Preaching to the Choir

Am here at AgChat Foundation 2011 Agvocacy 2.0 Conference here in Nashville. Today has been eye opening in hearing from other leaders in AGVOCATING for American Agriculture and modern consumer ideas about what actually happens on a farm. I have the privilege meeting other agvocates, famers and ranchers involved in spreading the news about agriculture via social media.

A good reason for Heard health

We had another snow filled afternoon here in Tennessee, and given a light patient load, and sled some fun was in the making. Hubby and I had to check and feed the cattle at Diamond M Farms and since our babysitter was sick (aka my Mom "Gigi" who lives with us) we loaded up the kids and off we went.
Sledding, snowball fights, time with family friends and the loss of Ella's glasses rounded out the afternoon. But a picture is worth a thousand words, see my 2 year old eating snow. This is a prime reason that his Daddy spends so much time monitoring the health and immunization status of our cattle. He never knows when his doctor wife will get the bright idea to sled in the cow pasture, probably ruining some of his precious forage, and by so doing let the two year old eat snow from said pasture.
Agriculture impact can be found everywhere. Even in a two year olds handful of snow.

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Baby, its cold outside

Greetings from frozen Tennessee. This winter weather has made life interesting in my medical practice and for our farm. Our cattle are eating more hay and grain, and my patients are having to reschedule appointments and we are doing a lot of telephone medicine. My wonderful hubby is having to bring me back and forth to work too as our road is covered in snow and ice.

Brian and I were pleased to be able to go to the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting in Atlanta this past weekend, and we both have to admit that we were more pleased to have driven ourselves and been able to leave on Sunday before the weather set in. We had no desire to be stuck in Atlanta in a snowstorm. We were learning a lot and were please to see our friends from across the country. I was really pleased to have been able to attend the AgChat Foundations training on social media and proper use for Agvocating for Agriculture.

We met and made many new friends as well.

I know that this blog can seem fractured in post at times. And after our training session, I have put more thought in what I want this blog to do. I want people to see the real issues facing agriculture and medicine. By writing and posting here, I hope to provide a glimpse into rural life here in Upper Middle Tennessee. I think that unless people start telling their stories, whether they are based in agriculture or in my case in both agriculture and medicine, the Average inner city American lacks the knowledge to be able to understand our world and the issues we face.

Agriculture has been a late love of my life. I stumbled into this passion of mine by my relationship to my Hubby and our common interest in making our Beef Farm a success. Medicine is a calling that I have always had and am fortunate to be able to continue - unless Congress keeps trying to cut my pay - haha!!!

Looking forward to a more centered approach with this blog, but I will admit there will still more than not be post about my family as well because they are the real reason that I do what I do. So, I guess this post is my New Years Blogging resolution, it just took a bit to write it all down.

Having fun...

Well, Brian and I made it to Atlanta. We have spent the morning on the Expo floor. It's amazing. I am still wondering how the got all those huge pieces of agriculture equipment in this building. There are tires taller than me.

I am also loving that I have gotten to meet some of the friends that I have made through Blogger and Tweeting. Am looking forward to talking with Janice (aka @JPlovesCOTTON ) about Genetically Modified agriculture products and Ag social media.

Hoping it does not snow too much to get home though. Seems like most of TN farm bureau is here in Atlanta.

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a new start

Here is number 40's heifer calf for this year. The ear tag is so we can identify which calf goes with which Momma cow. She is growing well.

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On the road

Finally, Brian aka @DiamondMFarms and I are on our way to AFBF meeting in Atlanta. Have had a busy day. Yesterday, I ended up with a stomach flu so no packing. Then today school got canceled, so had to get kids settled for Mom and Dad weekend away. Looking forward to AgCONNECT and to the AFBF meeting. Last year we were competing and did not get to see much. Very excited...

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One Hungry Planet

Been at Tennessee Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers meeting and found this information for all my nonfarmer friends about how important farming is to our Country. This quick video is full of facts about agriculture.

