Micheal Crichton has just released a new book - Next - that does for biotechnology what State of Fear did for global warming. And to hype the book (which this post lamely aids), he has a "pseudo-website". See it here.
While most of us in agriculture have been focused on commodity prices (well, our specific commodity price) other prices have been gyrating as well. For instance the price of a dollar.
And so it has. Against the euro, the dollar had been dropping, little by little, for more than a month before it broke through $1.30 on November 24th, going on to hit a 20-month low (see chart). Against the pound, on November 28th the greenback was at its weakest for two years. It slipped against the yen too, though it later made up the ground. Against the yuan—politically the most sensitive exchange rate these days—it continued a stately decline. [More]
Bad as it is to be playing second fiddle to a made-up currency like the euro, the steady rise of the yuan is the more interesting. We have been hounding China to let their currency appreciate, and now we've essentially done it for them with our slowing economy. Should the trend continue, money flows would change to counteract the effect.
Whether or not the greenback's decline persists, savvy investors can find plenty of ways to hedge against currency risk. The key is to maintain a globally well-diversified portfolio, experts say. Though the dollar may be falling, the sky is not. [More]
Back in the good ol' days, we'd just trot Big Al up to Capitol Hill to unleash a stream of cryptic quotes that the world would take for wisdom and faith in the greenback would miraculously reappear. Not so the with the new guy.
In the past few months, every time a policy maker found a waiting platform, he or she used the opportunity to remind us that the Fed is more concerned about rising inflation than slowing growth.
Their words had predictable results. The prices of interest- rate futures contracts that reflect expectations of Fed policy sank, wiping out the gains registered on weak economic data.
The gyrations have been large. The June Eurodollar futures contract rallied 43 basis points from 94.72 on Sept. 18 to 95.15 on Oct. 4. The gains were completely reversed over the next three weeks as various Fed officials -- Fed Governor Don Kohn and District Bank Presidents Michael Moskow (Chicago), Charles Plosser (Philadelphia), Richard Fisher (Dallas) and Jeffrey Lacker (Richmond) -- reiterated their concerns about inflation accelerating or failing to retreat from its current unacceptably high levels.
Then something strange happened. The market stopped listening.
But do we really care down on the farm if the dollar is weak? It depends on whose import is being gored. If you want to export grain or meat, you usually cheer as the dollar makes your products cheaper compared to competitors. But when you turn around to buy something with those cheaper dollars it gets problematic.
And one big thing we buy is energy. Oil, natural gas, and other imports cost more and this contributes to inflation. In fact, how much you buy and sell outside the country will determine which side you are rooting for. The tricky bit is if oil exporters decide to price in something other than dollars - like those pesky euros.
This would have a profound impact on our economy and our ability to control it within our own borders. As it is a falling dollar may force the Fed to raise rates even as the economy slows further. (It's really hard to tell cause from effect in this exercise, by the way).
We may be winning the corn price battle and losing the economic war.
Update (12/1) - Fortune magazine, presumably having read my post, agrees.
Jeez - you couldn't write a suspense novel any weirder than this. A former (?) Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was apparently poisoned with polonium-210. And now its showing up on British planes.
The case of the poisoned former KGB agent took a bizarre twist when British Airways said that traces of radiation had been detected Wednesday on jets that flew between London and Moscow, establishing a possible Russian link and indicating that more than 30,000 people may have been exposed to radiation.
The airline said tests found "very low traces" of radioactivity on one of three Boeing 767s that flew between London and Moscow days before Alexander Litvinenko fell ill from the radioactive poison that doctors say killed him. [More]
Polonium-210 is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.376 days. A milligram of 210Po emits as many alpha particles as 5 grams of radium. A great deal of energy is released by its decay with half a gram quickly reaching a temperature above 750 K. A few curies (1 curie equals 37 gigabecquerels) of 210Po emit a blue glow which is caused by excitation of surrounding air. A single gram of 210Po generates 140 watts of power.[9] Because it emits many alpha particles, which are stopped within a very short distance in dense media and release their energy, 210Po has been used as a lightweight heat source to power thermoelectric cells in artificial satellites. A 210Po heat source was also used in each of the Lunokhod rovers deployed on the surface of the Moon, to keep their internal components warm during the lunar nights. Some anti-static brushes contain up to 500 microcuries of 210Po as a source of charged particles for neutralizing static electricity in materials like photographic film.[10] The majority of the time 210Po decays only by emission of an alpha particle, not by emission of an alpha particle and a gamma ray. About one in a 100000 decays results in the emission of a gamma ray[4], this low gamma ray production rate makes it more difficult to find and identify this isotope. Rather than gamma ray spectroscopy, alpha spectroscopy will be the best method of measuring this isotope.
The important detail is the part about being an alpha-emitter. Alpha particles are very large and consequently bump into other nuclei easily, so a sheet of paper can stop them. However, if an alpha-emitter is lodged in your lung or other internal organs, it will definitely be close enough to sensitive tissue to cause damage. This is also the problem with plutonium as well. But it needs to be inside you - not around you.
(Admit it - the title hooked you) So anyway, there were these horses in the Netherlands who got caught in a storm and were stranded on an island by rising waters, and then these Dutch girls on horses...
While I am widely know as horse-indifferent, I did like the music. Like most of Europe, I was surprised when the camera zoomed out and the "island" turned out to be a small rise in a pasture about 200 yards from higher ground.
Perhaps just a little overwrought.
But is does bring up an interesting thought. The Dutch are now the tallest people on the planet. What if that is an evolutionary outcome from living in the "lowlands". I mean, the short ones would would drown as the water rises, right?
The unnaturally warm weather this week has prompted me to haul out the tractors again and apply some fall NH3. My local fertilizer salesman asked me yesterday what I had heard NH3 prices were going to do this winter. While it's nice to be thought of as somebody who "knows stuff", I rarely get that benefit of the doubt around home.
And for good reason.
Anyway, the folks at the University of Illinois have an excellent piece on this very topic:
The story of the nitrogen you require for corn begins with natural gas, and its price is related to oil, as well as politics and a fragile production infrastructure. Ammonia, which is the primary source of nitrogen, is produced from natural gas, and because of a wide variation in the cost of natural gas around the world, ammonia prices will also vary widely. In the US, agricultural ammonia consumes only a sliver of the natural gas produced, and has to compete with many other industries. Since natural gas futures are traded, it is possible to watch futures prices and predict the cost of ammonia compared to prior seasons.
