
I also asked Marcy about her thoughts on the current attitude in Congress and, as a member of the House Agriculture Appropriations committee, what she thinks might happen with conservation funding in the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill negotiations.
Lake Erie is the most important lake in the world but it is facing some challenges.
The first part of the 2011 CTIC Conservation In Action Tour allowed us to get a first hand look at and learn more about the Great Lake and the Maumee River and Bay that feed it.
Jeff Reutter, Director of Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory at Ohio State University says Lake Erie is very different than the other four great lakes. “The other lakes are all in excess of 750 feet deep while the deepest spot in Lake Erie is 210 feet. The average depth of the whole western basin is only 24 feet, so it’s really a shallow lake.” Jeff says Lake Erie has only two percent of the water of all the Great Lakes combined, but 50% of the fish.
It’s also the most southern and the warmest of the lakes, which makes it a breeding ground for algae. “Because we have a lot of agriculture and cities around the basin, we end up with a lot of nutrients coming into the lake. If you put fertilizer on crops, the crops do really well, if you put fertilizer out in Lake Erie, the algae does really well.”
Jeff was pleased to have the opportunity to have this agricultural group tour the area and see the proactive steps the industry can take to reduce runoff and still maintain productivity.
Check out the photo album from the CTIC Tour, which started with a boat tour of the Maumee River and out into Lake Erie. On Tuesday, we will be touring agricultural operations in the area to see the innovative conservation practices they are implementing.
The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) has named John Larson as its new Chief Executive Officer. Currently serving as Executive Director of the Washington Association of Conservation Districts (WACD), Larson has worked directly with conservation districts for more than 15 years, including several years as President of the Washington Association of District Employees (WADE). Larson is a lifetime resident of Washington State and an alumnus of Washington State University, where he studied Agricultural Economics.
Larson has served as WACD’s executive director since 2004, having previously worked as manager of the Conservation Districts Partnership—a consortium of four central Washington conservation districts—and district manager for the Othello Conservation District. Prior to his work with districts, Larson ran his family’s irrigated farm in Royal City, Wash., for six years.
A registered lobbyist in Washington State, Larson and his wife, Shanon, currently live in Olympia with their two children, Tyler, 17, and Cassandra, 15. Larson will officially begin his new role with NACD in Washington, D.C. on August 8.
During the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour we heard a presentation from Cristina Negri, an agronomist with the Argonne National Laboratory. Cristina told us about a project they are working on in the watershed to see what types of agricultural production will work best for biofuels. They’re looking for marginal land that doesn’t lend itself to growing corn and looking at alternative crops. Efficiently using nitrogen will be important to whatever crop is found to work best for biofuels. The name of the project is “Biomass Production and Nitrogen Recovery.” You can read about it here (pdf).
To determine the opportunity, relevance and sustainability of a biomass production scenario and BMP that recover marginal land and impaired water to support productivity. This scenario by design maximizes sustainability benefits at the farm and landscape/watershed levels.
Cristina participated in the CTIC tour to learn more about the production practices being used by farmers in the watershed and says she learned a lot. You can learn more about her project from a presentation she gave our tour group during lunch: Cristina Negri Presentation
The Ag Resource Coordinator for the Livingston County, IL Soil & Water Conservation District is Terry Bachtold. He was one of the coordinators for the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field day. He says this project is all about water quality and what farm management practices will help improve it. A good percentage of farms in the watershed have signed up, in fact, I believe it’s about half of them!
Terry says these farmers are using different techniques to apply nutrients and conducting much more testing so they can fine tune how and when and where they make applications, including moving to more summer time application. They’re hoping to see results within three years with more farm participation and adoption of these new practices within a couple years after that.
One of the participants on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour was Mike Plummer. Mike was representing the Illinois Corn Growers who are one of the stakeholder group supporters of the project. I sat down with him to get his perspective on the project.
Mike says that the Illinois Corn Marketing Board is working with the project in an advisory capacity. He says the participating farms are putting some very good management practices in place from which they are collecting data to study. From a corn grower perspective the watershed is a great place to start since it is highly tile drained. The management practices developed will be useful in other parts of the state. He hopes the project will show which management practices will improve quality without harming yield. You can listen to my interview with Michael here: Interview with Michael Plummer
The CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour included a stop at Kilgus Dairy. The family dairy farm is the only one in the state bottling their own milk. They also grow corn and soybeans and have land for the cows to graze on. They move those cows periodically, allowing the paddocks to grow back. In the picture you can see Matt Kilgus showing our group how to pour our own ice cream in the on-farm dairy products store, Kilgus Homestead.
