Doing What’s Right
September 1st, 2008 by Northern FarmerAround here we figure fall comes when September comes and today was around 90 with a strong south wind. A line of thunderstorms is entering Minnesota as I type from the Dakota’s and I can see the clouds to the west. They’re talking a little rain and then a big weather change. Tomorrow’s highs are supposed to be in the lower sixties and as far as I can see on the ten day forecast the highs the highs remain in the sixties. Personally I love that weather. If it was like that year round I’d be happy. But variety is what we have in this neck of the woods, or should I say extremes! We’re getting closer and closer to real silage chopping, still don’t know when we will start, but its coming! It all depends on the condition of the corn. We like to make it just right. Had a neighbor call up a little bit ago asking if he could go out to our Goliath corn field and take a look at the stuff. Apparently he’s a little impressed with the shear volume in that field as I am too. So impressed that yesterday we went and bought a different silage chopper. Only ten years old and that takes us a few decades up as far as the age of our silage chopper goes. And I will say with both choppers side by side that the newer one is greatly improved over the old one. Much more heavy duty to say the least. The price didn’t cripple us, in fact it never ceases to amaze me how some things can be had so relatively cheap compared to other things. The chopper cost less than a four wheeler, or a snowmobile, or whatever toys a person just has to buy nowadays to be satisfied with life. And this Labor Day Monday there’s plenty of toys being pulled down the county road in front of the farm heading back to the Twin Cities. Incredible really! So corn chopping might be a very good experience this season, because them newer ones are really supposed to chop corn allot better than the ancient ones. I sure hope so!
The other morning a little news bit caught my attention on the morning Ag Radio. They were talking how Monsanto, John Deere, ADM, and I forget the other one were forming an alliance where they were telling the public how “they” are agriculture. Durn near spit out my coffee when I was listening to that! But I have to consider the source, “greed”, and I’ve been thinking ever since. I mentioned it to a few other farmers in the area and they had about the same reaction as me. This alliance is bent on telling the consuming public that “they” are agriculture and “they” will supply all the needs of this nation and the world. Both food and fuel, with genetically altered plants, multi million dollar farm equipment, free trade and what ever else they can see will give triple digit increases in their quarterly reports. Funny, how if they are agriculture, what are we, the farmers? This reminds me of a few years back when the WTO ruled that sheep farmers were not part of the industry, that the processors, importers, retailers and so on were the real food industry. Farmers were the sometimes unpaid slaves, nothing more, nothing less. Now this is real folks, very real. Farmers are looked at as throw away, non important parts of the world we live in. Really nothing new about that since industrialism has been strong arming its way into agriculture. And this alliance is bent on only one thing and that’s massive profits at the expense of the family farmers. Can’t be you say! Yes it can! Just take a gander at how and why so many inputs are skyrocketing from these companies for farmers! And the flat out reason for these huge increases is quite frankly stated as the companies are the ones doing everything in agriculture, they are agriculture and they deserve these profits. Now I’m not against profits, they kinda come in handy sometimes here on the farm, but raping the family farming sector is another thing all together!
But with all of that in mind I was thinking today doing my usual stuff around the place, thinking about reality and how reality is being taken and thrown out the window with propaganda from these corporations. I was out in the corn fields, looking at corn that is second to none, with very little inputs, looking at soil coming alive without much in the department of anything purchased and thought, it can be done. Raising good crops without anything from mainstream agriculture. The OP corn, especially the Minnesota 13 corn will hold up to any hybrid out there. Plus a living creature can eat it without ill effects! It wasn’t even fertilized with any boughten fertilizers, but still has the deep blue green color as heavily nitrogened corn fields. We were wondering about this a while back, why does it look so good? The reason I have found out is that its not “bred” for heavy nitrogen intake. Hmm. Think about it, where do modern hybrids come from, where does fertilizers come from, where do all the inputs come from for the most part? From these hand full of companies that are into all the inputs of modern day farming. I see it here with my own eyes, the reality now that we finally had a year with enough rain to show us what a real crop looks like again. This corn does good!
One thing that bothers me a bit, when I read about OP corn from news fliers and things like that, it almost that they are writing with a defeatist attitude. They are so happy with 30 or 40 bushels to the acre. Now I must say, these big companies “will” take over if that’s all farmers figure they should get from OP corn! But lets get to reality! The Minnesota 13 was entered two years ago in a field test against all the big name hybrids that do well in this area. Only one hybrid beat it and not by much and there was a slight stir caused by that. That got hushed up pretty well by the seed companies here. In reality it beat the big named seed that supposedly won when you figure the Minnesota 13 had about 10 to 20 percent more feed value than the hybrids. Also it had no genetics that would screw up a cow’s rumen by killing the good bacterias in it like BT corn does. You ever want to see a huge drop in milk production, feed BT. The seed companies won’t tell you that, but the local vets will. The big companies want to “help” the livestock farmer feed that corn by having the farmer purchase more inputs to “soften” the blow of the poison corn, by having nutritionists work with the unsuspecting farmer.