But as usual for Extension people, they use circumspect language and vague conclusions not unlike a political press secretary. I certainly understand their caution.
I have fewer constraints. Anhydrous ammonia, in my opinion is about to teach farmers a lesson in pricing power. While we can calculate the relationship between natural gas and NH3, and create linkages between the prices, I don't think that's going to be the market driver.
Ethanol is - via huge amounts of corn acres needing N. Couple that with relatively few fertilizer producers and retailers, and you have a perfect chance to price what the market will bear.
And with $3.50 corn the market will bear a lot. Farmers will have to buy N. We know it and N producers know it. Why on earth would they let Cargill's money dawdle in my checking account when it could be boosting their shareholder's value?
And really, what choice do I have?
So forget about natural gas prices and production costs for NH3. That apparently only works when NG prices are going up. NH3 going to go up until we stop buying it.
Where will all the energy we need in the future come from? Maybe it won't!
So where will the extra energy come from? Relying on figures from the World Energy Assessment by the United Nations Development Program, Nocera looks at the maximum amounts of power that various non-fossil fuel sources might supply. Biomass could supply 7-10 TW of energy, but that is the equivalent of harvesting all current crops solely for energy. Nuclear could produce 8 TW which implies building 8000 new reactors over the 45 years at a rate of one new plant every two days. Wind would generate 2.1 TW if every site on the globe with class 3 winds or greater were occupied with windmills. Winds at a class 3 site blow at 11.5 miles per hour at 33 feet above the ground. And hydro-power could produce 0.7-2 TW if dams were placed on every untapped river on the earth. Nocera concludes, "The message is clear. The additional energy we need in 2050 over the current 13.5 TW base, is simply not attainable from long discussed sources—the global appetite for energy is simply too great." [More]
Sooner or later, the market will encourage us to lower energy consumption, and my bet is technology to trim energy use will be even hotter than technology to produce energy.
As we watch, so to speak, the television industry is undergoing wrenching change. Since it is driven by advertising dollars, the new competition from the Internet was the first agent of change.
But the true upheaval may arrive in the form of home-made content like YouTube. Certainly Google thinks so as it shelled out $1.8B for the barely year-old company a few weeks ago. This is changing not only the way we watch video, but what we want to watch.
Lots of people can now watch themselves on sort-of TV, which is pretty fun in itself. The bonus is that others want to watch them, too. Third-millennium humanity has demonstrated an interest in sifting through millions of pieces of crap produced by total strangers to discover a few gems – some accidentally entertaining ("Boom Goes the Dynamite"), some breakout performances from the previously obscure ("Treadmill Dance"), and some explorations of a new art form crackling with genius (Ze Frank, Ask a Ninja, and the guys behind Loneygirl15.)
Throw in the uploaded TV commercials, such as Nike's Ronaldinho spot showing the Brazilian soccer star miraculously volleying against the crossbar. Add to that some professional content either stolen from or surrendered by Hollywood. Altogether, this stuff constitutes a bottomless reservoir of short-form video content for others to siphon off if they choose. Which they do, millions of times a day, from pages all over the Internet. That's the demand side of the equation – monkey see, monkey use – foreshadowing the future of media, already in progress.
Forget "exploding TV." The name for this thing is Monkeyvision. [More - and be sure to watch the clip of the young sports announcer]
Is this just another advertising wrong turn that will fade as the public moves on to the next hot idea and settles back to watch the NFL again? With every day, fewer observers think so.
TV advertising has been losing its impact for years: McKinsey projects that by 2010 it will be barely one-third as effective as it was in 1990, thanks to rising costs, falling viewership, ever-proliferating ad clutter, and viewers' TiVo-fueled power to zip through commercials. Big national advertisers like General Motors, which has an annual TV ad budget of $2.9 billion – only Procter & Gamble's is bigger – are demanding something different, and the rise of Web video offers just that. Internet advertising of any sort promises powers that marketers have long lusted after: the ability to target people who might actually be interested in what they're selling and to engage those people in conversation. Web video can be as emotionally involving as TV, and when used in consumer-generated campaigns, as crowdsourcing efforts like Chevy's have come to be known, online clips come with a bonus – people see them less as advertising than as peer recommendation, which countless studies have shown to be far more influential. [More]
All of these possibilities are predicated by the widespread availability of broadband. While I am not big on government mandates, we in rural America should at least ask our representatives when and whether we will be allowed to come to this party. A change this big in or communications infrastructure will impact our lives as much if not more than urban America. (Find out what broadband choices you might have here)
Right now it is no large loss, but if the vast majority of Americans begin to choose Internet delivery of video or the two media blend into one, as some cable companies are trying, one more disadvantage to living in rural America will be added to our struggling little towns and isolated rural residents.
Just when the food-or-fuel discussion is heating up, the relentless march of agricultural technology continues. To begin with, we will certainly be able to increase yields if the market encourages us just a little.
The Missouri Soybean Association plans to announce Kip Cullers of Purdy, in southwest Missouri, as the new record-holder and winner of its 2006 Yield Contest today. The new record of 139 bushels per acre — 21 bushels more than the previous world record set in Michigan — came as a shock to Wiebold and his colleagues.
Meanwhile we are still working to make the crops we grow more nutritious - and not just with "Evil" Genetic Modification.
Adding this gene back into the conventional wheat supply could help remedy the zinc and iron deficit suffered by more than two billion people worldwide, according to World Health Organization statistics. And more than 160 million children lack adequate protein in their diet, which this enhanced wheat could supply. "If you do not have anything else available to eat, it would be good to have wheat that provides more protein and micronutrients," Dubcovsky says. "We are also working on a new mutant that will eliminate an antinutrient present in wheat--phytic acid--which reduces the bioavailability of the zinc and iron present in the grain." [More]
We are even turning things we can't eat into an acceptable food source.
Researchers have genetically engineered cotton plants that produce toxin-free seeds, potentially unlocking enough nutritional content to feed half a billion people worldwide each year.
Cotton is grown in more than 80 countries and is a primary source of fibre for textiles, providing an important cash crop to some 20 million farmers in Asia and Africa. But a little-known characteristic of the cotton plant is that for every kilogram of fibre that is produced, it also yields 1.65 kilograms of seed packed with high-quality protein. So cotton plants have the ability to meet the protein requirements of millions with no reduction to the output of cotton fibres. [More]
Mind you, I don't think cotton seed meal is going to threaten donuts as a popular food, but at least poorer countries can start getting food and fiber from the same crop.
