(bright music) - Hello and welcome to Farm Connections.

I'm your host Dan Hoffman.

On today's program, we learn about land improvement and carbon credit programs with Ed McNamara.

Stu Lorey of the Minnesota Farmers Union brings his perspective to the antitrust discussion and the University of Minnesota Extension brings us a new Best Practices segment, all here today on Farm Connections.

(energetic music) - [Narrator] Welcome to Farm Connections with your host, Dan Hoffman.

- [Woman] Farm Connections made possible in part by: - [Man] Minnesota Corn Growers Association, working to identify and promote opportunities for corn growers, enhance quality of life, and help others understand the value and importance of corn production to America's economy.

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EDPR wind farms and solar parks provide income to farmers and help power rural economies across the continent.

- [Man] Northern Country Coop, a full service cooperative in grain, agronomy, feed, and lumber.

For the latest news, job openings, and podcasts, you can go to their website, NCountryCoop.com.

- [Man] R&S Grain Systems, a family-owned business, serving its customers for 50 years with leading designs in the manufacturing of grain handling equipment and grain storage systems.

You can call them for a quote today.

(energetic banjo music) (music continues) - Farm Connections traveled to rural Goodhue, Minnesota to the Ed and Jane McNamara farm.

And with me is Ed McNamara.

- Hey, Dan.

Pleased to meetcha.

Welcome.

- Well, thanks for havin' us.

- Thank you very much for coming.

- There's something special happening?

What is it?

- Well, we're having a carbon summit.

There's a lot of discussion about carbon credits, whether producers should be signing up for it, how much they could possibly get.

And some of that falls into the scenario with using cover crops and using no-till to sequester carbon in the ground instead of having it go up into the atmosphere.

- Well, Ed, thanks for your leadership on this.

Sometimes it takes an awful lot of courage to step out ahead of the group, right?

- Well, I don't think it's that far out.

I'm on the local Soil and Water Conservation district board, and we wanna be a leader throughout the county with conservation practices, and no-till is one of those conservation practices along with cover crops, and if that can help producers gain a few extra dollars and have better water quality and keep your soil in place for the next generation.

- Important.

Very.

- Very important.

Yes.

You're saying I'm the third generation to farm this farm, and there's only been three people that have turned the furrow on this farm.

- Well, Ed, this is a special place because your family's here and also it's still in the family, but it's also special for where it's located.

This is a special space with a special watershed.

Can you talk to that?

- Well, that's part of working with the summit is that we are at the top of three watersheds, this farm is.

We're gonna stand on the top of two watersheds, the Hay Creek, which is known for brown trout, and the Zumbro, which flows down through and comes in, the water from here actually comes in east of Zumbro Falls.

So, but that's, Zumbro Watershed is a very long and narrow watershed, has a lot of different terrain on it, a lot of different diversity as far as cropping systems to go along with the livestock that's in the area too.

- So to speak, we're at the top of the world, at least in this region, right?

- Well, we'd like to think so.

I guess- - What's the elevation?

- We are at 1,240 feet above sea level.

- And we're not very far from the Mississippi River.

- We're 21 miles, that way, you can see Wisconsin over your right shoulder.

- The three watersheds, again?

- The Belle Creek, which flows into the Cannon, the Hay Creek, which actually does flow into the Cannon too, but down near the Cannon Bottoms, near Red Wing, north of Red Wing, and then the Zumbro Watershed, that flows- they all flow into the Mississippi River.

- Well, especially since you're at the pinnacle, so to speak, of the topography, why is it important to look out for somebody else?

- Well, I'm not only looking out for somebody else, but I'm looking out for the longevity of this farm.

What I do on this farm is gonna affect the next generation behind me, just as my grandfather and my father did before me.

If we don't take care of our ground, it's not gonna take care of us, and if we can't take care of ourselves, where's this country gonna go?

- Well said, and we all like to eat, right?

- Yes we do.

- You talked a little bit about sequestration of carbon.

What does that mean?

- Basically, you know, carbon is CO2, you know, but I mean, carbon is what gets sequestered into the ground.

The plants take in CO2, take it down to the roots, that's where it's stored until it's released back through tillage or other practices that release that carbon back up out of the ground.

Coal is carbon, diamonds are carbon, petroleums are carbon.

So we need to put it back down into the ground because all those products have come back up out of the ground.

- Are we taking it out faster than we're putting it back in?

- I believe we are, but agriculture has only really, that and forestry are the only two operations that really sequester it back in, where the other ones are all taking it back out again.

So we need to put the carbon back into the ground and keep it there.

- What's at risk if we don't do it right?

- If we don't do it right, it'll probably escalate climate change.