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Washington Examiner expose on HSUS... a must read

The Humane Society of the United States is not what you think | Washington Examiner

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Learning a bit for YF&R Discussion meet

That's right, as if I don't have enough to do this week. In between getting two girl scouts ready for a Christmas parade, one with a fever no less. Potty training a stubborn two and a half year old, delivering the fruit that the Kindergartner sold for a school project, the 7 am Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committee meeting today along with rounds before work and the 7 AM Medical Executive Board Meeting on Friday... I thought It would be fun to fit in a little friendly competition in the Outstanding young women's and the discussion meet.

I admit I love the discussion meet. It was what drew me into my husband's world of agriculture and may me become so passionate about the issues that face the American Farmer. Before my first competition, I honestly thought that "organic" was the only way to eat - never thinking about the environmental impact of that type of farming for large scale production. I never thought about government food regulations, or water regulations. I never realized that most Americans are 4-5 generations removed from a family farm.

I found a great website tonight about maintaining your and my food choices in this country. I have Followed them on Twitter and Liked them on Facebook and hope you will do the same. We as Americans may not like or understand each others food choices - I still don't get veggie burgers - but the great abiding joy of being an America is that I don't have to get it... We have the choice to eat what we like how we like... so Choose2Choose America...

social media info for fellow agriculturist

Ag & Social Media - Cause Matters

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Needing to find my motivation...

Been a while again - this has been a rough year for me and my crew... I have had two surgeries this spring, then Ella had her tonsils removed, then my partner was hurt in a motorcycle accident and the other partner had to go to China to adopt his daughter ( who is too cute ) but that left me and one other doc to fill in for two, and then once all is returning to normal my 2 year old Cord had to have his tonsils out - I raise cute kids with major ENT issues and we are currently putting our ENTs kids through school - Ha ha!!! But somewhere in all that I forgot to sit down and take the time to write out my feelings...

It is good to be taking some time for me again.

As I sit here listening to "I love rock and roll" I am realizing that I should be doing something else much more productive like working out or sleeping but this is more fun.

I am not much happier with health care reform than I was and even less happy with the Presidents "economic Recovery Plan" that is not recovering anything in the part of the Country. People in Washington DC are SO disconnected from the rest of this country. And seem to be only worried with getting reelected. Why can't they all have term limits - you may have heard that POWER CORRUPTS - I am wondering if they have...

I am also still concerned with the fate of animal agriculture and agriculture in general in these modern times when most people are 5 generations removed from a farm. I find it terrifying that people are being mislead with buzzwords like Locovore and sustainable production and that people really and truly feel free range eggs make so much difference to chicken but these same people want the farmer to provide said eggs at the same cost with a markedly increased production cost. People just don't understand that the American Farmer buys all their supplies at retail cost then sells our products at wholesale - not the best business model.

I also spend my days wondering now how much good it does to call politicians - I wore the phones out this spring and summer when I was faced with a 24% pay cut from Medicare (they are already paying me at 1994-1996 rates and they wanted to cut that) and when the wonderful stupid health care bill was being railroaded through the house and senate. And no one seemed to care or to listen to the American People - I thought that they were elected to serve "We the People..."

And now on top of everything else I am juggling - Mom, MD, Physician Leadership student, Farmers Wife, my girls came home tonight with my Mom from a Girl Scout meeting and now they want me to be a girl scout Daisy troop leader - I need a CLONE.

Oh well, I guess I am Standing in deep water and bailing myself out with a straw - yup for you musical folk my droid has now moved on to Jewel....
Night from middle TN. Sweet Dreams...