In short, it may be premature to look at current supplies and accurately estimate future farm output. I don't think we have any idea what kinds of crops and yields we can produce, nor do we understand the capacity of our natural resources. The fact scientists all over the world, in partnership with every type and size producer have a consistent track record of larger and more efficient production suggests we will continue this quiet improvement for years to come.
Simply because we don't know how it will happen, does not make believing it will happen foolish.
Actually, it has proven to be an effective marketing axiom.
Life is not good for car salespeople. The availability of price information on the Internet - such as Edmunds.com - has eroded margins for dealers and commissions for sales staff.
The car salesman became one of the most derided of American archetypes--and provided rich fodder for fiction and film. Think Harry Angstrom, the adulterous Toyota-selling protagonist of John Updike's Rabbit books. Or Jerry Lundegaard, the slimy Oldsmobile dealer played by William H. Macy in Fargo, who in one scene sneaks in a weatherproof sealant to jack up the price.
Now consumers are getting their revenge. By spending half an hour on sites like Edmunds.com, buyers can find how much the dealer paid for the car, the cost of options, what consumers are paying in a specific region, and which models are available at various dealerships. Many consumers start negotiations citing the invoice price--what the dealer paid--and offer a few hundred bucks over that. [More]
(Read the comments at the bottom of this article). Despite whether you agree with the salesmen of the customers the crucial point is more fundamental: car sales were built around a business plan that capitalized on asymmetrical information. Or put more bluntly, clueless customers.
We are seeing this pattern repeated famously for travel agents, stockbrokers, and other commission workers. While these jobs arguably do deliver some value, much of it was in the form of convenience, not expertise. Consequently, only those who don't mind paying for convenience like high-end buyers will not begrudge the added cost of a salesman.
Agriculture may not escape this trend. Imagine an "Edmunds.com-equivalent" for farm machinery. Regardless whether this comes to pass, the machinery industry suspects they have too many dealers.
Contrary to my projections, machinery companies are not optimistic about 2007.
But many analysts said Deere was being too cautious in its outlook. Ann Duignan, an analyst at Bear Stearns, said in a note to investors that "worldwide farm-economic conditions remain quite promising."
"Prices for farm commodities have surged in recent weeks and worldwide carry-over stocks for wheat and corn are at 30-year lows in relation to consumption," Duignan wrote.
David Raso, an analyst at Citigroup, agreed.
"Deere is not yet willing to bake in ... recent strength in farmer fundamentals," he wrote in a note to investors. He predicted the company's 2007 forecast, which anticipates a 22 percent drop in net profit, "will prove too conservative." [More]
Personally, I think farmers will be anticipating $3.50 corn profits and trading up to bigger and better starting yesterday. Those who remember the early '70's can testify to this.
The profit windfall will last until we bid up inputs (like machines and rent) to levels that leave us with about the same net per acre as before. It is in this 2-4 year lag time that aggressive expanders will rewarded, and be prepared for the inevitable contraction with a larger operation to spread costs.
But for the meantime, maybe some of those disgruntled car salesmen will show up in tractor showrooms.
I hope yours is a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have family here and my goodness - what a beautiful day! Perfect for stringing up the Christmas lights, and walking off turkey. And sharing family memories.
But then I read about an outbreak of whooping cough in a Chicago school and it triggered some awful memories. My oldest sister got whooping cough (pertussis) in high school and her struggle remains a terrifying part of my childhood. The "whoop" that gives the name is a noise created by a desperate attempt to get air after coughing uncontrollably.
America has decided to depend on artificial immunity to prevent childhood fatalities. But the decision is not quite as simple as that. I wouldn't want anyone to have to go through what my sister did, but is seems to me the effort to eliminate all childhood diseases has left many of our children with less than robust immune systems.
Gaining natural immunity involves considerable risk. Diseases that otherwise are vaccine-preventable can kill or cause permanent disability, such as paralysis from polio, deafness from meningitis, liver damage from hepatitis B, or brain damage (encephalitis) from measles. Immunity from a vaccine offers protection similar to that acquired by natural infection. At the same time, vaccines rarely put individuals at risk of the serious complications of infection.
Some people believe that many of those affected during a disease outbreak are in fact the ones who were previously vaccinated. And they argue that immunity from vaccines isn't effective. It's true that vaccines aren't 100 percent protective. Most childhood vaccines are effective for 85 percent to 95 percent of recipients. During a disease outbreak, a number of vaccinated people will indeed catch the disease. However, those who were immunized usually have a less serious illness, while those not vaccinated are in the greatest danger. [More]
Regardless now there is less choice. Get and keep current your family's vaccinations. Especially your college-age children. Things seem to be transmitted really fast among that age group.
Perhaps the best news from the recent exercise of democracy in the US was the return to divided government. Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune hails the day:
Despite its traditional principles, the GOP's monopoly in Washington has merely freed Republicans to indulge the empire-building, power-lusting, overspending, control-freaking elements that all politicians harbor deep in their souls. Government outlays have swelled, government intrusions have expanded, and the only reason the 82nd Airborne no longer escorts kids to kindergarten is that the job has gotten too dangerous. [More]
For those of us in agriculture, this is great news [if you are not fond of subsidies]. Republican deficit hawks now are free to obstruct passage of budget busting spending without calls to support the GOP. And President Bush, anxious to improve his questionable legacy has no reason to sign spending-spree legislation. In fact, to reclaim the fiscal conservatives so they can be re-used in the next election cycle, he could even be more hard-line on spending.
There is something going on with the comments section of this blog. Once you post a comment it is recorded but sometimes doesn't show on the "comments count" of the post until I republish the blog with a new post.
I'm working on it.
Been gone on a business trip for s few days, but should be catching up today...
The GR8 TaT2 Maker is a toy tattoo gun for your little budding skin-artist: "Open up your very own pretend play tattoo parlor. This easy-to-use tattoo maker kit includes an electronic tattoo pen and funky stencils. Using soft, safe pulsating action, the tattoo pen creates realistic, washable designs with dramatic effects.
While we corn growers are all gurgling with joy over the ethanol market, some of our best and most loyal customers are under considerable duress.