Matt says they started the grazing system which got them involved with watershed management. Matt’s uncle was on the steering committee for the CTIC project so they’re conducting several tests and programs, including the use of different types of cover crops. He says that they hope to see some results that will benefit them while also be better stewards of the land.
There was a lot to learn from Spence Farm on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. Specialty corn varieties for connoisseur chefs is another lesson we learned last week. Iroquois White Corn has an unusual earthy flavor and a varied texture that chefs love and it’s worth about $840 a bushel for Marty and Kris Travis of Spence Farm in Livingston County, Illinois.
Marty and Kris started growing the heirloom corn several years ago. “We harvest it, dry it and then we roast it over an open fire, shell it and run it through our stone mill to make a roasted corn meal,” Marty said. “We sell that to the general public and to chefs for $15 a pound.”
The Travis’ have also started growing a red flint corn from Italy this year, a typical polenta corn that took them two years to find and is in high demand with chefs right now. “The red corn has this incredible, floral flavor that is unlike any of the corns that we’ve ever tasted,” said Marty.
Watch them talk about their specialty corn crops and how they’ve found a market for just about every part of the plant!
Steffen Farm in Livingston/Mclean counties in Illinois was a stop on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. Our host was Herb Steffen. Two thirds of his farm is devoted to continuous corn with a third in a corn/soybean rotation. As with other farms that have volunteered to participate in this project, Herb is conducting several tests. He’s side dressing nutrients at different rates along with a control plot. During this stop we wandered through the plots to see the different results in this first year of the project.
Herb says the project is something that has been needed for a long time. He says it’s not only about educating farmers but also environmentalists who don’t know what’s actually going on at the farm. He encourages farmers to be more proactive. He says the soil nitrogen tests being conducted on his farm are providing information he wouldn’t have otherwise. The project will provide “the proof that we are working to keep the yields where they need to be to feed a growing population.”
One of the stops on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour was Traub Farm. Our presenter was John Traub. The family farm grows corn, soybeans, specialty hybrid seed corn and hybrid sunflowers. The farm was named the Livingston County SWCD Conservation Farm Family in 2010. So they take conservation seriously.
I spoke with John after his presentation. He says he got involved with the project through their relationship with the SWCD and NRCS. It just “made sense” to them. He says that many of the projects they have participated in provide rewards for doing so. For this project he says they didn’t have to do a lot of things different but they are doing more testing to find the right rate, timing and place to apply nutrients. He says people often get so busy they don’t take time to look at what they’re doing. One of the real benefits of the project for him is being forced to look at what the things are they should be doing.
The Traub farm uses strip-till conservation systems with minimal tillage. They are currently comparing fall applied N with an RTK strip-till system to a conventional chisel plow system.
The Conservation Technology Information Center’s Indian Creek Watershed Project is funded in part by the Illinois EPA. Representing the IL EPA during last week’s field tour was Barb Lieberoff, Environmental Protection Specialist. I spoke with her during lunch.
Barb says the Federal 319 Program, part of the Clean Water Act, is what where the program funding comes from. She says the IL EPA worked collaboratively with the CTIC to choose a watershed in which they could create some BMP’s for improving water quality. She says a TDML is being considered for the watershed. The Indian Creek Watershed was considered a good fit for the project. By being proactive early in the process she says that all the stakeholders involved are helping themselves in the long run.
The oldest family farm in Livingston County, IL is Spence Farm. I met Marty and Kris Travis, seventh generation farmers, on this unique farming operation during the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. The farm specializes in a lot of heirloom vegetables among other products. You can see a list of their products on their website.
Marty says the quality of water is very important to him and he is serving on the steering committee for the project. He’s excited to see neighboring farms become aware of the project and hopes they’ll participate in it. He says that he’s hoping to “continue to increase the quality of our cropping area.” In the last year he says they had ninety five percent of their crop land covered in cover crop. He says it’s really cool to come out and see that the farm is still green in the winter.
