Biodiesel on farms

As the biodiesel research continues to make progress and optimism pushes us forward, this is really where I can practically see the new oilseed crops going. An oilseed crusher is just one more depreciable investment that a farmer can add to the schedule and if he can effectively grow these crops for his own biodiesel then the economic savings will be huge. We're never going to fuel the average American driver with this, but this is pretty cool stuff.

Ag Thesaurus

For those of my readers who rarely know what the heck I'm talking about, try out this updated agricultural thesaurus. And for those of you who are just fascinated by the ways in which words have changed over the years, it's a fun little reference tool.

It's a pretty quiet week for me. Being so busy with school has kept my head in the books, and with abstracts pending in 3 weeks and exams just finished, I'm just keeping my head above water. We also started lambing out at our place last night, dropping twins and a single. Animals always seem to build energy off of each other, because it wasn't long after the lambs dropped that the steers jumped the fence and starting running around.

Speaking of the steers, these are probably the nicest steers I have seen in a while on our place. Combining that with how well they handle for my younger brother, this should be a great show year. They are growing and look very healthy; seeing the profile yesterday against the perfect snow was beautiful. It's days like that that I miss living out on the farm.

On it goes...

Barilla pasta became the first big pasta-maker to join the cage-free egg movement. Whether or not they were pressured into it or bought out by HSUS, we'll probably never know. But what I do know is that they represent just one in a huge wave of propaganda conquests by HSUS as they buy, force or lie their way into the forefront of animal rights idiocracy. I think it's great that Barilla cares so much about the welfare of chickens, but maybe before they force more of the market production to convert to cage-free production, they might've wanted to ask whether or not cage-free is really a better system for the bird. For further reading on the matter, check out this OSU compilation on the welfare of birds in both systems. You might just be surprised.

While we're at the old grind of trying to spread facts to the few who care to elevate about media-hyped fiction, try out this sow housing fact sheet released by the USDA and ARS. I found it to be a more honest and unbiased evaluation of the current situation and research. In class today, we discussed the highly controversial issues surrounding the care and euthanasia of pigs. I understand the concern with animal welfare. As long as there are people beating animals, we have not done enough. But what frustrates me is the momentum from video releases which are used to push for irrational methods of caring for animals, such as untested swine housing, lack of castration, castration with anesthetics which are more detrimental to the piglet than the surgery, and utopic descriptions of how a pig should be allowed to act to exhibit "normal" behavior. For those of you who haven't seen pigs, don't watch their normal behavior - it will make a bad impression (ever seen Old Yeller?).

Finally, I have just two topics that border gross for me. First is the suspected live burial of pigs during the spread of foot and mouth disease in Korea. Foot and mouth disease is a horrible disease which spreads much faster than the vaccine would be able to work. While Compassion advocates the vaccine, you need to understand that the animals in question were obviously already afflicted with the disease. They should obviously have been euthanized prior to burial but they were not going to be saved one way or another.

And then there's the Dutch guy who thinks we should eat bugs. What do animal rights activists think about this? What a tasty alternative to bacon, eh?

Pennycress

This summer when I was compiling biofuel information, I couldn't even find any reading material on this plant that didn't talk about how to kill it. In fact, when I put together the summary article, I mostly talked about what things we knew about it as a weed. Now, it's touted as a great biofuel alternative for the future. Some of these things change faster than we know how to keep up with them.

More interesting might be the fact that my suggested link on my Gmail sidebar as I read the ARS e-newsletter was "Where to buy sulfuric acid". Awesome.

ARS updates

I had planned to include some Gateway to Animal Welfare news articles from last week which were very interesting but access to them is currently limited due to a server problem on their end. Look for these in the future, as well as an uploaded powerpoint with a link embedded so that you can view my summer presentation related to the dairy taildocking debate.

In the meantime, please enjoy the bi-weekly ARS e-newsletter updates.

First is an article related to the increase in Canola being planted in the Pacific Northwest. After my spring and summer employment with MSU extension and the work I put into biofuel research lit reviews, I can honestly say that Canola oil does show great potential as an up and coming biodiesel fuel alternative. This is also a really pretty crop as I noticed when we overseas in the Salisbury area of England. The question will be whether it can be more environmentally friendly in the long-run than other energy alternatives. Wind energy certainly hasn't held up to the expectations held for it.