A 77 percent jump in the past year has made corn the most expensive since 1996, squeezing profit at Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc. Speculators including Pacific Investment Management Co. are basking in returns that go beyond forecasts made as recently as July.
Part of the reason is the furor over immigration. It will be interesting to see if the new Congress and Pres. Bush reach an understanding on how to handle the illegal immigrants already fueling much our resilient economy.
A similar story ran in the LA Times back in July, about Arkadelphia, Arkansas. It was another tale of chicken processing plants, sudden immigration raids, over a hundred workers dragged away, and subsequent damage to the emotional and economic life of a city. The federal raiders got no cooperation, as the story tells it, from local prosecutors or sheriffs, who understand the local circumstances that make such raids a stupid waste of time that doesn't serve their communities, but disrupts them. Arkansas' Republican Gov. Huckabee even donated a grand to a relief fund set up for families hurt by the raid. [More]
Between these two forces, I think much of our domestic livestock industry is up for grabs as we grain producers forsake them to become the ethanol sheiks. When Brazil is the place the world goes for chicken and pork instead of the US, we may wonder how we could have allowed this to happen.
Brazil’s world share of exports is expected to drop by one point to 38 percent. Brazil, which has shown annual increases in broiler meat exports over the last six years, is forecast to show a decrease in 2006 exports due mostly to weakening demand in a few of its major export markets. This is a result of economic factors within the country and AI concerns in importing countries. These AI concerns have led consumers to substitute other protein sources for poultry meat. These circumstances have led to an over supply issue in Brazil. With AI concerns expected to decline and as Brazil focuses on using more aggressive marketing strategies on its larger poultry importers, broiler meat exports are expected to rise 2 percent in 2007 to a total of nearly 2.6 million tons. [More]
If avian influenza (AI) or bird flu remains a dormant threat, Brazil is poised to be formidable competition to US poultry giants. This will eventually impact our corn market.
It may just be me, but it seems the more evidence we accumulate to substantiate anthropogenic global warming, the less we seem to care. Certainly the recent African summit evinced few signs of panic or even interest, especially by the major players.
THE United Nations conference on climate change, which closed on Friday in Nairobi, was distinguished mainly by its ineffectualness. Like many such events it had proclaimed a grand ambition: to design a more effective régime to replace the Kyoto protocol after 2012. But for all the posturing in the plenary sessions, there was no sign of urgency or radicalism in the corridors. [More]
It is almost as if winning the academic battle was THE battle. This peculiar point of view mirrors many political squabbles as well. If we can get our opponent to admit he/she is wrong, then we win - despite the fact the problem still remains.
So we spend our time parsing with a microscope press conferences and newspaper accounts for flaws and openings, but little actual effort is spent in corrective action.
Redistricting has become synonymous with political extremism and party warfare. Last year, legislators staged bizarre confrontations in Colorado and Texas over unprecedented attempts to change district lines in mid-decade.
But unlike many other states, in 2001 the Iowa Legislature was able to re-draw its congressional and state legislative districts with little controversy.
Whether or not computerized redistricting would make for good government, it offers some interesting exercises in mathematics and computer science. Algorithms for redistricting exploit techniques from computational geometry, graph theory, combinatorics and optimization methods. Even if such algorithms are never embodied in law, perhaps they can suggest some ideas that would be useful in a more conventional approach to redistricting.
I have been learning new things about what we label as sprawl. First, the eye-opening eponymous book by Chicago researcher Richard Bruegmann who pointed out that almost all development occurs because more people want houses - hardly a bad thing. The second point which hit home is that sprawl is cited as a problem by people who have got their house and space already - not those living in 800 sq.ft. apartments.
Now a new study from California researchers adds some interesting perspective on the social qualities of suburbs. Brian Doherty at Reason adds a cogent opinion.
It turns out that people don't necessarily become less neighborly as they move for more room. In fact, it may be just the opposite. It has always been hard for me to figure out why people keep wanting to live in suburbs if they are as bad as critics say.
A friend of mine sent me this questionable e-mail about finding a bear with a combine:
Subject: Combine Bear
This happened down near Decatur/Taylorville,IL. this farming season. Just thought Id share with ya all.
My neighbor last Friday got this bear with the combine a half mile north of me. The combine was stuck, and the den hole was 5 feet deep. The bear was trying to dig out from under the wheel but could not get out, the DNR told them to shoot it. It dressed out 287 pounds, and was a male.
Troy got a bear with the combine. He was combining our corn over at Measners field and fell into a big hole. He thought it was a badger hole until a big black paw came out. Pretty soon a head appeared. They knew for sure it was no badger. He wasn't very happy either. He was 300 pounds.
Look, I hate to propagate e-mail hoaxes, but this is a good one if it is.
But a bear in central IL??? BTW, anybody know these guys?
For my browser at least the number of comments is not displaying accurately. There have been new comments on "I love it already" and "Waste and fraud". The guys at Blogger are aware and working on the problem.
Let's see, we're going to fight global warming by hoisting giant guns with balloons into the upper atmosphere where they will fire tons of sulfur to block the sunlight and cool the earth.
The Dutch climatologist, awarded a 1995 Nobel in chemistry for his work uncovering the threat to Earth's atmospheric ozone layer, suggested that balloons bearing heavy guns be used to carry sulfates high aloft and fire them into the stratosphere.
While carbon dioxide keeps heat from escaping Earth, substances such as sulfur dioxide, a common air pollutant, reflect solar radiation, helping cool the planet. [More]
Why didn't I think of that? Reactions have been ummm, mixed.
But wait - it could get even better. First you'll have acid rain falling as the sulfates mix with water to form sulfuric acid - that will be fun. And of course, every now and then a large artillery piece will sorta plummet to earth.
Seriously, if you have grownup children returning for the holidays, you need things to do. This might be fun and would give me an excuse to convert a corner of our basement to a pub!
The ongoing strategy to creatively label products to convey some imperceptible quality in order to appeal to consumers is being worked to extremes with food.
Animal welfare is clearly a hot topic in the supermarket these days, as anyone can see just by taking a look at all the different types of labels and certifications that are meant to convince us that the animals we are eating led full, happy lives before they became dinner. The current list includes labels such as "free farmed," "certified humane," "cage free" and "free range," among others. Whole Foods is adding a new term to this group: animal compassionate. [More]
Now throw in the grass-fed/organic/free range stickers and the whole system is in danger of becoming perfectly obscure. The underlying reason: the products (meat, vegetables, etc.) are non-differentiable - you cannot take two competing products and test them and say which is which.