Putting a Face on Farming

Farmers’ Markets Put a “Face” on Farming
By Dal Grooms

The number of farmers’ markets in the United States has grown by more than 300 percent in the past 15 years. If you study that trend from an economics standpoint, you have to wonder why. The dollars and cents value of convenience, low prices and access to a variety of products just don’t add up.
Online grocers are convenient with 24/7 availability. Farmers’ markets are not.
At the local grocery store, comparison shopping to find the lowest price is done quickly as similar items are grouped together. That’s not the case at the farmers’ market.
Mega-supermarkets offer food purchases, along with buying your automotive care products and even appliances! Farmers’ markets do not.
So what brings consumers at increasing rates to more than 5,200 farmers’ markets around the country? It’s the relationship that consumers can have with farmers. The Agriculture Department calls it ‘food with a face.’ The popularity of farmers’ markets is the anchor of their current “Know Your Farmer” campaign.
That “face” reminds us that food is not made in the grocery store basement. It is grown and produced with care by men and women who not only have a passion for working with nature to produce food, but also have knowledge on how to produce it in a way that sustains their business at the market.
Much is expected from these farmers. Consumers expect fresh, top quality fruits and vegetables, as well as honey, dairy, meat and grain products. They want these items delivered with a smile and willingness to explain the production methods. If you’ve walked by the vendors’ tables at a market, you know these farmers are delivering on both points.
Other farmers are counting on them, too. Only about 4 percent of farmers use direct sales to consumers as part of their marketing plan. That means their “faces” represent the other 96 percent of farmers who use other marketing methods to sell their products.
While some may think that’s putting too much on the shoulders of those farmers who are using direct marketing, most of them would just smile, shrug and move on, shaking hands and telling customers about ways to prepare their products and what will be available at the market in the coming weeks.
Clearly, the value of a farmers’ market is about relationships and trust, both of which are intangible items that have real value in today’s economy. Economists and marketers have developed any number of models so that relationship value can be measured.
They can run their numbers and manipulate their models. Most consumers already know the value of that relationship. Priceless.

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You can see this in every aspect of American culture - turn on food TV and all the foodies talk about is sustainable agriculture and locally grown produce, but we in agriculture must continue to advocate not only for locally grown produce but for the opportunity to continue with advances in our field that will enable us to feed a hungry world. Locally grown and sustainable is great but it will not feed the millions of people going to bed hungry every night due to poor irrigation and weed overgrowth. I want people to remain open to this issue in Agriculture and see both sides and yes I love my locally grown hormone free beef from our farm, but I understand then need for hormone enhanced products that have less estrogen than the average birth control pill to be able to provide food for a hungry world.

So, I encourage direct to consumer marketing but I also encourage the American consumer to not be blinded by the honest facts that fact Agriculture today. There is no way that production methods of the 1800's will feed a growing hungry world population and we as a society must face this and realize that farmers are doing better today for our environment than ever before. So, please know your farmer, but please don't be so quick to judge other aspects of modern agriculture.

Been reading a new book...

For Mother's day my kids got me the Pioneer Woman's cookbook, and for those of you that don't know - Pioneer women runs a blog and website about being a city girl and mother of four on a working cattle ranch in Oklahoma. She is a blast. My family was amazed that I know who she was when I opened my book and even more amazed when I actually cooked the food. But, I really respect her down to earth opinions about her life and how she has adjust to it. I can feel for her - especially when she talks about her husband coming home covered in cow S%$# from working cattle and her love a wrangler butt - after all that was one of the first things that I had noticed about my husband....

But, like Pioneer Woman, I have really come to respect my husbands love of our land and our farm and our children. Given my day job, my husband has had the job of being with our kids most days too. I went back to work with both of our youngest too when they were each three weeks old - and my Farmer feller took our daughter to work cattle the first day and then to the hay field then next. All of my children have been on our farm since they could walk. They know what a squeeze chute is for and when to stay out of fields while Daddy cuts hay. And they love to play in said hay till they get caught...

I think that I have talked alot in this blog about the importance of being political active but now as there are critical issues facing Agriculture in the Congress, I think becoming active for our way of life will be more important than ever. Because, even though our operations are different, I hope that you can tell that both the Pioneer Women and myself are passionate about our homes and farms or ranches in her case. We want our children to have access to this way of life and bills like the CAP and Trade, Immigration issues, and the EPA navigational waters act will affect how we can run our operations and how our families will be able to keep doing what we love. So, if you have a love for your land or like me - have fallen for a fella who has made you in turn change from a "organic loving high heel wearing" girl to well - whatever I am most days - a country doc with farm kids who have a T-ball game tonight... Get out and have an opinion

Organic or Hungry???

