Day Two:

Our first day in Washington D.C. didn’t start out slow. The group got right into the issues starting bright and early and, by the end of the day, had a deeper understanding for where folks in Washington D.C. are in terms of the status of the 2012 Farm Bill, current hot-topic issues being brought forth and where various organizations stand on each issue.

From the get-go the participants started realizing just how important their trip out to Washington D.C. is and how legislators, lobbyists and groups welcome their opinions and ideas with open arms. “You are your own best lobbyists, they want to see you, not us. They see me every day and they already know what I am going to say. Use your own story and get to know your state representative,” said Bev Paul, from the American Soybean Association.

The most frequently brought up issue throughout the day was, of course, the 2012 Farm Bill and we heard over and over again how crucial it is for the agriculture industry for a bill to be passed this year. While many speakers were enthusiastic about a bill being passed, many were apprehensive and are giving it a 50/50 chance.

Another new issue that garnered attention from many of the participants is the current GPS interference issues. Americans want to see more broadband coverage, but that coverage also brings along implications for many other industries utilizing GPS technology. The two cannot co-exist together and the Federal Communication Commission must deal with pleasing both sides.

Other topics that were discussed throughout the day included Pesticide Spray Drift, biodiesel, Chesapeake Bay and the Crop Insurance Program.

The participants went through the afternoon hearing from organizations such as Risk Management Agency, American Farm Bureau Federation, CropLife America, EPA and National Farmers Union.

As noted by Beau Greenwood, Executive Vice President, Government Relations and Public Affairs for CropLife America, “It is critical for us to hear messages and concerns from our nation’s farmers and local people.”

Our first day in Washington D.C. didn’t start out slow. The group got right into the issues starting bright and early and, by the end of the day, had a deeper understanding for where folks in Washington D.C. are in terms of the status of the 2012 Farm Bill, current hot-topic issues being brought forth and where various organizations stand on each issue.

From the get-go the participants started realizing just how important their trip out to Washington D.C. is and how legislators, lobbyists and groups welcome their opinions and ideas with open arms. “You are your own best lobbyists, they want to see you, not us. They see me every day and they already know what I am going to say. Use your own story and get to know your state representative,” said Bev Paul, from the American Soybean Association.

The most frequently brought up issue throughout the day was, of course, the 2012 Farm Bill and we heard over and over again how crucial it is for the agriculture industry for a bill to be passed this year. While many speakers were enthusiastic about a bill being passed, many were apprehensive and are giving it a 50/50 chance.

Another new issue that garnered attention from many of the participants is the current GPS interference issues. Americans want to see more broadband coverage, but that coverage also brings along implications for many other industries utilizing GPS technology. The two cannot co-exist together and the Federal Communication Commission must deal with pleasing both sides.

Other topics that were discussed throughout the day included Pesticide Spray Drift, biodiesel, Chesapeake Bay and the Crop Insurance Program.

The participants went through the afternoon hearing from organizations such as Risk Management Agency, American Farm Bureau Federation, CropLife America, EPA and National Farmers Union.

As noted by Beau Greenwood, Executive Vice President, Government Relations and Public Affairs for CropLife America, “It is critical for us to hear messages and concerns from our nation’s farmers and local people.”

Day One:

On Thursday, eight producers from around Nebraska gathered in Omaha to partake in the Nebraska Soybean Board’s first    See For Yourself Regulatory mission. The program is designed to give farmers an opportunity to see firsthand how their soybean checkoff dollars are being invested and to share the information they learn with other farmers.

With all the issues facing farmers today, plus the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill and pending regulations regarding containment of fuel and fertilizer storage; it’s more important than ever to know the facts and learn how to communicate better with lawmakers and those who influence policy. As Jordan Dux, Nebraska Farm Bureau, stated, “If you want your message to be heard; educate yourself, be courteous and tell your story. You are the best advocates for your industry.”

The program kicked off with a half-day program in Omaha including presentations from Nebraska Department of Agriculture, AGP, Nebraska Farm Bureau and Nebraska Soybean Association. As participants started diving into the issues affecting Nebraska producers, the most common themes discussed were water issues, animal agriculture and manure management. It is quite obvious that these topics are top of mind for Nebraska producers and they were all excited to learn more about the regulations that will be and are affecting their practices.