As Menhaden fish meal becomes in shorter supply and thus higher prices, ARS is also involved in research to feed more plant-based diets to fish on fish farms. Besides the supply aspect and sustainability concerns, when I research fish meal last year and its use as a feedstuff, it was unbelievable to me how expensive it was as a source of protein and specific amino and fatty acids in a diet. It might be a great feedstuff for diet balancing but it is just too expensive to be used in the quantities it was being used in.

Alltech's World Equestrian Games were also deemed highly successful as they came to a close after 16 days with over 0.5 million people in attendance over the span of the games. USA did pretty well with 8 medals in the events as well. I would've loved to have gone. I've heard about it at the Alltech booths for the last couple of years, but there is just so much to do this time of year and driving down to Lexington just couldn't be tacked on to life right now.

With increasing concerns about the E. Coli contamination and subsequent illnesses, the USDA-FSIS is now requiring inspectors and ground beef producers to specify the origin of the beef so that traceback on contaminated supplies will be faster and reduce illness.

Fishy News

My most recent ARS e-newsletter was very fish-based, including both an article on feeding fish to fish, and also the benefits of fish for humans. Now, I love eating fish. But I don't love the smell and taste (yes, I've tasted it) of fish meal. What better population to feed fish byproducts to than the ones who already consume fish byproducts naturally: the fish? In small quantities this represents a great opportunity to utilize byproducts to produce food.

In other news, Stephen Colbert branched into agriculture again this past week when he decided to discuss the government crackdown on raw milk sales.

Newsletter Updates

As I scan through my e-newsletters I am really starting to question why I get the USEF one. I haven't really found anything of interest in any of them and all they do is list different horses and people who I never know and the amount of money they won at a place I've never heard of. Anyhow, that's my update for the USEF. Just in case you're interested in watching the World Equestrian Games, visit this link and it should help you figure things out. I'll admit that it might be worth watching.

I frankly didn't even read this article. I couldn't get past the title which just reminded me of my sailing instructor and his explanation of boat physics.

Good news that as we predict higher levels of CO2, ARS also expects better responses from crops. And bad pickles are key in a possible method of cleaning up after the textile industry.

Courtesy of the Gateway to Animal Welfare, check out this report and especially the number of cattle bruised upon harvest. 33%!? Amazing to me.

I also wonder how much this HSUS offshoot paid for such a celebrity supportive statement. Ridiculous. I mean, seriously guys, the Dalai Lama? And if you're going to cut castrated pigs from your market supply, won't their fate now be similar to that of male chicks? Great job guys, big fail.

That's all for today, I'm gonna beat the traffic home.

Newsletter Updates and Bad Storms

From my ARS newsletter comes word that they are now using space images to help with Chesapeake Bay cleanup, the National Arboretum is now including edibles in their plant display, there is ongoing research to improve the heat tolerance of corn-based plastics (which is good because they're highly sensitive right now), and finally research is proceeding into the improvement of toxin resistance in corn.

Courtesy of Feedstuffs with the ADSA comes a couple of good conversations about national animal ID programs and the pros/cons of disease tracing in relation to recent Salmonella outbreaks. These are both worth your time to read. National ID programs have seemed like such a great idea to improve livestock biosecurity and disease tracking, but they've been slow to come into being, especially due to the scope of such a project. The disease tracing discussion is a very interesting read with well-represented viewpoints.

I was recently discussing the methods of poultry euthanasia and so this article is pretty interesting to me. It seems like basically the chickens are being taken to "high altitudes" as the air is thinned and they reach "instantaneous death".

Also, the USDA has published the first handbook giving national guidelines for organic products. Hopefully this is just what is needed to provide more consistent control over the hyped organic market.

I like the take Feedstuffs took on the veal video released by Mercy for Animals about tethered calf housing for veal calves in Ohio. Frankly, when I heard about the video, my first response was just "why on earth do I care?". It's not that I don't care about calf housing, but this is something that we've already acted on in Ohio and the US veal industry has acted on it as well. This video is too late and served no purpose at all.

On a different note, fall is coming very quickly and there are so many things I love about fall. My birthday, bonfires, harvest, the landscape colors, the cooler weather, thunderstorms, football and livestock shows. With the Delaware County Fair (not my favorite website in the world) and the Farm Science Review just around the corner, I am busier than ever as I try to prepare for school starting. I apologize in advance if I can't get on here often.