Attention Whole Foods Shoppers
Stop obsessing about arugula. Your "sustainable" mantra -- organic, local, and slow -- is no recipe for saving the world's hungry millions.
BY ROBERT PAARLBERG | MAY/JUNE 2010

From Whole Foods recyclable cloth bags to Michelle Obama's organic White House garden, modern eco-foodies are full of good intentions. We want to save the planet. Help local farmers. Fight climate change -- and childhood obesity, too. But though it's certainly a good thing to be thinking about global welfare while chopping our certified organic onions, the hope that we can help others by changing our shopping and eating habits is being wildly oversold to Western consumers. Food has become an elite preoccupation in the West, ironically, just as the most effective ways to address hunger in poor countries have fallen out of fashion.



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An Ode to Farming: images from around the world.


Helping the world's poor feed themselves is no longer the rallying cry it once was. Food may be today's cause célèbre, but in the pampered West, that means trendy causes like making food "sustainable" -- in other words, organic, local, and slow. Appealing as that might sound, it is the wrong recipe for helping those who need it the most. Even our understanding of the global food problem is wrong these days, driven too much by the single issue of international prices. In April 2008, when the cost of rice for export had tripled in just six months and wheat reached its highest price in 28 years, a New York Times editorial branded this a "World Food Crisis." World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned that high food prices would be particularly damaging in poor countries, where "there is no margin for survival." Now that international rice prices are down 40 percent from their peak and wheat prices have fallen by more than half, we too quickly conclude that the crisis is over. Yet 850 million people in poor countries were chronically undernourished before the 2008 price spike, and the number is even larger now, thanks in part to last year's global recession. This is the real food crisis we face.

It turns out that food prices on the world market tell us very little about global hunger. International markets for food, like most other international markets, are used most heavily by the well-to-do, who are far from hungry. The majority of truly undernourished people -- 62 percent, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization -- live in either Africa or South Asia, and most are small farmers or rural landless laborers living in the countryside of Africa and South Asia. They are significantly shielded from global price fluctuations both by the trade policies of their own governments and by poor roads and infrastructure. In Africa, more than 70 percent of rural households are cut off from the closest urban markets because, for instance, they live more than a 30-minute walk from the nearest all-weather road.

Poverty -- caused by the low income productivity of farmers' labor -- is the primary source of hunger in Africa, and the problem is only getting worse. The number of "food insecure" people in Africa (those consuming less than 2,100 calories a day) will increase 30 percent over the next decade without significant reforms, to 645 million, the U.S. Agriculture Department projects.

What's so tragic about this is that we know from experience how to fix the problem. Wherever the rural poor have gained access to improved roads, modern seeds, less expensive fertilizer, electrical power, and better schools and clinics, their productivity and their income have increased. But recent efforts to deliver such essentials have been undercut by deeply misguided (if sometimes well-meaning) advocacy against agricultural modernization and foreign aid.


In Europe and the United States, a new line of thinking has emerged in elite circles that opposes bringing improved seeds and fertilizers to traditional farmers and opposes linking those farmers more closely to international markets. Influential food writers, advocates, and celebrity restaurant owners are repeating the mantra that "sustainable food" in the future must be organic, local, and slow. But guess what: Rural Africa already has such a system, and it doesn't work. Few smallholder farmers in Africa use any synthetic chemicals, so their food is de facto organic. High transportation costs force them to purchase and sell almost all of their food locally. And food preparation is painfully slow. The result is nothing to celebrate: average income levels of only $1 a day and a one-in-three chance of being malnourished.

If we are going to get serious about solving global hunger, we need to de-romanticize our view of preindustrial food and farming. And that means learning to appreciate the modern, science-intensive, and highly capitalized agricultural system we've developed in the West. Without it, our food would be more expensive and less safe. In other words, a lot like the hunger-plagued rest of the world.



