Bluegrass Farm Analysis Association 640 South Broadway Suite 210 Lexington, KY 40508 Colby A. Blair Linda Jones Carol Eads 606-252-3673 606-225-9043 FAX [email protected]N E W S Bluegrass Farm Analysis Association L E T T E R Vol. 1 No. 1 October 25, 1999 Nice To Have Met You! INSIDE Thank You! ......................... 1 About Me .......................... 1 Annual Meeting .................... 2 What Have The Protein Diets Meant For Farmers? ...................... 2 Farmers To Receive $8.7 Billion ........................ 2 Yields Through The Century .......... 3 How Many People Does One Farmer Supply? ............................ 3 Did You Know? ..................... 3 County Spotlights ................... 5 Your Suggestions Are Welcome ....... 5 Thank You! By now I hope that I have visited with everyone. I want to thank you for the hospitality and your patience as I begin to get settled into my position. I had an opportunity to visit a lot of nice farm operations and things are beginning to come together. Please do not hesitate to give me a call if you have any questions or suggestions. The office is equipped with an answering machine so you are able to leave a message after hours. Speaking of hours, I am in the office every morning from 7:00 AM until 3:30 PM. If I am on the road please leave a message with either Linda or Carol and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Another well-deserved thanks goes out to Darwin Foley, area specialist for Louisville. Darwin brings his 20+ years experience to the Bluegrass area by accompanying me on all of my first visits and providing training throughout my first year in this position. THANK YOU Darwin!!!!!!!! About Me My name is Colby A. Blair and I am married to Heather R. Adams-Blair. We just celebrated our 1 st anniversary on October 24 th . I am originally from Owensboro, KY where I attended Owensboro Catholic High School. I worked on grain, vegetable and tobacco farms as well as a BBQ restaurant, an aluminum plant, and a construction company. I attended Transylvania University from 1991-1995 and received a B.A. in Economics. While at Transy, I worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Bureau of Prisons, and Three Chimney’s Horse Farms. From 1995 to 1996, I attended UK where I received a M.S. in Agricultural Economics with an emphasis in Farm Management. While enrolled in UK, I continued to work at Three Chimneys and did an internship with Miles Farm Supply in Owensboro. With Miles I conducted a study on the effectiveness of a Melroe- Ingersoll Rand Spra-Coupe that was equipped with an Electronic Spray Process. I used this information to write a paper for completion of my M.S. After graduating in December of 1996 I took a job with Novartis Crop Protection as a Sales Representative. I covered a 7 county area in southwest Indiana and primarily served grain and vegetable farms. In July of 1998 I moved back to Lexington, KY. I became a rental sales representative for Wilson Equipment Company. My territory consisted of the very same counties that I cover now with Farm Analysis. I worked that job until the current position became vacant. Heather is currently working on her Ph.D. in Kinesiology at UK. She will defend her dissertation in March of 2000 and is presently teaching at both Transylvania University and UK. She is originally from Hindman, KY. I enjoy most any and all sports, including NASCAR and truck & tractor pulling. I am fascinated with Kentucky history and I attend Christ the King Catholic Church.
By now I hope that I have visited witheveryone. I want to thank you for thehospitality and your patience as I begin toget settled into my position. I had anopportunity to visit a lot of nice farmoperations and things are beginning tocome together. Please do not hesitate togive me a call if you have any questions orsuggestions. The office is equipped withan answering machine so you are able toleave a message after hours. Speaking ofhours, I am in the office every morning from7:00 AM until 3:30 PM. If I am on the roadplease leave a message with either Linda orCarol and I will get back to you as soon asI can.
Another well-deserved thanks goesout to Darwin Foley, area specialist forLouisville. Darwin brings his 20+ yearsexperience to the Bluegrass area byaccompanying me on all of my first visitsand providing training throughout my firstyear in this position.
THANK YOU Darwin!!!!!!!!