However, before I go I want to comment on a storm yesterday that was pretty fantastic. I was on a farm north of Mt. Vernon when the lights started flickering and the fans kicked off. Almost immediately there was sharp lightning and it got to flashing a lot. This was about 5.30 pm. We sat there in the barn as the rain started to pour, wind blowing the rain all the way through the windows to the center of the building. The power failed permanently and it's no wonder why. When we emerged we found that this farmer had lost 3 of his 4 barns (fortunately we were in the one still standing) and there were trees and powerlines down everywhere. It took 45 minutes just to get out of the area as many people volunteered to clean up the roads. The area was hit very hard, and the corn was absolutely flattened in some places, while the crests of hills were missing most of their treelines where you could see that the wind had topped the hill in powerful fashion. Just another day in my life, but I am thankful to have gotten out as easy as we did. The picture I added shows the lightning strikes that evening and you can see a highlighted red area where I was that day.

Ag news update

For those of you who have tagged along with the antibiotic concerns bandwagon, this is just another article in line for you. I'm not saying that I have no concerns about antibiotics being over-administered, mis-administered or fed to livestock species. It's just that I think we've got much bigger things to be worrying about right now. However, this report from Denmark is positive about reducing antibiotic use.

Switchgrass and its counterparts are amazing to me. Their growth is so accelerated and the fact that they are perennials and can also be used for ethanol is kinda a wow for me. Now if we could just get plants to actually use them for ethanol production and also get farmers to produce the grass and store it for year-round supply to the plant, then maybe people might get interested in the concept.

Mom, if you're reading this, there is actually something that mushrooms are probably good for.

Every so often I get the emails from the Ohio Farm Bureau about membership numbers and updates on how each county is doing, etc. I guess what always surprises me is that as an Ohio resident, it was a no-brainer for me to join the Ohio Farm Bureau even if I had no interest in agriculture at all. Sure, the Ohio Farm Bureau is the state voice for agriculture and the face for many agricultural actions that occur in the state, but they offer much more than support for the average farmer. I got a great discount on my health insurance and just a couple weeks ago at a wedding met up with some urban people who used the OFB membership to get a great discount on Nationwide insurance. between that and hotel and rental deals as well, it's just a wonder to me that there aren't more members in the state. If you aren't a member and want to cash in on the benefits, please join the Ohio Farm Bureau at http://ofbf.org/.

My alma mater has finally finished building the new anaerobic digester research building! I'm very excited that they continue in this focus - hopefully something positive will come out of all the work they'll put into the research.

This is exactly why we need to continue to protect our farmers and produce our own food. Without this we suffer a huge potential threat from those countries which supply us and anyone who can influence them.

And props to Blanche Lincoln on this latest success in representing her people.

Finally for today, I'd like to second Trent Loos in congratulating the beef industry on these great new reported numbers. Remember these the next time that someone tells you about how terrible the meat industry and livestock production is for the environment. The future promises to show increased efforts to reduce GHG emissions and the carbon footprint as we also struggle to produce more food with less space. That way we can avoid eating things like insects...

Mid-July Heat and Conklin Update

Boy this heat sure has been bad this week. After driving to Denver and back, I can safely say that there are a) a lot of flat lands between here and there, b) I don't plan to drive there again soon, c) there is thankfully still farmland in the blessed country, d) I have seen all of the heat you're all suffering. Good luck keeping the crops growing and healthy.

My trip to Denver was pretty awesome. It was great to visit with and meet so many people in the past week and I greatly enjoyed giving my talk on tail docking in dairy cattle. I also had the opportunity to listen to many research projects and read various posters, including welfare and nutrition topics.

On that note I will turn back to the grind mill with ARS reports related to ongoing research.

First, check out the article outlining different egg production practices and the fact that they found no significant difference in egg quality between the different practices.

Also, some cool engineering research on how to make levees last longer.

I don't know about you, but I get nervous every time we talk about bringing in a pest to change an ecosystem.

And I will close with an update via Humane Watch about the Conklin Farm legal case and prosecution of that scummy Billy Jo Gregg, Jr.

ARS update

As I am on the ARS listserv I just thought that I would share a few interesting agricultural research updates which came my way today.

First is research related to pear bugs and their pheromones that they release. Interesting to me is all of the studying related to ways to prevent use of pesticides on fruits. Good luck to the researchers on this!

Second is research on how virgin olive oil changes the activity of genes in humans. This modification of gene expression is something that must be a pain to research, but it absolutely fascinating to read about.