Original Sins

Thirty years ago, had someone asserted in a prominent journal or newspaper that the Green Revolution was a failure, he or she would have been quickly dismissed. Today the charge is surprisingly common. Celebrity author and eco-activist Vandana Shiva claims the Green Revolution has brought nothing to India except "indebted and discontented farmers." A 2002 meeting in Rome of 500 prominent international NGOs, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, even blamed the Green Revolution for the rise in world hunger. Let's set the record straight.

The development and introduction of high-yielding wheat and rice seeds into poor countries, led by American scientist Norman Borlaug and others in the 1960s and 70s, paid huge dividends. In Asia these new seeds lifted tens of millions of small farmers out of desperate poverty and finally ended the threat of periodic famine. India, for instance, doubled its wheat production between 1964 and 1970 and was able to terminate all dependence on international food aid by 1975. As for indebted and discontented farmers, India's rural poverty rate fell from 60 percent to just 27 percent today. Dismissing these great achievements as a "myth" (the official view of Food First, a California-based organization that campaigns globally against agricultural modernization) is just silly.

It's true that the story of the Green Revolution is not everywhere a happy one. When powerful new farming technologies are introduced into deeply unjust rural social systems, the poor tend to lose out. In Latin America, where access to good agricultural land and credit has been narrowly controlled by traditional elites, the improved seeds made available by the Green Revolution increased income gaps. Absentee landlords in Central America, who previously allowed peasants to plant subsistence crops on underutilized land, pushed them off to sell or rent the land to commercial growers who could turn a profit using the new seeds. Many of the displaced rural poor became slum dwellers. Yet even in Latin America, the prevalence of hunger declined more than 50 percent between 1980 and 2005.

In Asia, the Green Revolution seeds performed just as well on small nonmechanized farms as on larger farms. Wherever small farmers had sufficient access to credit, they took up the new technology just as quickly as big farmers, which led to dramatic income gains and no increase in inequality or social friction. Even poor landless laborers gained, because more abundant crops meant more work at harvest time, increasing rural wages. In Asia, the Green Revolution was good for both agriculture and social justice.

And Africa? Africa has a relatively equitable and secure distribution of land, making it more like Asia than Latin America and increasing the chances that improvements in farm technology will help the poor. If Africa were to put greater resources into farm technology, irrigation, and rural roads, small farmers would benefit.


Organic Myths

There are other common objections to doing what is necessary to solve the real hunger crisis. Most revolve around caveats that purist critics raise regarding food systems in the United States and Western Europe. Yet such concerns, though well-intentioned, are often misinformed and counterproductive -- especially when applied to the developing world.

Take industrial food systems, the current bugaboo of American food writers. Yes, they have many unappealing aspects, but without them food would be not only less abundant but also less safe. Traditional food systems lacking in reliable refrigeration and sanitary packaging are dangerous vectors for diseases. Surveys over the past several decades by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found that the U.S. food supply became steadily safer over time, thanks in part to the introduction of industrial-scale technical improvements. Since 2000, the incidence of E. coli contamination in beef has fallen 45 percent. Today in the United States, most hospitalizations and fatalities from unsafe food come not from sales of contaminated products at supermarkets, but from the mishandling or improper preparation of food inside the home. Illness outbreaks from contaminated foods sold in stores still occur, but the fatalities are typically quite limited. A nationwide scare over unsafe spinach in 2006 triggered the virtual suspension of all fresh and bagged spinach sales, but only three known deaths were recorded. Incidents such as these command attention in part because they are now so rare. Food Inc. should be criticized for filling our plates with too many foods that are unhealthy, but not foods that are unsafe.

Where industrial-scale food technologies have not yet reached into the developing world, contaminated food remains a major risk. In Africa, where many foods are still purchased in open-air markets (often uninspected, unpackaged, unlabeled, unrefrigerated, unpasteurized, and unwashed), an estimated 700,000 people die every year from food- and water-borne diseases, compared with an estimated 5,000 in the United States.

Food grown organically -- that is, without any synthetic nitrogen fertilizers or pesticides -- is not an answer to the health and safety issues. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition last year published a study of 162 scientific papers from the past 50 years on the health benefits of organically grown foods and found no nutritional advantage over conventionally grown foods. According to the Mayo Clinic, "No conclusive evidence shows that organic food is more nutritious than is conventionally grown food."