This will certainly be the case for the next technological "horror": cloned livestock. Despite the hopes of specialty producers, this fact sooner or later dawns on most buyers.
Not coincidentally, it also occurs to many producers who are tempted to falsify claims, since you essentially take their word for it.
To be sure, if the commerce is also coupled with an experience like a farm visit, or a farmer's market that adds some entertainment or social value, it becomes unique and can command a premium. But if it is simply sitting in a display case, this facade is hard to buy over time.
Whole Foods has enjoyed a great run as health-conscious shoppers paid premium prices for its fancy and organic produce. But analysts have warned that a slowdown in con-sumer spending and tougher competition from mainstream grocery stores could squeeze Whole Foods profits.
We do not know how large this segment of the food market can become. But it appears that in their desperation to offer food with ethereal, even spiritual qualities they may be drifting off the market radar.
No doubt howls of feigned outrage will erupt over recent USDA admissions of fraudulent payments to farmers.
WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department on Wednesday acknowledged making improper payments to farmers worth more than $2.8 billion last year. [More]
We don't do outrage well any more, so it will soon pass. But the point most people will miss is what level of fraud is tolerable. Oh sure, we could all rant on and demand ZERO, but you really wouldn't want a system that was that good, trust me. The administrative costs would spiral out of control. The only way to have zero waste is to have zero payments.
Hmmm...
I think the government should be able to handle money only slightly worse than the average citizen. After all that's who works for the government, right? And after spending all day counting up "my profits and my costs", I would have been satisfied with an 11% waste figure this year.
Replanting 200 acres was a waste, so was one herbicide I used and two highly-touted hybrids. I could have saved on fuel as well. And on and on...
My point is we need realistic expectations. Farm payments are found money, so all kinds of schemes will sprout in farmer minds to get more than what they have coming. You know that and I know that and little kids in the schoolyard know that. Moreover, by Iraq or Katrina* standards the USDA is in the minor leagues.
So the next time a politician yelps about government waste, ask him what percentage it should be. If he/she says zero, you'll know he/she is clueless.
[Thanks, Aaron]
(*Strangely about 11% waste again - maybe a law of nature?)
Free traders traders are setting their sites a little lower. Far from pushing for more liberalization, they are now hoping to simply hold the ground they have gained.
One reason for this global trade gloom has been a defection from their ranks similar to the disgruntled fiscal conservatives from the GOP. William Keegan is one.
The unfortunate insistence on touting overall economic advantage while ignoring the distribution of those benefits has disillusioned many of us into thinking we have been had. What economists often fail to grasp (until their department starts filling with lower-paid professors from abroad), is that dislocation is not an academic exercise nor is it easy to change to recover at the personal level. America's 4% unemployed are 100% unemployed.
Summers, a Democrat, is no protectionist. Nevertheless he has rightly drawn attention to the way the US middle class (both employees and employers) have been hit by globalisation and its concomitant threat of cut throat competition from cheap labour. As has often been noted, globalisation has tended to benefit the very rich, and the very poor (the latter, for instance, in the shape of Chinese workers).
Now, as Summers says "economists rightly emphasise that trade, like other forms of progress, makes everyone richer by enabling them to buy goods at lower prices." But he goes on: "This offers small solace to those who fear their jobs will vanish."
With the changes in Washington, I have no doubt regrettable protectionist sentiments will find new life. But the revival of opposition could make free trade proponents consider how to spread the goodies among more people to win new converts.
In announcing progress for the Iranian nuclear program Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was clad in his now-traditional windbreaker. I have noticed this sartorial statement for months and have thought he was hoping to have it catch on fashion-wise, presumably like Mao jackets.
Williams: Mr. President, this is not a matter of great concern, this next question, but we have gotten used to seeing you in the tan jacket with the zipper. Today, you are dressed differently. Is that jacket a symbol of your standing or upbringing in Iran?
Ahmadinejad: No. It depends on which one I'm more comfortable wearing. And it of course depends on my colleagues and friends, too. I knew that you were going to wear a suit, so I decided to wear this jacket.
What was that about? While I'm just a small-potatoes blogger, Williams is pretty heavy journalism in a $2000 suit - and he asked the guy who wants to exterminate Israel about his jacket??? "Mr. Stalin, I notice you're wearing pleated pants..."
Taking a page from the anti-Tammy Duckworth campaign dirty tricks book, if I were a seed corn dealer, I'd send him a jacket from the competition.
Many of us are starting to plan for 2007, even while nursing our marketing/production wounds from 2006. It is pretty exciting stuff looking ahead to $3.50 corn and $6+ beans and $5 wheat.
We are planning on being happy. What could go wrong?
Perhaps we could use a short course in being happy to refresh our skills. This 20-minute lecture by Dan Gilbert at Oxford is worth watching to help build some realistic expectations for our upcoming good times.
Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard and author of Stumbling on Happiness. He is part of the growing number of psychologists who are influencing economists to reconsider the effects of economic policy and our habit of relating it to wealth.
The New York Times, among other papers has a good profile of Jon Tester, the new Democratic Senator-elect from Montana. For those of us who know only the headlines about this race, it offers some helpful background info.
All his life, Mr. Tester, 50, has lived no more than two hours from his farm, an infinity of flat on the windswept expanse of north-central Montana, hard by the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.
For all the talk about the new Democrats swept into office on Tuesday, the senator-elect from Montana truly is your grandfather’s Democrat — a pro-gun, anti-big-business prairie pragmatist whose life is defined by the treeless patch of hard Montana dirt that has been in the family since 1916. [More]
The article is also interesting to me for its format. Note the large number of hotlinks. When a traditional publication like NYT institutionalizes a info-techno change like this it can mark a milestone in communications.
Blog readers have been growing accustomed to hotlinks for years now, but my feeling is more readers will find newspapers one-dimensional in comparison.
Want to check out the source for accurate citing? Just click and read yourself. Want to see more pictures/charts/examples? Follow the link.
This ability to add informational depth may be the big driver behind readership shifting to the Web from newspapers, not flashy screen tricks. Judging from my own experience hotlinks rapidly make reading printed materials seem sparse by comparison.