As the conversation kept going and thoughts got rolling – the group was prepared to take on Washington D.C. and learn more about the top issues facing the agriculture industry.
 

By: Diane Becker

The website offers a unique gift. It’s “the last calendar you’ll ever need.” If you haven’t heard yet, you will. December 12, 2012 is when it’s all supposed to come to a screeching halt. It’s all made plain in the ancient Mayan calendars, which come to an abrupt end on December 12 of this year.

Some Mayan experts say that people are reading too much into this. The people who wrote the calendar were just starting a new cycle but there’s no fun in that and there isn’t advertising dollars either. There’s at least three ads sponsored by some major corporations continually rotating on the December122012.com website.

You can also buy all sorts of t-shirts on the site. It seems that the people who think the world will end in less than a year want to accumulate some money in the meantime.

I have a feeling we’re going to get really tired of hearing about 12-12-12. There’s supposedly a countdown clock in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, where Mayan priests officially performed an end of the world ceremony.

This all vaguely reminds me of the turn of the millennium but those predictions were more believable. It seemed much more likely that the computers, which run much of our daily lives, weren’t going to be able to handle going to 2000. But they did. I do remember not being able to use our credit card in a grocery store on January 1, 2000 because they had to do a little more reconfiguring. Quite the apocalypse.

There is a long list of “believers” on the December 12 site, hundreds of them actually, as you can enter your name if you think the world will end next near. There is a funny thing I noticed. They listed all the states that are represented and Nebraska is missing from the list. Maybe most people here just haven’t seen the site, or maybe we’re just too busy doing the whole living life thing.

Not sure how all the true 12-12-12 believers will be adjusting their lives this year—I hope they don’t do anything too drastic, like quit their jobs and selling their homes to live on some mountain until next December.

Not in Nebraska. This year we’ll be doing things like planting our crops and the researchers in Nebraska will be thinking of important things like better crop traits so we can feed the expected 38 percent increase in world population in the next 40 years. 2050, not 2012, is a year people ought to be thinking about. It’s expected that we’ll have an estimated 9.5 billion people on earth by then. Those extra people won’t all be farmers and they won’t be making their own food in their backyards. They’re going to depend on someone else for that— like the United States farmers and ranchers, who supply most of that food.

So the Smashing Pumpkins Band believes 12-12-12 is the end. Hope they don’t waste a lot of time and energy on it. We’ve got more important things to work on.
 

Please click here to print an application form to this year's See For Yourself program at Grays Harbor.

Please mail application to:

Nebraska Soybean Board

Grays Harbor Trip

3815 Touzalin Ave. Suite 101

Lincoln, NE 68507

Interested in Learning More About the Soybean Checkoff? Come See for Yourself this year!

The Nebraska Soybean Board has kicked off another year of its “See for Yourself” program this fall. The See for Yourself program is designed to give Nebraska soybean farmers the opportunity to learn more about their checkoff. Farmers selected to take part in the program will attend checkoff-sponsored activities in an attempt to gain a better understanding of how their checkoff dollars are being invested to build demand and increase profitability.

See for Yourself is designed to include the opportunity to attend state, national and international activities. The in-state program gives farmers the chance to attend functions in Nebraska that are vital to the continued success of the soybean industry. The national program includes attending meetings sponsored by the Untied Soybean Board, United States Meat Export Federation, National Biodiesel Board, United States Soybean Export Council, Untied States Poultry and Egg Export Council, as well as many other important national meetings and activities. The international program is designed to show soybean farmers first-hand what the checkoff is doing to build global demand.

The Nebraska Soybean Board is currently planning its visit to Grays Harbor in the Pacific Northwest as a part of this year’s international tour. Grays Harbor is a vital shipping area for Nebraska soybeans, connecting our farmers with international buyers in Asia and the Black Sea region. The Grays Harbor tour aims to give Nebraska soybean farmers a better understanding of the logistical chain soybeans go through on their way to some of our international customers.  Stops on this trip are planned to include a tour of the Union Pacific rail system in Omaha, a tour Grays Harbor port and a tour of a large user of biodiesel in Washington state.