Health professionals also reject the claim that organic food is safer to eat due to lower pesticide residues. Food and Drug Administration surveys have revealed that the highest dietary exposures to pesticide residues on foods in the United States are so trivial (less than one one-thousandth of a level that would cause toxicity) that the safety gains from buying organic are insignificant. Pesticide exposures remain a serious problem in the developing world, where farm chemical use is not as well regulated, yet even there they are more an occupational risk for unprotected farmworkers than a residue risk for food consumers.

When it comes to protecting the environment, assessments of organic farming become more complex. Excess nitrogen fertilizer use on conventional farms in the United States has polluted rivers and created a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, but halting synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use entirely (as farmers must do in the United States to get organic certification from the Agriculture Department) would cause environmental problems far worse.

Here's why: Less than 1 percent of American cropland is under certified organic production. If the other 99 percent were to switch to organic and had to fertilize crops without any synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, that would require a lot more composted animal manure. To supply enough organic fertilizer, the U.S. cattle population would have to increase roughly fivefold. And because those animals would have to be raised organically on forage crops, much of the land in the lower 48 states would need to be converted to pasture. Organic field crops also have lower yields per hectare. If Europe tried to feed itself organically, it would need an additional 28 million hectares of cropland, equal to all of the remaining forest cover in France, Germany, Britain, and Denmark combined.

Mass deforestation probably isn't what organic advocates intend. The smart way to protect against nitrogen runoff is to reduce synthetic fertilizer applications with taxes, regulations, and cuts in farm subsidies, but not try to go all the way to zero as required by the official organic standard. Scaling up registered organic farming would be on balance harmful, not helpful, to the natural environment.


Not only is organic farming less friendly to the environment than assumed, but modern conventional farming is becoming significantly more sustainable. High-tech farming in rich countries today is far safer for the environment, per bushel of production, than it was in the 1960s, when Rachel Carson criticized the indiscriminate farm use of DDT in her environmental classic, Silent Spring. Thanks in part to Carson's devastating critique, that era's most damaging insecticides were banned and replaced by chemicals that could be applied in lower volume and were less persistent in the environment. Chemical use in American agriculture peaked soon thereafter, in 1973. This was a major victory for environmental advocacy.

And it was just the beginning of what has continued as a significant greening of modern farming in the United States. Soil erosion on farms dropped sharply in the 1970s with the introduction of "no-till" seed planting, an innovation that also reduced dependence on diesel fuel because fields no longer had to be plowed every spring. Farmers then began conserving water by moving to drip irrigation and by leveling their fields with lasers to minimize wasteful runoff. In the 1990s, GPS equipment was added to tractors, autosteering the machines in straighter paths and telling farmers exactly where they were in the field to within one square meter, allowing precise adjustments in chemical use. Infrared sensors were brought in to detect the greenness of the crop, telling a farmer exactly how much more (or less) nitrogen might be needed as the growing season went forward. To reduce wasteful nitrogen use, equipment was developed that can insert fertilizers into the ground at exactly the depth needed and in perfect rows, only where it will be taken up by the plant roots.

These "precision farming" techniques have significantly reduced the environmental footprint of modern agriculture relative to the quantity of food being produced. In 2008, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published a review of the "environmental performance of agriculture" in the world's 30 most advanced industrial countries -- those with the most highly capitalized and science-intensive farming systems. The results showed that between 1990 and 2004, food production in these countries continued to increase (by 5 percent in volume), yet adverse environmental impacts were reduced in every category. The land area taken up by farming declined 4 percent, soil erosion from both wind and water fell, gross greenhouse gas emissions from farming declined 3 percent, and excessive nitrogen fertilizer use fell 17 percent. Biodiversity also improved, as increased numbers of crop varieties and livestock breeds came into use.