Ahoy, all you Natty Bumpo wannabees. No longer do you have to risk your pearly whites to the stray buckshot when eating your manfully-taken prey - you can shoot them with flavor, not lead:
Season Shot is made of tightly packed seasoning bound by a fully biodegradable food product. The seasoning is actually injected into the bird on impact seasoning the meat from the inside out. When the bird is cooked the seasoning pellets melt into the meat spreading the flavor to the entire bird. Forget worrying about shot breaking your teeth and start wondering about which flavor shot to use! [More]
The company is also rumored to be working on "gravy shot" as well...
Since the first decomposed €20 bill was reported by a state bank in Berlin on June 21, a total of 17 cities have sounded the alarm about disintegrating euros. Authorities in a number of German states as well as the European and German central banks are now investigating. [More]
As paper money becomes more awkward in the First World, the problem of plastic is not going away either. You have probably noticed the requirement to show ID when using a card at many retail locations now. In fact, we may see a strong push to merge the two soon.
Still, all things considered cards are much more convenient and so far, my losses to the Bad Guys have been covered by the card issuer.
During the 1990s, then-Sen. Phil Gramm accurately described U.S. farm policy as "enough to make a Russian Commissar puke." The Republicans assembled the "Freedom to Farm Act," which, starting in 1996, put U.S. farmers on a glide path toward an end to subsidies. Somewhere between the field and the silo, however, we became mired in the political mud. In 2002, we repealed the Freedom to Farm Act and in its place installed the "Farm Security Act" -- those who value the adage about trading freedom for security can pause and shudder here -- with even more lavish subsidies.
Now, with reauthorization of the Farm Bill on the horizon next year, we have to decide whether we will up the ante with Democrats in terms of red state/blue state politics in the heartland, or whether we believe our own rhetoric about free markets. This debate will have implications larger than the fiscal one. Most notably, it will determine if we are serious about the future of free trade.
Does this mean the ag lobby should be concerned about the outcome of debate over Farm Bill '07? I think not, UNLESS for whatever reason the economy is struggling and interest rates are through the roof.
What it could mean is an agonizing choice for many rural "red" voters whose allegiance to the Republican party on social issues is sacrosanct and who are alarmed by the GOP embracing fiscal discipline.
In short, a lot of farmers could have to choose between gay marriage and LDP's .
Japan's farmers are among the most protected and subsidized in the world. But even they are feeling immense pressure from global efforts to broaden trade.
One of its members, Takatoshi Ito, of Tokyo University, says the ideas spilling out of the council point to a new stage of change for Japan. The aim is to tie the country more deeply into the global economy by seeking more free-trade agreements (including even with China and America) and boosting pitifully low levels of foreign investment in Japan. A priority is to address Japan's so-called “dual” economy. The competitive exporting industries are not matched in agriculture and services, which are shielded from competition, lack economies of scale and are backward in their use of information technology. To boost investment, the government is mulling a cut in corporate income tax and other tax changes. Deep reforms to pensions and health care are also expected. [More]
While this may all seem of quaint interest for American farmers, we have always been able to point across the Pacific and argue, "They're worse than we are!" when threatened with freer trade.
If Japan's farmers have a losing showdown with their vastly more important exporting industries, it will be strong indicator the atmosphere for global trade is capable of forcing US ag policy changes, regardless of the farm lobby.
I have switched to an upgraded version of blogger by Google (who else?) . The main difference will be the labels at the bottom of the posts that will allow rapid searches to find all the posts about "ethanol" for example.
Note: It will take me some time to go back and add labels to older posts, so searches won't be fully effective for a while.
Prop 87 failed in CA: This measure would tax oil companies to fund alternative fuel research like ethanol and was probably a bad piece of legislation. Could this be the turning point for taxpayer support for ethanol?
Goodbye payment limits: With Rep. Collin Peterson the likely Ag Committee chairman, I think the Treasury doors are now officially open (wider). The only hitch would be if Pres. Bush decided to make up with conservatives by starting to veto excessive spending. No, seriously.
Prop 204 passed in AZ: The measure would ban gestation crates basically in a state with almost no large hog operations. I dunno, but this type of measure looks repeatable around the US. It's just too hard to defend for such a small political payoff for most elected officials. Wasn't even close.
Above all, now the Democrats are on the hook for Iraq just like the Republicans.
¶ 7:50 AM0 comments
Launching the helicopters...
The phenomenon of "helicopter parents" has reached another milestone: the job search. Hovering parents are accompanying grown children and often doing most of the talking during post-college job searches.
Barbara Dwyer, a career coach in Sacramento, Calif., says she spoke at a Future Farmers of America meeting and met a mother whose son wanted to raise sheep for a living. The mom excitedly told Dwyer how she had done extensive research to find out what it would take for her son to get started in the business.
"I asked, 'Why did YOU do it?' And she looked shocked," Dwyer says. [More]
The next step is calling the bosses at work once the child gets a job.
There is no phase of our lives we Boomers can't overdo. And it's not just Americans.
This will seem funny until a note comes home from school...
If you have children in public school, there is a reasonable chance one will come home with head lice. That doesn't make you a bad parent or homemaker, just a typical one. Maybe there is some hope for battling this childhood menace.
Clayton and his colleagues tested a variety of hair dryers -- including handheld and "bonnet" models -- on 169 local children who were infested with lice. Their findings appear in the November issue of Pediatrics.
All the hair dryers killed at least 89 percent of lice eggs. But only one -- the specially designed "LouseBuster" -- managed to both kill eggs (98 percent) and wipe out high numbers of living lice (80 percent). The remaining living lice appeared unable to breed, perhaps due to stress or sterilization, the team said. [More]
My bet is Chinese manufacturers will develop $29.99 models and will be selling them in Walmart by 2007.
¶ 8:17 PM0 comments
Actually, I am pretending to be alive...
This is just gross enough to interest a 5th grader (boy):
When a hognose snake that's facing a predator flips belly-up, its mouth opens and stays agape, sometimes oozing drops of blood. And the snake defecates or otherwise releases an unappetizing smell. "It's spectacular," says Gordon Burghardt of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. [More great stuff]
While I was closing up bins and cleaning up scattered tools, etc. our silly dog encountered a young possum, which promptly "died" and sure enough, the dog lost interest. I've always wondered how effective this strategy was.