So where does this leave an old fashioned Christian farmer? Well, we know that we can out produce the big named, big cost companies. We know we can provide healthy food, they cannot. Simple as that.But farmers who are awakening to these facts must let it be known that with good general farming practices we can out produce the corporate giant who is destroying the land, who is destroying the families, who thinks nothing of supporting abortion, or gay rights from their corporate coffers. Who want to stamp out Christianity with everything they got. This is reality. It goes against the “American Dream” writing like this, but its true never the less. Christianity cannot support corporate government, corporate agendas and corporate greed. The American way says that’s all good, but really its so destructive that God help us for allowing the greed and perversion to go this far in this country. Christians should be n the lead practicing agriculture in a way that we tend to the land, not mine it. We should be providing healthy food for the population, not just a source of money for a handful of corporations to further their agenda of world dominion.
Oh how did I get going on all of that tonight, I really don’t know. It was an easy one to write. Not popular in this day and age, but the truth never the less. I cannot control what happens in this world but I can do something in my little world. I can live like I say we should live. I can do what we’re told to do in the Good Book. I can never give in to unhealthy ways of farming and producing food for families. I can spread the Word of God to one or several folks daily. Our family can do what’s right in the eyes of our Lord!
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:36 am
Tom,
You are 100% right! I was reading an old interview a while back where one of the early hybrid corn breeders said when he was involved with the research it was never intended that hybrid corn would replace OP corn, but that it was only intended to be one step along the way to higher yielding OP corn. He felt we could have done the same with yield over time using OP corn if the research had continued with OP corn.
It was the seed companies that saw huge profits in hybrid corn by making the farmers dependent on them alone for seed. Therefore all research on OP corn was abandoned and all effort was put into hybrid corn seed. In less than fifty years the farmers were dependent on the seed companies and many OP corn varieties which had been bred for specific regions were extinct.
Up to the 1920s, corn, in comparison to other crops, was still an undeveloped crop for much of the world. There really hadn’t been but 100 years of corn improvement and most of that by farmers. The few scientists who were involved had very limited knowledge of genetics. So OP corn really never had a chance because it was so quickly abandoned by seed companies and researchers for hybrids.
If a farm didn’t have the cost of hybrid seed, tons of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides, then even if an OP corn had a lower yield they might still be ahead financialy, especially given the higher nutrition of the OP corn.
My brother works part of the year for a farmer in Michigan who farms corn, beans and wheat on about 7000 acres. His corn seed bill this year was about $250,000.
I believe that OP corn if properly developed for specific localities could yield as well if not better than most hybrids. Your MN 13 has proved that already in your area. Leaming might do the same in my area.
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Don,
Great comment! That’s basically the history of how we got to where we are now as far as seed goes! As I sit here and listen to the propaganda on the radio, or read the stuff in the ag papers that keep plugging up my mailbox, I have to just shake my head in dismay. How the farmers in this nation let the modern corporations take over everything. And it wouldn’t have to be that way at all. I can imagine a countryside prospering with healthy farms and healthy families, with food production not taking a back seat to anything these companies say they can only provide. I’ve said it many times on this blog over the years, farmers have become nothing much more than serfs of the big companies. And the prevailing mood in America is that it is our God given right to do things this way. Last winter while watching the movie, Amazing Grace, a part struck me like a six pound maul over the head. It was in parliament, and Wilberforce introduced an anti slavery bill. The pro slavery folks were explaining how God made the trade winds favorable , in other words, ordaining or justifying slavery and the huge amounts of wealth going into the hands of the few at the time. Now in America we think we are blessed by God because corporations are making record profits, at the expense of the families, of the land, of all morality. Nothing seems to matter other than the corporations bottom line. In all reality these are not blessings at all. It is truly evil unbridled, and nothing less. Studying history I find such parallels with England in the 1700’s its amazing.