Seeding the Future

Africa faces a food crisis, but it's not because the continent's population is growing faster than its potential to produce food, as vintage Malthusians such as environmental advocate Lester Brown and advocacy organizations such as Population Action International would have it. Food production in Africa is vastly less than the region's known potential, and that is why so many millions are going hungry there. African farmers still use almost no fertilizer; only 4 percent of cropland has been improved with irrigation; and most of the continent's cropped area is not planted with seeds improved through scientific plant breeding, so cereal yields are only a fraction of what they could be. Africa is failing to keep up with population growth not because it has exhausted its potential, but instead because too little has been invested in reaching that potential.

One reason for this failure has been sharply diminished assistance from international donors. When agricultural modernization went out of fashion among elites in the developed world beginning in the 1980s, development assistance to farming in poor countries collapsed. Per capita food production in Africa was declining during the 1980s and 1990s and the number of hungry people on the continent was doubling, but the U.S. response was to withdraw development assistance and simply ship more food aid to Africa. Food aid doesn't help farmers become more productive -- and it can create long-term dependency. But in recent years, the dollar value of U.S. food aid to Africa has reached 20 times the dollar value of agricultural development assistance.

The alternative is right in front of us. Foreign assistance to support agricultural improvements has a strong record of success, when undertaken with purpose. In the 1960s, international assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and donor governments led by the United States made Asia's original Green Revolution possible. U.S. assistance to India provided critical help in improving agricultural education, launching a successful agricultural extension service, and funding advanced degrees for Indian agricultural specialists at universities in the United States. The U.S. Agency for International Development, with the World Bank, helped finance fertilizer plants and infrastructure projects, including rural roads and irrigation. India could not have done this on its own -- the country was on the brink of famine at the time and dangerously dependent on food aid. But instead of suffering a famine in 1975, as some naysayers had predicted, India that year celebrated a final and permanent end to its need for food aid.

Foreign assistance to farming has been a high-payoff investment everywhere, including Africa. The World Bank has documented average rates of return on investments in agricultural research in Africa of 35 percent a year, accompanied by significant reductions in poverty. Some research investments in African agriculture have brought rates of return estimated at 68 percent. Blind to these realities, the United States cut its assistance to agricultural research in Africa 77 percent between 1980 and 2006.

When it comes to Africa's growing hunger, governments in rich countries face a stark choice: They can decide to support a steady new infusion of financial and technical assistance to help local governments and farmers become more productive, or they can take a "worry later" approach and be forced to address hunger problems with increasingly expensive shipments of food aid. Development skeptics and farm modernization critics keep pushing us toward this unappealing second path. It's time for leaders with vision and political courage to push back.
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Looks like I have too much time on my hands on a Friday Night, but given how I used to rant and rave about "organic" foods in this house, a big part of me feels I owe it too my farmer friends to post this very well writen article by a Harverd University Associate Political Science professor... he so much more sounds like he knows what he is talking about. But, it is true, there are more and more people and if we as a world society do not embrace modern production techniques, people will continue to starve. You cannot feed 50 billion on organic production. And yes, I still like to buy my local organic strawberries but we should have room for both without the exclusion of either in agriculture. But foodies and chefs need to be made to see the benifits found in modern sustainable agriculture.

Animal Welfare Questioned in Tennessee...

Well, its happened, then news and animal rights activist have decided that Tennessee needs to be the next target - at least middle Tennessee where I live is feeling the strain. There is legislation in the state at the moment to change the laws that we have dealing with animal cruelty that were written by people that do not understand the current system of legislation that is in play. These same people have been quite vocal in denigrating farmers and the Tennessee Farm Bureau in our lack of sponsorship of these bills. These are poorly written legislation that do little to protect animals, Tennessee already has some of the strictest animal cruelty laws in the nation if they were enforced.

In no shape form or fashion do myself or any decent farmer that I know condone the mistreatment of any animal - neither does the Farm Bureau. For years farmers have been the stewards of our environment and our livestock. In years past, farmers depended on their animals not only for their food but for assistance with producing their crops. Now we depend on our animals for income and in some cases for enjoyment. I take offence when the local new media in our area choose to interview owners of 1-2 burrows and a horse as a farmer instead of a production agriculturist on this issue. Farm Bureau Members believe that whenever someone is found guilty of animal cruelty there should be swift and just punishment in accordance of the law.
Speaking of the law, lets talk a bit about Tennessee's animal cruelty laws since the news is not educating you about it... Today in our state we have two separate statutes on animal abuse.