One break came after he'd floated for 15 minutes staring at a dead-looking Parachromis friedrichsthalii cichlid. Smaller fish gradually drew closer until some began nibbling the cichlid's tattered fins. In an instant, the seemingly dead fish reared off the bottom and attacked one of the scavengers.
Although this cichlid is a death feigner, it's not trying to avoid predators, Tobler said in the March 2005 Journal of Fish Biology. It is itself a predator, and feigning death is the way that it hunts.
Given the number of possums I see around here, feigning death must work.
Maybe we can lose the flatulent cow jokes, at least...
Strangely, methane emissions and atmospheric levels are dropping even while other greenhouse gases escalate. We're not sure why. But most of us in agriculture have long since tired of newsreaders' staged amusement when reporting that ruminant animals are a major source of methane. (snicker)
The decline may be due to changes in rice farming:
M. Aslam Khalil, a physicist at Portland State University in Oregon, helped establish a sampling network for methane as long ago as 1979. He, like Dlugokencky, believes that the recent stasis in methane levels fundamentally represents the system coming to equilibrium. Khalil suspects that there have been no significant changes in the overall magnitude of emissions, but he does recognize that some of the individual sources must have become larger over the past few decades. The explanation for the enigmatic stabilization of methane levels, in his view, is that at least one of the other sources—rice agriculture in particular—has simultaneously become much smaller.
In a paper soon to be published in Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture: An Update (Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Greenhouse Gases and Animal Agriculture), Khalil and his Portland State colleague Martha J. Shearer point out that China has produced much of the world's rice for many decades, yet for the past 30 years, the area devoted to rice agriculture in that country has fallen from about 37 million hectares to a little more than 27 million. Khalil and Shearer further note that in these rice paddies nitrogen-based fertilizer has to a large extent replaced animal manure or "night soil" (human wastes). This change in how rice is grown in China reduces the amount of methane given off. What is more, these rice farmers are using less water than they did before—another change in agricultural practice that has the unintended side benefit of reducing methane emissions. [More]
People, people, people - you are soooo missing out if you are not following Jim Weisemeyer's extensive coverage of the presently subterranean farm policy debate.
Anyhoo, on Oct. 6 Jim ran a column that quoted extensively from an unnamed policy analyst who (oversimplifying here) basically disputed USDA pronouncements about who receives farm program money. The anonymous author (which makes the piece problematic for me to begin with) did some pretty torturous reasoning IMHO to make his case that everbody in the farm world was getting plenty of goodies.
I went ballistic, fumed for while and then logically shot [via e-mail] the messenger - er, Jim. Not a hurtful wound, of course, just the kind of shoot-the-gun-out-of-the-hand shot made famous by the Lone Ranger. My bad.
Well, boys and girls, it turns out I was not the only reader somewhat upset.
A few weeks after the column appeared I was contacted by USDA and told it was a "direct and personal attack" on Ag Secretary Mike Johanns as to what he has stated in farm policy speeches-- even though it did not specifically mention his name on some of the quotes included in the dispatch. Johanns, his Chief Economist, Keith Collins, and Communications Director Terri Teuber would eventually meet me during a meeting on this topic. Johanns had a very busy schedule on the day I conferred with Collins, but the Ag Secretary stopped by for more than a few minutes to make some of his views known on this and some other important matters. [More by subscription]
Jim is still a little too subsidy-tolerant for my taste, but NOBODY is putting out the information like he is.
Even if only for the next year - get your subscription going just to watch the fireworks.
I am beginning to lean toward the idea of a gathering inflation storm. Or at least increased upwards pressure on prices. While I have always been a hawk on inflation, the idea of keeping our money sound may not be the be-all-and-end-all for prosperity in the US, or the globe.
The trouble is real wage growth - getting a raise, for example - is described as an increased labor cost, not a worker income boost. The governments not-so-subtle point of view bias is in favor of business owners - not business workers. This is the unwritten message of the "ownership society". While it sounds admirable and works for me, the quiet truth is if allowed to come to full fruition, passive returns from owning "things" (houses are a good example) will be how most wealth is accumulated, not by working.
The result is for most Americans, our government is trying really hard to make sure you don't get ahead. To be sure, this is not done deliberately (I think) but dispassionately to protect the value of money.
To begin with, I'm not sure this emphasis on labor costs is warranted. I'm not alone.
No matter what standard econometric models might suggest, the empirical cyclical evidence indicates that labor cost inflation is not a consistent predictor of cyclical upturns in inflation. In fact, a fair amount of asymmetry exists in the cyclical behavior of the growth rates of the ECI, AHE, and ULC when compared with inflation cycles. All three series lead consumer price inflation at peaks, and lag it at troughs. [More]
One problem is when you have some factors you can measure easily and accurately, and some you can't (like the effect of immigrant labor) you zero in on those you can see.
One thing that is certain, is this focus on control of labor costs has coincided with stagnant wage growth for the vast majority of Americans.
Wages have been flat or declining on average for 5 years now. As the Financial Times story points out, we have had 5 years of economic growth, but the amount the median American worker earns every week has fallen by 3.2 per cent, adjusted for inflation, since the start of the recovery in November 2001. For the first time ever, the real wages of American workers have declined through more than four years of strong growth. Calculations by NDN show that the average American earned $480 a week when President Bush came to office. Controlling for rising prices, the average American still earns exactly $480 today. So while the American economy has been growing, the incomes of most Americans have been standing still. [More]
I think this is the reason that good unemployment numbers don't generate the political enthusiasm that Republicans especially expect. No matter what the economy's overall performance is like, life at the individual level for most has not been all that exciting.
There is much more to this issue of course, and I will be trying to wrap my mind around it in the January issue of Top Producer, but for now contemplate this:
If rapid wage growth is inflationary, why isn't rapid profit growth? In other words, why is the return to capital a good thing and the return to labor a negative influence? Aren't more dollars chasing limited goods and services equal regardless of their source?
Poor quality, and it's a little sad the guy was all by himself when he finally executed his 6 minutes of work, but if you like domino chains, you'll love this...
If red is Republican and blue is Democrat, what the heck is green?
Why, it's John Deere! And they are not amused with their products and logos appearing in political ads.