The Nebraska Soybean Board is committed to increasing the profitability of your soybeans and wants to give you the opportunity to gain a better understanding of checkoff activities. To get involved or learn more about the program, please contact the Nebraska Soybean Board office at 402-441-3240. Thank you for your support of the Nebraska Soybean Board and this exciting program, and we hope to see you at our next event!

2011 See for Yourself Tour in Guadalajara, Mexico.

By: Diane Becker

I miss silos. There are new shiny grain bins popping up across the countryside like milkweed but you don’t see anyone putting up a concrete silo anymore.

My dad had a Hanson silo on our farm, which I was proud of all my childhood. We could see the top of that silo when we pulled off the highway onto gravel headed to our farm five miles away. At least I thought it was our silo. It could’ve been our neighbor’s silo to the west or to the south. Concrete silos were the thing for awhile.

Ours was about 70 feet tall with a ladder that led to the top of the concrete blocks. A silver dome cap sat on the top of our little prairie skyscraper. There were additional steps that led to the top of the dome, which only a city visitor armed with a camera was foolish enough to ever climb to. I never stepped even on the first step of the silo although I’m not afraid of heights and to this day love to get to the highest floor of a building to look at the view below. The bottom of the ladder was about eight feet off the ground to discourage farm kids or their visiting friends who think they’d like to see if they could see the state capitol from the top. Or maybe just the steeple of the St. Francis Catholic Church in Humphrey seven miles to the south.

There were a few people who had smiley faces or U.S. flags painted on the side of their silos. Ours had a checkered black and white pattern where the concrete met the silver top. It was a nice silo and it was especially valuable, not for the grain it could store, but for what its real purpose was—to hold the star at Christmas time.

If I could, I’d ask my dad how the heck he ever got that star on the top of the silo. He never claimed to have carpentry skills but managed to construct a six-foot tall star with five points evenly spaced apart. I picture my mom and him winding strings of large colored bulbs around the wooden slats to outline it. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting it 70 feet up the narrow ladder.

My dad wasn’t a thin man. I can’t imagine how he could climb up all that ways wearing his insulated coveralls and tall mud boots. He had to climb up in pretty much darkness as the ladder’s cage was completely enclosed. My husband, Tom, guessed that my dad took a rope with him up the ladder. Once he got to the top of the ladder, he threw down the rope to Mom, who attached the star and then he hoisted it and assorted extension cords up the side. First, it had to be a little difficult coming up to the top of the enclosed ladder to pop your head out into the big wide open sky then, as you perch there on the ladder, pull up an unwieldy star.

He probably used his pliers and number nine wire to attach the star to the top of the ladder and the wire was wound tight because that star hung there for many years.

I picture my mom plugging in the end extension cord dangling down the side of the silo to test if it worked, which would be hard to see during the day from the ground. It was probably hard for even Dad to tell if those bulbs were lit from two feet away.

Lit they were, though, and what a surprise it was for my five siblings and me to come home that evening and see that beautiful star shining at us from the top of the silo. I think the Wise Men would’ve ended up at our doorstep if we’d had that star up 2000 years ago.
   
Alas, farmers don’t put up those sturdy concrete silos anymore. Steel grain bins are more useful, I know. Silos weren’t meant to hold bushels of grain which is ready to haul to the elevator any day of the year. Silos held moisture laden grain and even silage which had a tendency to get hot. We had the fire trucks out one fall day trying to douse the heat that was being generated inside our silo that was used less and less in the ‘70s. A new, shorter, steel grain bin now stood next to the concrete silo where the firemen spent hours spraying water through one of the blackened doors as the sound of the Nebraska football game on the radio poured out of the fire truck’s cab. This wasn’t the first silo fire they’d put out that fall.
    
We’ve got a bin on our farm but it’s not that tall, not really tall enough to mess with putting a star on. The antennae on top of our house is probably taller and I don’t know if I can convince Tom to rig up and wire a star to the top of it.
    