Farmers have to take back control over their own destiny, by cutting off the money flow to these handful of corporations. It can be done, done much easier than anyone would ever imagine, but as in England in the 1700’s, folks, Christian folks, didn’t want to lose their perceived prosperity. And that was all it was, perceived. Folks nowadays link huge corporations and excessive profits to God’s blessings. Just like years ago. But its not true at all. What’s needed are voices to cry out at the injustice, folks to start taking matters in their own hands and changing farming practices.
Sometimes folks come up to me and talk about how God is blessing this country, how its because we are so Christian, He favors us. I’m sorry to say, that’s a false religion if I ever heard one. Reality is, its just like colonial England, we take from all around the world, we live in great riches, and the rest of the world starves. Oh, we feel good about ourselves when we send somebody an aid package in starving countries, oh we feel so good and Christian while we wonder what toys we can buy will satisfy us. Our hearts are settled when we give five bucks in a church pot for some orphans overseas, while we plan vacation after vacation with some SUV gas hog, campers, boats and whatever other kinda toys we feel God has blessed us with, even the stuff on credit. Meanwhile the world goes hungry, the system gets bigger and bigger and everyone here is crying prosperity! Oh how blessed we are. If anyone has ever read the last half of Matthew chapter 25 they know a day of huge reckoning is coming to those who believe this system is blessed!
Hmm, how did I get on this?? But this is the very guts of what I have written over the last three years. As a Christian I feel I have a huge obligation to speak the truth no matter what. It goes against much of what the main stream American church teaches, but it goes perfect with the Word of God. Basically its the same thing John Wesley and Wilberforce took on. Economic and social injustice. And taking it on isn’t popular with the main stream public or even much of the church now, just as it wasn’t then.
So getting back to the OP corn, I know what it can do, I know the all out lies given to the farming population, I know the lies given to the leaders of this nation. Our farm is living proof that these are lies. And I ain’t staying silent about it!
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Hi Tom
I’d like to know what type of sweet corn you grow and is it OP? We’ve been looking for some and have tried a couple that we weren’t very impressed with - we’re in Michigan but it seems like whatever works there for you might work well for us too.
John has raised the white Goliath before and this year he tried some OP yellow silage corn. It did pretty good on the sandy ground but it was too wet for it on the clay.
Good post!
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:03 am
Tom,
I have an SUV story you might enjoy. John & I drive our vehicles into the ground until they are old tired pieces of iron that don’t owe us a thing. We were getting to the junkyard stage with John’s 1988 pickup and my 1993 cutlass and unwilling to take out a loan yet without money to buy another vehicle. So I was praying about the need. Guess what the Lord provided………..
A 2004 suburban in mint condition with only 54,000 miles on it and with a tow package……FREE! He also provided the money to insure it and put the tags on it as that wasn’t in our original budget for this time of year.
Now if the truck croaks we can still haul stuff using a trailor with the suburban.
If we’d had the money to purchase another vehicle we sure wouldn’t have sought out an SUV because as you said they’re gas hogs, but God doesn’t always provide in the ways you think he’s going to!
We figure if God provided a gas hog He will also provide the gas to keep it going. We are fortunate in that the majority of our business doesn’t require us to travel a great distance from home.
We feel so humbled and blessed by the Lord’s provision! We’ve never carried credit card debt and no car pymts for years, and we’ve been hammering away at our mortgage in our desire to be totally debt-free.
What a great sense of economic freedom Christians have knowing they can simply ask the Father for what they need without going into the bondage of debt! Thank you Lord.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Theresa,
Like you, I’ve had a hard time with OP sweet corn. But I’m still searching for something that would fit the bill. The sweet corn we plant is the only hybrid corn on the whole farm. As of today I’m in love with Goliath corn again. Tried out the new, (used), chopper a couple hours ago and in ate that Goliath right up slick. So now I’ll be planting it again next year for a silage pit stuffer! (Oh what a difference a good silage chopper makes.)
Now to any one out there, when I talk about SUV’s I ain’t condemning anyone that has one. It’s more as an example of society’s rat race to see who has the most toys. I’d be kinda two faced because the 3/4 ton pickup we have is a gas hog in the first degree. But it does certain jobs and the upkeep is almost non existent, cheap insurance and the whole ball of wax. Plus we’ve had it for years and the cost of it is basically nothing. We have no car payment, in reality no payments of any kind. But it wasn’t always that way. Sure is good to live like this now.
And your Suburban story sure does show the blessings of God without a doubt! I just love hearing things like that. I believe God blesses us in more ways than we can ever imagine, every day, but most of the time we don’t notice it all to much. I know I sure was praising the lord a couple hours ago when that chopper handled that Goliath without the slightest problem!!
Thanks for your wonderful story!