I temper that a little bit.

Climate is always changing.

There's never two years that are the same.

It's just a matter of how fast things happen.

Hotter summers, warmer winters, higher dew points, and the plants all react to that based on whether you have tillage practices or cover crops and to be able to keep that plant cool so we can keep on producing a bountiful crop in the United States.

- Sometimes we hear people when they look at a field that's completely barren and say, "Look, the soil is beautiful."

When you see that, what do you say?

- Unless there's something there, when you start looking at the temperatures on that, today's a pretty warm day.

You know, earlier this week we touched up a hundred.

The soil microbes on a bare soil, basically when they get over a hundred degrees, they die.

So now the biological activities has slowed down in that soil.

So now it should slower down recycling the nutrients out of the crop residue to make it available for the next crop.

Where you take a field that has a cover on it, you can control that temperature, the soil microbes keep on working, maybe not as fast, kinda like you and me when we get overheated a little bit, but we still have, we have moisture, we have controlled temperature.

We don't have the big fluctuations of too cold nights, too hot of days.

- You put a lot of work into this workshop tonight, a great deal of effort.

What is your hope that happens?

- The debate.

Our country's been founded on democracy.

The forefathers debated what we were gonna do.

This is another frontier for the American agriculture.

We need to have a debate.

I don't care what you sign up for, but at least have the debate.

Talk about it, go home, talk with your significant other about it, because it's a long-term commitment to your operation when you do this.

And in long-term, it'll affect the next generation too, so we wanna be proactive about that.

We always wanna make it better than our dads and our grandfathers bought it.

We're gonna have a tough time doing that because right now we just seem to be taking so much out of the ground.

Now it's time to be putting some stuff back into it.

- You referenced debate.

It must mean choosing a vendor for carbon credits, and- - Just the discussion.

I mean, listen to 'em all.

We have four of 'em here tonight.

That's not all of them, but at least four very different points of views, and they come at it a different angles.

So it depends on how you really want it.

You're taking home your operation.

Look forward to see how the next generation, if you have the next generation coming into your farm, or how it's gonna be operated is gonna dictate that as if you're renting your farm out to put a cover crop on it.

Well, now that's a win-win for you and your tenant.

- You certainly can make an impact here, Ed.

And you've opened up your farm, which is a sense of vulnerability to a certain degree for people to come in and learn.

So I hope that it works out extremely well and people leave with more knowledge.

- Every day, you're a teacher and a learner.

- And you're good at it, Ed.

- Thanks, Dan.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Stay at tuned for more on Farm Connections.

(energetic folk music) - [Narrator] Farm Connections Best Practices brought to you by: - Hi, I'm Nathan Drewitz with the University of Minnesota Extension, and this is today's Best Practices.

Today I'm gonna provide a short forage update in some of the pests and issues that we are still concerned about here in the state.

When it comes to alfalfa, second cutting, especially here in the southeast is just finishing up.

I know that most of the fields have already been taken down.

This of course leads us into, as we head towards third cutting, what are we gonna be looking for?

Well, of course, as we know, alfalfa weevils have been spotted still continuously throughout a good portion of the state.

The southeast here is no different, but we do wanna make sure that we're still out there, scouting posts once those windrows are up.

Of course, those alfalfa weevils, typically once we cut, those that don't end up in the windrow do die off.

However, we are concerned about those that hid underneath the windrow and are currently still trying to take off our foliage on the top.

So what you're gonna wanna do is make sure to get out there, take a sweep net with you, make sure that there are no larvae there.

The other insect of concern that we're currently gonna be focused on is potato leaf hoppers.

Of course, this can come into our soybeans as well, but typically for alfalfa, if you get enough of them, especially early on here, that we tend to see some stunting as well as some other issues when those particular insects come in.

Again, you're gonna want to keep the height of that alfalfa stand in mind when you're looking for those particular insects.

Those do have to come in from the state or from south of us as they don't overwinter here, so we are gonna keep a close eye on that as well as we move forward into our third cutting.

The other thing here that we need to start focusing on is we are starting to get closer and closer to August and September, and of course that means that our cutoff for that third and fourth cutting is starting to come up.

Make sure that you're keeping track of those growing degree days, especially as you get later in the season.

Remember that you need at least 500 growing degree days between your final cutting and the first frost that we receive, which is typically in that first couple of weeks of October.

You know, it's hard to think about that at this point, but that's something that we need to start focusing on as that's going to have a large impact as to whether we get three cuttings or four cuttings yet this season.

Also remember that if you do have, after third cutting, a nice timeframe to get some growth on that, we do also have that 200 growing degree limit, where as long as we don't accumulate 200 growing degree days for alfalfa, at the end of the season, that we can go ahead and go into that timeframe and cut those stands and take that forage off.