There’s just something majestic about tall silos and a dark snowy evening looking up at a star on the top. Not sure we can match that but we can always try—maybe a star on the side of the barn will do. Wishing a Merry Christmas to you and yours!
 

By: Diane Becker

The machine shed is the hub of our farm. That’s where the tools, the bench where Tom fixes things and farm equipment storage is located. This week, though, our machine shed is a dance floor.

It’s our third daughter’s sweet 16-birthday dance and we’re trying to make our shed to, well, look like it’s not a shed. We had to hide the grimy 5-gallon buckets and tuck the power tools under the shelves. We scrubbed the floor with wide brooms and strung lights from the ceiling. Hopefully no one will mind that there’s a large sprayer in the corner or that there’s a couple of lawnmowers hiding underneath it.

If the DJ is good enough, the dancers won’t hear the air compressor occasionally running. Natalie invited everyone in her high school – all 120 of them. She posted the invitation and directions to our farm on their lockers and most have told her they’ll be attending.

Tom and my only duties will be to keep the chip bowls full and cut the cake towards the end of the evening. So there’s oil stains on the floor and wrenches hanging on the wall. It’s her 16th birthday, a few friends are staying overnight afterwards and there’s free pop for all. We get another licensed driver to boot.  Tom and I may just have to take our own turn at the dance floor.
 

By: Diane Becker

A few years ago, I discovered provolone cheese. There it was in the deli case on sale next to the tried and true Colby Jack. Bold shopper that I am, I had a half-pound sliced and bagged for my family. It’s a regular purchase now, right along with extra dark chocolate and vanilla bean ice cream. Thanks to the wide offerings of grocery stores, and to the specialization and entrepreneurship of farmers, we’re able to buy items unheard of by our grandparents.

Two-generations ago, a shopper would have bought a loaf of bread and a half gallon of milk at the grocery store and called it good. They wouldn’t have gone over the vast bread department looking for flatbreads to make a gyro sandwich. As for the milk, people now have the choice of drinking raw milk, goat milk, soymilk or coconut milk. Grandma only had to choose whether to bring home 2% or skim.

I’m not sure yogurt was ever in my ancestors’ refrigerators. Now you can choose from Greek yogurt, NoGurt and frozen yogurt sticks. Blackberry pomegranate Yoplait, anyone?

Speaking of pomegranate, did anyone over the age of 30 grow up eating that?

When I was young, we surely never had bagels. We also didn’t have salsa, hot pepper jelly, dried cranberries, or honey dew melon. Our spaghetti was yummy but not accompanied by garlic bread sticks. No lettuce salad I ate as a kid ever had large black olives and feta cheese in it.

Take a look in your refrigerator and pantry. What’s in there that you wouldn’t have found 20 years ago?  I know back then I wouldn’t have reached for a vitamin drink or a bottled smoothie.

My grandma would have looked at me blankly if I would’ve asked to borrow some Nutella, olive oil or sea salt. There was only one spread-peanut butter, one oil-vegetable and one salt-Morton.

I’m not sure Grandpa would’ve eaten bean sprouts but he probably would have liked blooming onions with mustard sauce. Grandma didn’t have a microwave so she didn’t have any microwave popcorn on her shelf. She might have had Minute Rice but probably not wild rice.

Our grandchildren will undoubtedly have pantries with strange items in them, too. To them, the terms “gluten free”, “organic” or “sushi” will be commonplace. Our grandparents would be scratching their heads trying to figure out what the heck a latte is.

Fortunately, turkey and dressing haven’t changed too much over the years. Grandma’s mashed potatoes and yams would have a welcome place on the family table still today.

By: Linda Wuebben

This time of year my days are consumed with last minute projects – those dastardly deeds, which have been put off all spring and summer but now, winter looms on the horizon. Most of my last minute projects are outdoor projects that need to be completed before the snow flies.

So just like the farmers who are combining with a vengeance to get this year’s crop out of the field and into a bin, I am feverishly washing windows, trimming hedges and doing touch-ups on painting and staining.