About Me
My name is Colby A. Blair and I ammarried to Heather R. Adams-Blair. We justcelebrated our 1st anniversary on October24th. I am originally from Owensboro, KYwhere I attended Owensboro Catholic HighSchool. I worked on grain, vegetable andtobacco farms as well as a BBQ restaurant,an aluminum plant, and a constructioncompany.
I attended Transylvania Universityfrom 1991-1995 and received a B.A. inEconomics. While at Transy, I worked forthe U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Bureau ofPrisons, and Three Chimney’s Horse Farms.
From 1995 to 1996, I attended UKwhere I received a M.S. in AgriculturalEconomics with an emphasis in FarmManagement. While enrolled in UK, Icontinued to work at Three Chimneys anddid an internship with Miles Farm Supplyin Owensboro. With Miles I conducted astudy on the effectiveness of a Melroe-Ingersoll Rand Spra-Coupe that wasequipped with an Electronic SprayProcess. I used this information to write apaper for completion of my M.S.
After graduating in December of 1996I took a job with Novartis Crop Protectionas a Sales Representative. I covered a 7county area in southwest Indiana andprimarily served grain and vegetable farms.In July of 1998 I moved back to Lexington,KY. I became a rental sales representativefor Wilson Equipment Company. Myterritory consisted of the very samecounties that I cover now with FarmAnalysis. I worked that job until thecurrent position became vacant.
Heather is currently working on herPh.D. in Kinesiology at UK. She willdefend her dissertation in March of 2000and is presently teaching at bothTransylvania University and UK. She isoriginally from Hindman, KY.
I enjoy most any and all sports,including NASCAR and truck & tractorpulling. I am fascinated with Kentuckyhistory and I attend Christ the KingCatholic Church.
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Annual Meeting
According to our by-laws the annualmeeting is to be held each November. The1999 Annual Meeting has been set forNovember 22, 1999 at the Fayette CountyExtension Office. We will also be holdingelections for vacant positions on theBoard of Directors and we will be votingon an amendment to the by-laws. JackCrowner, Senior Farm Director for KY AG-NET and owner-operator of the FarmService Network serving radio stations inIndiana and Tennessee, will be ourfeatured speaker. I would appreciate it ifyou and your family would attend. Themeal will be catered by Red, Hot & BlueMemphis Pit BBQ.
What Have TheProtein DietsMeant ForFarmers?
CHICAGO-The high protein diet craze thathas people pigging out on steak, chopsand even bacon may be plumping up meatprices. “Confirmed pasta eaters are nowred-meat eaters,” says Chicago analyst BillPlummer, who is among the industrywatchers contending that the phenomenonis boosting prices for meat at thewholesale level and on commoditymarkets.
The high-protein weight-loss diet hasbeen promoted in such best sellers as“Protein Power” and “Dr. Atkins’ New DietRevolution.” It’s a meat lover’s dreambecause it recommends lots of proteininstead of carbohydrates.
At the same time, prices are rising formeat and livestock futures, which arespeculative contracts for cattle, hogs andpork bellies. Prices charged bywholesalers are rising too. Demand forbeef is expected to increase 1.6% over lastyear, the National Cattlemen’s BeefAssociation said yesterday. Demand forpork is up 2.3% this year, according to theNational Pork Producers Council.
Live cattle futures on the ChicagoMercantile Exchange are in the healthy$0.70/pound range. And wholesale prices
for fresh pork bellies, from which bacon ismade, have flirted with the $0.80/poundmark. That surpasses even the traditionallypricier untrimmed pork loins, though at leastsome of the rise is attributed to the floodingin North Carolina that wiped out about30,000 hogs.
Dan Vaught, a livestock analyst withA.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis, says thehigh-protein fad is playing a role inbolstering hog prices, which traditionallydrop when people put their grills away assummer ends. Analyst Michael Swinford ofRosenthal-Collins Inc. in Chicago thinks thefad will be short-lived, especially becausethe American Dietetic Association recentlycalled high-protein diets “a nightmare.”
1The Courier Journal, “High-protein dietfad pushes up demand for meat, fattenslivestock-futures prices.” Martha Irvine,AP. October 23, 1999. D1.
