A fair thing to do before you die

The Iowa State Fair has been put on one of those lists of places you’re supposed to visit before you die. Having just returned from my umpteenth visit to the fair, I guess I can now pass away a happy man.

It was a fine time to be at the fair today, given the nice weather and a stroll with good friends. A few things of note:

* The biggest boar and world record big bull attracted a lot of attention. (But is this a good way to promote livestock production to the general public?)
* The sight of of kids sleeping among their livestock is always touching.
* You wonder who pays to visit the snake house exhibit.
* A mule can be the choice of ride by a livestock control agent. A real nice mule.
* The antique farm machinery doesn’t look as old anymore.
* Minor breeds of dairy cattle are prettier than Holsteins.
* The fair puts up with a fair number of vices: You can drink beer in the morning, people smoke, and you can eat just about anything without getting a lecture from anyone.
* There is a tasty treat to be had at the Iowa Cattlemen's restaurant, a hot beef sundae: beef and gravy over mashed potatoes with a cherry tomato on top.

Long live the Iowa State Fair. If you haven’t seen it, or been to a big fair like it, you ought to put it on your list.

Here's a little photo/video tour: A day at the fair

Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders look different than other people

Cowboys cheerleaders strike a pose with Texas friends

I just returned from the Agricultural Media Summit in Fort Worth, Texas, which this year was combined with an international congress of ag journalists. Communicators from around the world took tours of Texas agriculture and attended professional improvement sessions, a trade show, and social events.

Here are a few random firings from my Texas-branded brain, which may give some little flavor of the event:

Agricultural journalism is still going strong

A number of attendees talked of their hardships brought about by the global recession. There was only one journalist from the Far East this year, a region that is usually well represented at the Congress. A friend from Ukraine said he could attend only because his trip was subsidized by an agribusiness; that nation’s currency has been severely devalued this year, and the business world there is plagued by corruption at all levels, he said. Despite the current economic crisis, the industry remains strong. The Congress attracted journalists from 28 countries. Revenue and membership for the organizing groups is still growing. And, because agriculture is more complex and specialized, “there are more opportunities than ever in agricultural communications,” said Dr. Jim Evans, at an event to announce an endowed chair in ag communications at the University of Illinois in his name.

Ag technology marches on

Whatever problems exist in the general economy, agriculture continues to evolve in terms of commercial innovation. The trade show attracted a record number of exhibitors, many of which showcased new products. The precision ag companies showed off some compelling innovations—video monitoring and wireless Internet in tractor cab displays, for example. A couple other tidbits: Vermeer has sold all its inventory of corn cob collectors. An Australian company is entering the U.S. market with a system for growing hydroponic livestock feed.

Finnish farmers are good foresters

It’s a great pleasure and learning experience to interact with ag journalists from around the world. Some of my best new friends are from Finland. (When I mentioned to an American acquaintance that I would like to visit there, he commented that, well, it just looks like northern Minnesota. Would that be a bad thing?)

Anyway, one farm writer from Finland was trying to explain to me in rough English (much better than my non-existent Finnish) how most farmers in his country have forests in their operations and that they have developed good practices for managing these lands in a cropping system. I bet we could learn something from the Finns about forestry. It’s my goal to write that story.

Ag needs to tell its story better

Several distinguished speakers at the closing ceremony spoke of the need for agriculture to communicate better with the public about how food is produced. Temple Grandin, the renowned livestock handling expert, said, “we have got to communicate out of our own sphere.” Max Rothschild, a swine geneticist who received a top honor at the event, talked of our “failure to explain science to the world.” Barry Nelson, a John Deere representative, told us: “If you don’t get our story right, who will?”

Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders look different than other people

Two of them were wandering the trade show floor and posing for photos with attendees. Our foreign visitors, as well as many Americans, seemed to enjoy the experience, along with other features of Texas tradition—rodeo, cattle ranching, country-western music and honky-tonks. If you think these American icons are devalued around the world, you would have gotten a different impression from our international visitors.

Our fate is still with the soil

For me, the most dramatic presentation was given by Jim Richardson, a photographer for National Geographic magazine who lives in Lindsborg, Kansas. Richardson’s sharp eye revealed the hidden life of the soil. (Did you know there are 200 billion bacteria in a cup of soil?) In one series of images, he photographed farmers from around the world posing with cut-away soil profiles on their farms. What a world of difference between the black soils and deep rooted crops of a well-managed Iowa farm compared with the rocky, eroded topography of subsistence farming in Syria.

“We can lose soils, soils can die,” Richardson said. “But soil is a living thing, and can be reborn,” he added.

In Richardson’s photography we see a farmer’s final measure of success—how well they have taken care of the land.

What is a hog coulter?

Dave Kurns, inventor of the hog coulter

If you ever get any value from Agriculture Online, or farm Web sites like it, you owe a little something to Dave Kurns, who led the launch of the site nearly 15 years ago. Agriculture.com was our parent company’s first Web site, and it was the first site created by an ag media company.

From the outset, Dave, who worked for Meredith New Media, saw that this emerging medium was all about interactivity and community. He steered us in the direction of creating tools like discussion groups, online classified ads, and a feature called Homestead, where you could build your own home page on the Web before that was possible with other tools.

Despite having graduated from Iowa State University, the land grant college up the road, Dave was a city boy with a computer science degree. But he showed a great affinity for farmers, and enjoyed working in agriculture.

