This Week In Ag #173
As we continue to celebrate USA250, America’s semi-quincentennial, it brings back memories of our bicentennial. As we’re seeing now, pageantry and patriotism were aplenty. Even more so back then. The classic movie Rocky was centered around a bicentennial celebration. Spirit of ’76 flags were seen draped across front porches and Main Streets from Maine to California. The US Mint even released commemorative bicentennial quarters.
Like now, the agricultural sector was staring at major crossroads.
The early 1970s were the most prosperous times in the history of US farming. Corn prices had doubled since the beginning of the decade, soybeans had quadrupled. A historic trade deal with the Soviet Union boosted overall farm income eightfold from 1972 to 1973. The USSR purchased one-quarter of the entire USA wheat harvest in 1972. At home, beef consumption rose over 33%. Farmland values were increasing by 20% annually. Grain bins were popping up at breakneck speed on farms across the fruited plain.
But with all this prosperity came a huge challenge: prosperity itself.
Could this economic boom continue? Farmers were now planting fencerow-to-fencerow to meet this growing demand for US grain. They were making huge investments in land, buildings and equipment. Would this unprecedented global demand continue?
Meanwhile, Cold War tensions were starting to shift from the Détente achieved earlier in the decade to more aggressive competition. The energy crisis, brought on by the OPEC oil embargo earlier in the decade, was still an issue, soon to worsen over tensions with, none other than, Iran. High energy costs were, as they still are, a driving factor in steepening inflation, which leads to high interest rates.
A storm was starting to brew across farm country. How farmers and farm policy makers managed these issues would profoundly shape the farm economy for years to come.
During the 1976 Presidential Election, Americans sought change, largely from the lingering fatigue of the Watergate scandal. Ironically, a farmer was elected to the White House. While President Jimmy Carter, a peanut grower from Plains, Georgia, painted the image of a friendly farmer, many of his policy decisions would turn out to be anything but friendly to farmers.
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How Deep Should You Plant?
This time every year, hemming and hawing would rage on at the Nichols Farm. Dad and Uncle Gary would not only agonize over when to plant, but how deep to drop the seeds. From “It’s been awfully dry, we better wait for a rain” to “It still feels a little wet, maybe we should run the field cultivator over it again” (gulp) to my annual favorite: “But If we get a beatin’ rain, those tops will turn into a layer of concrete.” Prompting, “Then we’ll have to rotary hoe.” Ah yes, the rotary hoe. A toolbar affixed with several blades resembling weapons thrown by Ninjas: rotating steel wheels featuring curved teeth. It’s used to break up crusted soils (and in some cases to incorporate herbicide) formed by those beatin’ rains.
Beef Is More Than a Business, It’s a Passion.
Beef Is More Than a Business, It’s a Passion. Few professions capture our imagination like ranching. There’s an undeniable romanticism attached to cowboy culture. Taylor Sheridan has made a career depicting it. And let’s be real, they don’t make movies or write songs about pork and poultry producers. Western lifestyle is at a fever pitch. Brands like Ariat and Wrangler are thriving. And so is the cattle industry. Beef prices are enjoying record highs. And when it comes to producing beef, nobody does it better than the American cowboy. US cattlemen produce over 21% of the world’s beef supply – 28 billion pounds annually – ranking #1 in the world. Yet they do it with just 6% of the world’s cattle herd.
This Week in Ag #38
When you’re carving your Halloween pumpkins this week, be sure to thank a bee. That’s because pumpkins are not self-pollinating plants. Unlike cotton and soybeans, where pollen produced within a flower fertilizes the ovary of the same flower on the same plant, pumpkins have specific male and female flowers across their vines. So they need bees to carry pollen between the flowers. Pumpkin growers will rent bee colonies during the growing season to ensure better pollination and higher yields.