Farmers To Receive$8.7 Billion
WASHINGTON-Despite low corn andsoybean prices, a typical Iowa farmer standsto clear $48,000 this year, thanks to goodweather and the federal farm program. Now$16,000 more is coming from Washington.In Texas, where a 1,700-acre cotton farm canexpect to earn about $180,000, thegovernment is going to make it an even$200,000.
On many farms, the aid is expected toboost income by 25% to 30% or more evenas producers are bringing in bumper crops,according to an analysis by Texas A&MUniversity’s Agricultural and Food PolicyCenter. The cash comes from the $8.7billion package of emergency farmassistance that President Clinton signedinto law on Friday. Iowa alone will getabout $610 million, or $25 for every acre offarmland. That would increase the state’snet farm income this year to $2.6 billion,$400 million over 1998.
“From an economic standpoint the yearis looking pretty positive and certainlybrighter if the president signed that bill,”said Ron McCartney, speaking over the dinof his combine as he harvested hisnortheast Iowa farm last week.
Farmers in Kentucky are to receive $64million in emergency assistance. In Indiana,
farmers will receive $267 million.The assistance package will benefitvirtually every grain and cotton farm in thecountry, large or small, regardless of theirfinancial situation or how good their cropswere; the bigger the farm, the bigger thecheck.
Existing government programs, whichguarantee minimum prices for crops suchas wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton,ensure that most farmers can make enoughto cover their operating costs, economistssay. But some farmers, especially thosewho borrowed heavily for land andequipment, say they would have troublestaying in business without additionalgovernment aid.
With the extra money, a 950-acre cornand soybean farm in Iowa will have a netincome, not including long-term debt anddepreciation costs, of about $64,000,according to the Texas A&M analysis. A2,200-acre Iowa farm would get an extra$38,000, boosting its net income for theyear to $146,000.
The effect of the aid varies widelyaccording to crop and region of thecountry, but it is a significant amount ofmoney for nearly any operation:
* A 425-acre rice operation inCalifornia would get $53,000, morethan double what the farm wouldotherwise make this year. Ricefarmers have been hit particularlyhard by a slump in export markets.
* A typical farm in eastern NorthDakota that grows wheat, barley andsunflowers would get $18,000,adding 31% to the operation’sexpected income.
* In South Carolina, a 1,500-acre cornand soybean operation would get$30,000, increasing its net income by35%.
Most of the money in the aid package,about $6 billion, was designed tocompensate farmers for depressedcommodity prices. Of that, $5.5 billion isgoing to growers as a doubling of theannual “market transition” payments theynormally would get under the 1996 farmlaw. The new total payment for the year iscapped at $160,000 per farm; landownerscan receive some of the money so long asthey share in the expenses of the farm.An additional $475 million in the aidpackage is earmarked for farmers who grow
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soybeans, sunflowers and other oilseedcrops that were omitted from the markettransition payments. An additional $1.4billion in the aid package will go toproducers, primarily on the east coast, wholost crops to drought and flooding thisyear.
Critics of the bailout say too muchmoney is going to large farms andlandowners in a handful of states. Sixstates - Iowa, Illinois, Texas, Nebraska,Kansas, and Minnesota - will get $2.8billion among them. Some farmers fear thatbetter-off producers will use the extra cashto expand their operations, driving up landvalues in the process. At the very least,economists agree, the payments willprevent land rents from falling.
“It seems like everybody is getting themoney, regardless of need,” said DonPeterson, a specialist in farm managementat South Dakota State University. “It’sgoing to allow those that had goodyields...to gobble up those that had badluck.”
The Clinton administration hasexpressed similar concerns. “The currentfarm programs tend to reinforce largeroperations,” said Agriculture SecretaryDan Glickman. Farm organizations resistedGlickman’s efforts to change the way theaid would be delivered, saying that wouldonly slow the payments. Farmers say thatoperations of all sizes need and deservethe help until commodity prices rebound.With grain surpluses worldwide, prices areexpected to remain low at least throughnext year unless there are large-scale cropfailures.