In the midst of all the excitement of building Agriculture Online, Dave also invented the hog coulter. One day, while explaining the Internet to a group of aggies he started to demonstrate keyword searches. Reaching for an example, he summoned up the term "hog coulter." I about fell on the floor laughing.

Every time that combination of words comes to mind, I chuckle to myself. And I have taken the occasion from time to time to kid Dave about his invention.

But, the joke’s on me, it turns out. There really is such a thing as a hog coulter.

However, as you can see in a new video that Dave presented me on my recent birthday, there are quite a number of definitions of "hog coulter." Editors, executives, meteorologists, marketing managers, Web designers, and farmers all have a different design in mind for the tool.

I invite you to check out Dave’s video, What is a hog coulter? and see if they've got it about right. Or maybe you've seen your own hog coulter?

Compete with your "cutthroat neighbors"

There was plenty of competition for this field on our place

A hot discussion on our site, “Cut throat neighbors,” delves into a young farmer’s problem in fending off aggressive competition for land he’s renting: “Every year neighboring farmers contact my landlords and offer astronomical prices…to rent their land,” he says.

This must be common occurrence, given the big response this farmer gets. And some folks are not very sympathetic.

"You are naive to think you are entitled, deserve privilege, or for some reason think the market is closed because you rented a farm,” says one respondent.

Another says: “Farming, especially renting, is dog eat dog, always has been, always will be.”

About five years ago, the long-time operator of our Nebraska farm went bankrupt. Very soon after I got the news, the phone started ringing. A couple neighbors to our farm, as well as one of the area’s big operators, checked in with me about the availability of the land.

One of the farmers that contacted me was a younger fellow who had just lost some rented ground. He and his wife both worked off the farm, but he had a small parcel of his own and was hoping to stay in the game with a little more land. We set up a meeting to get acquainted. He brought his dad to the meeting, talked about people we both knew, and showed me pictures of his kids. We wound up signing some papers.

He’s kept up his end of the bargain, tending to the all the details—pushing paperwork, keeping up the fences, maintaining the irrigation equipment and CRP, and generally keeping an eye on things. He keeps in touch on a regular basis.

When commodity prices went through the roof a couple years ago, it was tempting to raise the rent. I decided against it, because the guy had gone beyond the call of duty a couple times, and we seemed to be about even.

I guess what I’m saying is that we could be getting more money for that farm, but when is enough enough? And aren't there other important pieces in a land-rent relationship?

According to the farmers participating in the “cut throat neighbors” discussion, here are some things you should consider as you rent land and deal with neighborhood land sharks:

• Out-hustle the competition. “We all have to prove ourselves, and even without other farmers calling your landowners, you are still in a silent competition with area farmers,” said one.

• Go on the offensive. One farmer says he recently threw a big barn party for his landlords and other neighbors, some of whom might be retiring soon.

• Take care of business. Says one landlord: “All my ground is irrigated so taking care of equipment is at the top of my list.” Others mention things like shoveling driveways and mowing ditches.

• Be a good communicator. Landowners like to hear about how the crops are doing and what you’re doing to improve the farm. One fellow takes his landowners on tours of the cropland, showing what improvements he’s made and how the crops are faring. A farm manager says he rents land to a smaller producer over a big shooter, because the little guy answers his phone calls and e-mails promptly.

• Build a good reputation. ”Dog eat dog to make a buck has ruined more young farmers than anything as they bid the profit away to be a BTO,” said one farmer. Says a landowner: “I value honesty and integrity far more than getting a few extra dollars.”

• Try for multi-year leases. One farmer has had good luck working with landlords to bargain extra years for additional improvements to the land. Another fellow, however, recommends one-year leases so that the owner thinks of you as hungry and hustling. “Humility, hard work, and honesty are all you need,” he says.

• Work with what you have. “I can make a very good living off my acres because sometimes intensifying is better than more and more acres,” says one farmer.

• Buy your own land. "My advice is save your money and invest in buying your own land, says a farmer. "Buy a little here and there, nothing more than you can afford."

A hike on the land before the plow

Last week, on a lark, I drove over to the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge, a native prairie restoration project on some 5,000 acres in central Iowa. The refuge claims to be is the largest re-creation of tallgrass prairie in the U.S., with more than 200 types of prairie plants

The well-designed learning center has some interesting displays, but the real drama is out on the land. You can take a couple trails through the prairie preserve, and on this day in early July nature stole the show. The prairie flowers were blooming, the birds were singing, and the bees were buzzing.

I spotted at least two birds I’d never seen before, a bobolink and another that looked to be some kind of grouse. I photographed a colorful plant or two, including this spectacular butterfly attractor (photo above).

I had never seen such a rich array of plant species in a prairie restoration and learned later that volunteers have been collecting native seeds from roadsides, cemeteries and railroad beds around the state to plant at the refuge.

Hiking though the prairie there and later driving through the bordering cropland made me think once again how much agriculture has changed the natural world. It seems worth remembering that from time to time.

We have a CRP field of prairie grass on our farm in Nebraska, an excellent stand that includes some native forbs, along with a mix of indiangrass, big bluestem and switchgrass. A walk though the place gives you a little feel for what the country looked like before the plow that broke the plains.

And that wasn’t so long ago. There’s a place down the road where you can still see the remnants of the sod house where my great grandparents lived for a time, and on a hill above there, buffalo wallows from the great herds that once roamed what is now Buffalo County, Nebraska.

The irrigated corn and beans across the road pay the taxes and insurance for the place, but there’s something healthy about being able to take a prairie hike, perhaps to remind one from whence we came.