I believe Marty is picking a stalk from some radishes they let go to flower and seed. They were just one of many types of vegetables they grow for chefs in the Chicago area. Apparently the radish creates very tasty seed pods!
Besides specialty heirloom vegetable crops the Spence Farm also raises some livestock. We were shown their guinea hogs. These are small size pigs that they keep in movable pens. They get moved as they eat weeds and other growing stuff under them. I recorded a video clip of Marty and Kris explaining this part of their operation.
My first stop on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour was Harms Farm. Our host was Kevin Harms (left) pictured pointing to a chart being held by Harold Reetz. Kevin’s farm is in southern Livingston County, Illinois. He’s one of the farmers that has volunteered to participate in this project.
Kevin says they’re trying several different practices to try to more efficiently use nutrients, especially nitrogen. These practices include cover crops, side dressing, split application and using “environmentally smart” nitrogen. He hopes to find out how to more efficiently manage nutrients while improving water quality for the area. The multi-year project will allow them to do testing under different weather and field conditions. He says the corn crop in his area is in great shape while soybeans got off to a late start but are also looking good.
The Senate Ag Committee held the first of four scheduled farm bill hearings this past week, focusing on energy and rural development issues.
In the coming weeks there will be hearings on conservation programs Feb. 28 and nutrition issues on March 14; and most importantly, a hearing on Title I – the farm safety net programs – is scheduled for March 21.
It’s always great to see farm broadcasters as featured speakers at events, so it was fun to see our good friend Dale Minyo with the 
The luncheon where Dale spoke was on the Mavis Farm near Edgerton, Ohio. The corn and soybean operation is a fourth generation farm owned by Gary Mavis (pictured) and his wife Pat with son Scott and his wife Jenny. Gary says they follow a corn-soybean rotation on nearly 3,000 acres and divide each field into different yield zones. “We started yield mapping back in ’95 and after a few years of collecting data was able to established yield zones that we felt comfortable with,” he said. “Now we’re applying fertilizer based on those yield zones and we’re varying the rate as we go across the field it might varying 150-200 pounds depending on what the soil test has showed.”
John Deere has been a partner with CTIC since the T stood for Tillage. Now the T stands for Technology, and John Deere’s relationship with the 
The 
“This is by far our largest tour ever,” said tour chairman Larry Clemens of The Nature Conservancy. “I think that as CTIC we’re learning that our tours are enjoyable for people, they’re gaining in reputation, and we’re going to have to make some adjustments on how to handle over 200 people in the future.” Despite the very large group, the tour went smoothly, on time and without a hitch. Next year’s tour is slated to be in the Mississippi Delta region.
The 
Participants on this week’s he 
The 
The first part of the 
During the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour we heard a presentation from Cristina Negri, an agronomist with the 
The Ag Resource Coordinator for the 
One of the participants on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project Field Tour was Mike Plummer. Mike was representing the 
The CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour included a stop at Kilgus Dairy. The family dairy farm is the only one in the state bottling their own milk. They also grow corn and soybeans and have land for the cows to graze on. They move those cows periodically, allowing the paddocks to grow back. In the picture you can see Matt Kilgus showing our group how to pour our own ice cream in the on-farm dairy products store, 
Steffen Farm in Livingston/Mclean counties in Illinois was a stop on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour. Our host was Herb Steffen. Two thirds of his farm is devoted to continuous corn with a third in a corn/soybean rotation. As with other farms that have volunteered to participate in this project, Herb is conducting several tests. He’s side dressing nutrients at different rates along with a control plot. During this stop we wandered through the plots to see the different results in this first year of the project.
One of the stops on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour was Traub Farm. Our presenter was John Traub. The family farm grows corn, soybeans, specialty hybrid seed corn and hybrid sunflowers. The farm was named the Livingston County SWCD Conservation Farm Family in 2010. So they take conservation seriously.
The Conservation Technology Information Center’s Indian Creek Watershed Project is funded in part by the 
The oldest family farm in Livingston County, IL is 
My first stop on the CTIC Indian Creek Watershed Project field tour was Harms Farm. Our host was Kevin Harms (left) pictured pointing to a chart being held by Harold Reetz. Kevin’s farm is in southern Livingston County, Illinois. He’s one of the farmers that has volunteered to participate in this project.
In this week's program you can listen in to my conversation with Bill Howard, Fastline, about their new mobile game app, AgRacer.