“There’s no question that the moneythey’re throwing us is going to behelpful...but it’s not really a long-termsolution by any means,” said McCartney.
The following time line may help explain thechange in yields through the century.
1920-40: Gradual increase in farm productionresults from expanded use of mechanizedpower.
1930-35: Use of hybrid seed corn becomescommon in the Corn Belt.
1944-55: Significant use of herbicides andinsecticides.
1945-70: Change from horses to tractors;the second American agriculturalrevolution.
1950s-60s: NH3 increasingly used as cheapsource of nitrogen, spurring higher yields.
1960s: Single cross hybrids, intensive cropmanagement.
1960: 95% of corn acreage planted withhybrid seed.
1970s: Introduction of pyrethroids andglyphosate.
1980s: Introduction of sulfonylurea andimidazolinone herbicides.
1981: U.S. fertilizer consumption peaked at23.7 million nutrient tons.
Mid-1990s: Introduction of herbicide-tolerant and insect-resistant crops.
1997: Phosphate and potash use increasedby 1% and 2%, respectively, and stood at22.3 million short tons.
3Farm Chemicals, “Yields Through TheCenturies.” September, 1999. Pages 12-13.
How Many PeopleDoes One FarmerSupply?
1930: One farmer supplies 9.8 people.1940: One farmer supplies 10.7 people.1950: One farmer supplies 15.5 people.1960: One farmer supplies 25.8 people.1970: One farmer supplies 75.8 people.1980: One farmer supplies 115 people.1995: One farmer supplies 129 people.
4Farm Chemicals, “Yields Through TheCenturies.” September, 1999. Pages 12-13.
Did You Know?
1900-09: The average annual value ofagricultural exports was $917 million, or58% of all exports.
1902: Congress passed the ReclamationAct, which enabled the creation of majorirrigation projects in the arid West onfederal land.
1902: Albert B. Graham laid thegroundwork for the 4-H club when heorganized an agricultural boys’ club inSpringfield Township, OH.
1900-10: One of them o s t i n f l u e n t i a li n d i v i d u a l s i nagriculture of the 20th
c e n t u r y , G e o r g eWashington Carver,developed more than300 products from thepeanut and discoveredmore than 100 uses forthe sweet potato.
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1914: The Smith Lever Act created theCooperative Federal-State ExtensionService, setting up a partnership betweenUSDA and state colleges and universities.
1910-15: Big open-geared gasoline-powered tractors came into use in areas ofextensive farming. About 1,000 tractorswere in use in 1910 and by 1920,approximately 246,000 were in use.
1920s: William Volck helped launchchemical pest control with thedevelopment of summer spray oils for useon fruit trees.
1921: In the world’s first “crop duster,”John A. Macready took off from a field inDayton, OH, and applied 100-pound loadof calcium arsenate dust to a caterpillar-infested grove of catalpa trees a few milesaway.
1922: President Harding signed theCapper-Volstead Act, protecting farmersagainst prosecution under antitrust laws.The National Cooperative Council wouldform in 1929.
1926: The first hybrid seed corn company,Hi-Bred Corn Co., was founded by theinfluential Henry A. Wallace. Hi-BredCorn Co. would eventually become thecurrent Pioneer Hi-Bred international, Inc.
1928: The Future Farmers of America, FFA,was founded bringing agriculture,education and America’s youth together.
1930s: The “Dirty Thirties” or “Dust BowlDays” were marked by blizzards,tornadoes, floods, droughts and dirtstorms. The Dust Bowl, hitting theSouthern and Great Plains regions thehardest, led to the development of soilconservation methods in agriculture.
1940s: First introduced in the 30s, but notwidely adopted until the 40s, hybrid seedraised yields to new heights and madefarmers aware of the importance of properfertilization.
1941-45: Clarence Birdseye was instrumentalin popularizing the frozen-food industry,and by 1949, Birdseye had perfected theanhydrous process, which reduced the timeneeded for food freezing from 18 hours toone-half hour.