The first is TCA 39-14-202 Animal Cruelty - passed in 2002 and Farm Bureau worked with the bills sponsors- this deals with intentionally or knowingly torturing, maiming, grossly overworking, failing to provide necessary food, water, care or shelter for an animal, abandoning and animal, or transporting and animal in a cruel manner. This law carries a punishment of up to 11 MONTHS & 29 DAYS IN JAIL AND $2500 FINE PER ANIMAL. (It is already against the law in this state to fail to feed and water your animals - it may not being enforced) This law applies to all animal including livestock. A second conviction of this act is already a felony.

The second is TCA 39-14-212 Aggravated Animal Cruelty - this deals with crimes against animals that they merited a Felony charge on the first offence as it presently stands. this deals with crimes such as setting an animal on fire, chopping an animal up, etc. This is due to the fact that persons who are willing to commit these crimes against animals will likely commit crimes against people latter in life. Again Farm Bureau worked with the bills sponsors when it was passed.

The Animal Legal Defense Fund ranks Tennessee animal protection laws in the top tier of 50 states. This Fund was founded in 1979 by attorneys active in shaping the emerging field of animal law, ALDF pushes for stronger enforcement of animal cruelty laws and more humane treatment of animals. The report is release on a yearly basis and ranks based on 14 categories of animal protection laws. BUT we did not hear that on the news.

As a Tennessee Farmer and Farm Bureau member, I am very disappointed in the one sided reported and misrepresentation to the House Ag committee and to the People of Tennessee. the local new media has chose to report that farmers do not care about animal rights when we have a record in this state of being proactive champions for animal rights.

Since 2002 Farm Bureau has actively supported every ethical bill for animal rights as is show by our high ranking to such organizations as the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Farmers want and need healthy animals. We already have good laws to this effect. We need to support and enforce the laws we have. Thanks for listening...

Had a half in half day...

Once upon a time in America, people got up and went to work and most everyone worked a fair day for a fair days pay. Oh how far we have come. Now people are more concerned with animal abuse and neglect thanks to the Human Society of the United States then we are with child abuse. I have never seen stories on Channel 4 news talking about all the cases of children in this state being abused and miss treated every day but let there be one bill in the State Ag committee that HSUS disagrees with the wording on and here goes Channel 4 news.
We as agriculturist want to protect our livestock, but I don't want someone deciding that just because I don't feed my cows grain twice a day or my horses alfa-alfa hay instead of grass hay does not mean I am committing a felony. I have turned in 4 different parents for major instances of child abuse since the beginning of the year. Of those, only 1 set of those children have been removed from the home. But let animals be involved and people were online last night volunteering to be the animal police and "get the people hurting the defenceless animals".
Have we as a society lost our minds. I grew up as a Veterinarian's child and grandchild and maybe this has tainted my opinion but sometimes what we do to keep people and our pets alive is more cruel then when my grandfather used to go ahead and euthanize animals that were in extreme pain and untreatable. When did animal become more valuable than people.
As a farmer, I do value my stock. they are expensive animals and if they are hurt or injured we have to get them seen about quickly. They have access to fresh water 24hrs a day 365 days a year. They are fenced out of ponds for their and the environments protection. But, when we get legislation to provide good common sense rules to provide education for animal agriculturist, I hope it can be structured along the lines of Ohio's proactive stance towards animal agriculture. Because unlike the HSUS, I like my beef farm and want my children to be able to be farmers into the next generation.
No other group does as much for the American Economy with so few of people putting into the mix Less than 2% of Americans claim to be American Farmers but we provide...
"The United States exports $43.5 billion in agriculture products and important $26.4 billion in farm products, equaling a positive net trade balance of $17.1 billion." According to www.agday.org
I am proud to be an American Farmer and proud to have friends that are American Farmers... I hope that by our efforts my children will still have a farm to call home.