MOLINE, IL (November 03, 2006) — John Deere equipment and John Deere-branded clothing have been used in various political advertisements in the U.S. during recent campaigns advocating a candidate or issue. While John Deere is a strong advocate for free speech, use of the brand in political ads is not authorized by John Deere. Some members of the public have been led to believe that John Deere endorses a candidate or position because John Deere's brand or equipment appears in these advertisements. This is not the case. John Deere considers unauthorized use of its brand to be an infringement of the company's rights to protect its brand name.
Sherrod Brown (OH - Sen) - endorsed by Luke Perry (like, dude, I have no idea who he is) in suspicious apparel
They laughed when Mr. Carville, a Democratic strategist who worked for President Clinton, said he enjoyed undergraduate studies so much “I was there for, like, 11 years.” They roared when he called Mr. DeWine “an affable puppet to power” in Washington.
Mr. Perry jogged in late, wearing work boots, blue jeans, a baseball cap, and a long-sleeved John Deere T-shirt. He lamented the cost of tuition, which he said kept him from attending college after graduating from high school in Fredericktown, Ohio, and he urged the audience not to vote “for fear.” [More, but why?]
John Spratt (D-SC) - no, wait...he just took Deere's money:
Campaign filings show South Carolina residents accounted for about half of the money Norman's collected in the campaign, compared to 11 percent for Spratt. Another big chunk of Norman's money comes from political committees, the GOP party and other GOP candidates, as a string of national heavyweights have visited the state to raise money for Norman.
"We're proud to have a diverse basis of support, including hardworking South Carolinians, business defense funds and agricultural interests, including the John Deere company," said Spratt spokesman Adam Harris. [More]
Oh, puleeez... If my product/brand was so "apple pie" that aspiring politicos were drawn to it like pork barrel spending, I don't think I would be all that upset. In fact, I think I would try to call attention to it with disingenuous harrumphing.
On Nov. 7, more Americans will vote on electronic voting machines than ever before. No fewer than 39% of voters will cast their ballots electronically. Many of these votes will be cast on machines without any paper record. The votes will be fully electronic. As a computer science professor, and as someone who has been studying electronic voting for years, I am nervous. [More of really good article]
One crucial factor in the success of democracy is the confidence people have in the process. My guess is there is little to no public enthusiasm for the trustworthiness of voting machines. In fact, in places like Florida, Ohio, and Chicagothe expectation could mostly be for the results to be inaccurate, if not outright rigged.
Voting machines are touted as cheaper than all those people needed to handle paper ballots. And , of course, faster. Lord save us from having to wait a half-day longer to find out the results.
If the results on Tuesday differ significantly from the vast number of polls, look for an uproar over electronic balloting.
The solution may be deciding to invest in democracy first and technology second.
¶ 6:53 AM0 comments
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Lurching to the finish line...
Jan and I are within sight of the end of harvest. Sometime next week, the blogging should become more vigorous with book reviews, gift ideas, puzzling about "labor inflation", and more than you want to know about resveratrol.
I have noticed the yields are much better where there are actual corn plants.
The engineering and military view of the War in Iraq...
Debate can and will rage about how things are going in Iraq and what the future might contain. Certainly the issue has enough political spin to make any observer dizzy. However, these two items I found particularly disheartening:
Bechtel, the giant international construction firm is pulling out. Not only is it too unsafe for their workers, much of the work is simply allowed to fall apart again. Even with the billion of dollars at stake in Iraq, Bechtel is "cutting and running". Or being logical.
Bechtel's contracts were part of an enormous U.S. effort to put Iraq back on its feet after decades of wars and sanctions. That rebuilding campaign, once touted as the Marshall Plan of modern times, was supposed to win the hearts of skeptical Iraqis by giving them clean water, dependable power, telephones that worked and modern sanitation. President Bush said he wanted the country's infrastructure to be the very best in the Middle East.
But Bechtel -- which charged into Iraq with American "can-do" fervor -- found it tough to keep its engineers and workers alive, much less make progress in piecing Iraq back together.
"Did Iraq come out the way you hoped it would?" asked Cliff Mumm, Bechtel's president for infrastructure work. "I would say, emphatically, no. And it's heartbreaking." [More]
A joint editorial by the Army, Navy, and Air Force Times will call for the firing of Sec.Rumsfeld. This is more than unusual.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
When added to the change of heart by war architect Richard Perle, either the rats are fleeing the ship, or the captain is headed for the the shoals. We can entertain differences on how Iraq is going, but our inability to adapt could prove disastrous.
But then, if the Democrats win Congress and force a pullout, Republicans can blame the end all on them ("if only we had stayed the course").
Maybe Rove does know what he's doing, and is simply throwing guys like Santorum under the bus.
Count the number of times you listen to "Little Drummer Boy" this Christmas season. I'll think of some fantastic prize for legitimate answers. (My personal best was 47 times - 2005)
What - you didn't realize it was the Christmas season???
Remember - it's not Thanksgiving. It's the Two-Minute Warning for shopping season.
¶ 7:52 PM0 comments
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Gee, thanks, Mr. President...
The USFR producer sent me a link to a story that seemed appropriate for John's World:
Channel 4 is to unveil a shocking menagerie of genetically modified animals in a new show revealing the frightening leaps technology has taken.
Among the bizarre engineered creatures from around the world is a giant cow, three times the size of ordinary cattle, reared without fat to produce gallons of milk. [More]
Hmmm... Aside from the overwrought prose, this whole article sounds like a PR plant. Let's parse this sucker out for any inadvertent truth.
"...giant cow, three times the size of an ordinary cow..." The bovine in question is a Belgian Blue. While they are a large breed (cows at maturity average 1100 lbs.) they are not 3x. The average mature Holstein weighs in at about 1500 lbs, for example.
"...reared without fat...." Well, duh. How much cholesterol in grass?
"...produce gallons of milk..." This one made me blink. Why would a British paper talk in gallons instead of liters? Anyhoo, the average dairy cow in the US produces about 1600 lbs /month or a little over 50 lbs/day which means about 6 gallons using round numbers.
So to sum up, you oughta see this swell TV show in order to view a sorta large cow which eats grass and produces the usual amount of milk.
US Farm Report host John Phipps surfs the Web so you don't have to...
About Me
Name: John Phipps
Location: Chrisman, Illinois, United States
Jan and I farm 1700 acres near Chrisman, IL. I have also written humor and commentary for Farm Journal and Top Producer for 13 years.
Please visit my website (www.johnwphipps.com) to learn about my speaking services for your group's next meeting.