1945-55: Increased use of pesticides,including DDT, which was used all over theworld to improve crop yields and publichealth. From 1940 to 1970, more than 4billion pounds were applied, with 80% usedin agriculture.
1940s-50s: Anhydrous ammonia increasedin usage as a cheap source of nitrogen andincreased yields.
1940s-50s: Increased use of fertilizer as bulkblending plants were built. One of the firstbulk blending plants was built in Culpeper,VA in 1947 by Southern States Cooperative.
1953: President Eisenhower signed the FarmCredit Act, FCA, which provided for theestablishment of production creditassociations to make short-term andintermediate-term loans to farmers.
1960s: The high flotation tire was firstintroduced, spurring the development of theapplication business and contributing towide adoption of bulk blend fertilizers.
1960s: Soybean acreage expanded in theU.S. as farmers increasingly saw it as analternative crop.
1970: President Nixon established theEnvironmental Protection Agency, whichhas made monumental changes in the waypesticides are regulated.
1970: Known as the father of the “GreenRevolution,” Dr. Norman Borlaug won theNobel Peace Prize. He has been a constantchampion for the use of fertilizers and cropchemicals in food production.
1977: Under the sponsorship of the IowaFertilizer and Chemical Association, theNational Custom Applicators Expositionwas launched as the “greatest show onearth.” For the first time, dealers andapplicators could test drive new equipmentunder field conditions.
1980s: The aerial application industrybattles for its life as stricter applicationregulations come into play.
1980s: No-till and low-till farming practicesgain wide adaptation as an efficient andeffective way to conserve soil. Farmers areattracted to the fuel, machinery and timesavings.
1984: USDA Secretary John Blockimplements the payment-in-kind, PIK,program, resulting in the third-largestacreage reduction ever and a substantialdecline in sales of crop inputs.
1990s: Biotechnology advances bring newdevelopments in crop, livestock and othercommodities.
1990s: Site-specific farming gainspopularity, as technologies such asvariable-rate applicat ion, globalpositioning systems, remote sensing andyield monitors make agriculture“information intensive.”
1996: Agricultural exports set a new recordat $59.8 billion and net farm incomeexceeds $51 billion, also a new record.
1996-99: The FQPA passed by unanimousvotes in Congress and ended the DelaneyClause, but also imposed sweepingchanges in pesticide registration. Threeyears later, EPA administrator CarolBrowner announced a ban on methylparathion and a cut in uses for azinphos-methyl.
5Farm Chemicals, “Yields Through TheCenturies.” September, 1999. Pages 39-49.
6KY Agriculture Statistics 1998-99, Pages 128-58.
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County SpotlightsThe following table shows how counties inthe Bluegrass area stack up against therest of the state in terms of burley tobaccopounds of production for 1998, number ofall cattle and calves on 1/1/99, tons ofalfalfa hay for 1998, and 1998 milkproduction pounds. The number shownrepresents a ranking out of 120 counties.
County Burley Cattle Alfalfa Milk
Anderson 57 57 37 33
Bath 22 37 36 49
Bourbon 3 8 13 N/A
Boyle 38 28 48 47
Clark 26 9 61 N/A
Fayette 9 42 38 N/A
Fleming 11 11 1 3
Franklin 29 62 54 N/A
Garrard 17 18 19 36
Harrison 12 25 22 N/A
Jessamine 19 37 64 66
Lincoln 23 5 7 5
Madison 8 4 49 54
Mason 5 36 5 15
Mercer 18 26 18 25
Montgomery 28 34 54 52
Nicholas 34 48 35 61
Robertson 66 91 63 64
Scott 6 24 25 N/A
Woodford 10 39 28 N/A
Your Suggestions AreWelcome
I encourage you to make suggestions for future BFANewsletters. If you would like to hear about a specifictopic please call the office and I will research it for youand provide a story for the next newsletter.
University of KentuckyDepartment of Agricultural Economics
400 Charles E. Barnhart Bldg. Lexington, KY 40546-0276