Washing windows – what a boring chore. I remember my mother washed all the windows on our house on the farm twice a year. I soon rectified that situation after I got married and decided the windows only needed to be sparkling in the fall as we headed into winter. There aren’t any bugs in the winter and the windows are shut tight as a drum or at least I hope they are so when we open up in the springtime, they’re basically still clean.

I imagine my hatred for window-washing came from my mother’s meticulous process when washing windows. I was on the outside and she was on the inside, washing the same window at the same time. It was always me who had streaks on the outside and had to go over that window again and again. There had to be better things to do than this mindless spit-shining project.

I was always gleeful to get to the upstairs where I washed windows alone. There wasn’t any way for anyone to be on the outside looking in to see the inside person pointing out the sloppy work they were doing. There wasn’t anyone on the inside to see my sparkling reflection on the outside and that was okay with me. The project from that point on was done lickity-split. It meant the process was almost done and another year’s hard work could be put on the back shelf.

And I could skip quickly away to find other more pleasing endeavors. But I never forgot Mom’s shining example of a clean and still happy home. Hope some of it rubbed off on me – but just not the window-washing part.

What do we look for when we’re harvesting soybeans? What SHOULD we look for? Is there a difference between the two? The Nebraska Soybean Board (NSB) has teamed up with several FFA chapters in conducting a protein and oil study for local soybean farmers. 

Lots of times we take into account one thing when harvesting soybeans – yield. And why not? That is what we’re getting paid for – you sell it by the bushel. More importantly, we need to understand what the end users are using our soybeans for. Half of our soybeans are shipped overseas, and the majority of the other half is used to feed livestock here in America.  Quality is key.  In order to fill our customers’ wants and needs, we need to plant and harvest a quality soybean.  Protein and oil content is one of the biggest drivers when it comes to those quality characteristics.

This protein and oil project benefits many sectors.  The process goes as follows:

1. FFA chapter asks NSB for sample bags.
2. Upon receiving the bags, the FFA students visit farmers to collect samples of soybeans.
3. They write on the bag which type of soybean variety is collected.
4. FFA chapter mails in bags to UNL for protein and oil analysis.
5. NSB receives the results of the samples and sends them to FFA chapters and the farmers who submitted samples.

Everyone gets a piece of the pie. The NSB uses these test results for future research and data.  Research findings can be divided into categories such as varieties and geographical areas. The farmers get an idea of what kind of quality soybean they are raising. And the FFA students get hands on education – collecting samples while learning why it’s important to think beyond yield when it comes to raising soybeans.

By: Linda Wuebben

Fall is a wonderfully relaxed time of the year on the farm. Most of the work is done. Most haying crops have been windrowed and baled for the last time. Farmers are just waiting; waiting for the soybeans to drop their leaves and stems to dry out so the crop can be run through the combine; and waiting for the same thing to happen in the cornfield.

Every time my husband leaves to work at the butcher shop in the morning, he waits for our pet squirrel to dash across the driveway with another kernel of corn. It makes us laugh because he only cleans kernels off of one ear. Everyday he heads to the same ear in a field filled with a bountiful harvest of ears.

First the chattering critter cleaned off the kernels on the bottom of the ear and eventually worked his way to the topside. We wonder if one ear will be enough. He almost has one ear completely cleaned off. There is a grove of trees on the other side of the driveway and we could probably find his hidey-hole. I wonder if it is spilling over.

This year will be another year of blessings for area farmers. The rain was just right, the hail stayed away and the drying process has already begun in the field. We are very grateful. It gives us comfort to know our economy is holding its own in a country where jobs are being lost every day.

It’s time to pay all those expenses accumulated during the year. Like the spraying for weeds and bad bugs we must apply for a bountiful harvest. Next we will have fuel bills to pay for running the big tractors through the field for planting, cutting and baling hay and chopping silage. And there are always repairs. We carried insurance in case Mother Nature leashed bad storms across our fields and now it is due. And a loan for land taxes can be paid off.

All necessary farming expenses and we only hope at the end of the harvest and the end of paid bills, there is something to live on. Usually there is; then we thank the heavens for that.
Through all the mountains of work and bills to pay, we know we have done our best to grow a crop which will provide food for people around the world and we love doing it.