Just be mindful of, that if we don't get enough snowfall that we need between four and six inches of regrowth in order to catch snow.

That helps us insulate.

So keep in mind that for some of those younger stands that you might want to maintain the viability, that might not necessarily be your first option.

So in summation, again, keep in mind that we're still seeing alfalfa weevils out there.

Leaf hopper season is coming up here shortly, and so we want to keep a not-close eye on those.

And then finally remember that as we get towards that end of that third cutting, that we're gonna be starting to watch that, we need to start watching that forecast here to make sure that we're not going to cut that alfalfa stand, where it might have more winter injury and even death versus a normal year.

Again, I'm Nathan Drewitz with the University of Minnesota Extension, and this has been your Best Practices.

Thanks for watching.

(melodic guitar music) - Welcome to Farm Connections.

We're in Oronoco, Minnesota at the People's Energy Co-op.

And with me today is Stu Lorey from Minnesota Farmers Union.

Welcome, Stu.

- Thank you, Dan.

- Stu, this was a great meeting and you do great work.

Tell us more.

- It was.

Well, thank you, Dan.

And it was really exciting to be here.

And this was a member-driven event.

Linda Larson on our board organized this, brought some friends in the Farmers Union and outside the Farmers Union together to talk about an issue that is very important to us, and that I happen to think is kind of central to this moment that we're in, in our politics and our economy, and that's antitrust.

And we were honored to have the attorney general here to talk about some of his work.

We partner with him frequently.

And then we also had Commissioner Patrice Bailey with the Department of Agriculture, which what I'm excited about on their work is it's easy to point out what's wrong with markets.

It's harder to build new and provide folks those new opportunities, and that's really what the Minnesota Department of Agriculture does well.

So this was an exciting meeting and reflects a lot of work throughout the last couple of years.

- When you spoke of antitrust and consolidation, why is that a concern, especially in agriculture.

- Antitrust in agriculture and across our economy is a concern because when you have consolidated buyers or sellers of products, that squeezes farmers who are buying inputs on one side and selling it on the other.

If you have four companies, two of them foreign-owned, that are slaughtering 85% of the beef cattle in this country, there is no way that an individual beef producer is negotiating a price with those companies.

That is not a market interaction, and it does not guarantee a fair price.

So to answer your question more directly, it's important to us because it directly relates to farm income and to new families and current families being able to build a life on the land and earn a living in agriculture in Minnesota.

- How does that same topic affect consumers or people that eat?

- And I'm so glad you asked that question, 'cause Farmers Union, we've talked for a long time about consolidation.

That's part of our history.

We want markets that are more diverse and more resilient.

But what happened during COVID-19 is the average consumer saw what those consolidated markets do too.

They heard about the prices that farmers were getting plummeting, while they saw grocery store prices skyrocket.

They saw grocery store shelves bare due to the consolidation and due to plants shutting down.

And so we're really at this moment where Farmers Union members don't only realize it, but all farmers do, and consumers and workers do as well.

And so that's part of what it will take to build the political coalition, to get real change in our markets and guarantee fairness for farmers and everyone else.

- Stu when you say moment, it strikes me as being pivotal.

- That's exactly right.

Yep.

It is pivotal.

Not only are we at this realization that corporations, and just a handful of 'em, control far too much about our economy and are making a killing on being able to name their price for products from fuel to burger to baby formula.

But we also have, and I'm really proud to be from Minnesota in this regard, some really incredible political leadership, in not only Attorney General Ellison, but also Senator Klobuchar.

She literally wrote the book on antitrust, entitled Antitrust.

Senator Smith understands how important this is.

Representative Craig does.

And they've partnered with folks on both sides of the aisle.

Senator Grassley has been really aggressive on some of these, on cracking, down on the beef packers.

And so we're in a moment, people realize that we have political leadership and we need to translate that into action, enforce the laws that we have in place.

The House of Representatives, later this week, quite potentially is slated to take a vote on a package of bills that includes the bill that Jon Tester has championed, the Meat and Poultry Special Investigator Act, to build capacity at USDA to look into the practices of the consolidated beef, pork, and poultry processing companies in this country and better enforce our antitrust laws, including Packers and Stockyards.

So we're in a moment, 'cause folks realize it, and we have political leadership and now we need to just make sure to push hard and get the reforms that we need.

- How do we do that?

This looks like a grassroots thing with membership and translating it into action.

How do we do that beyond what you just said?

- Absolutely.

It's meetings like this today, right?

It's easy for Attorney General Ellison to look at those four beef packers and say, "Oh, that doesn't seem like it's possible that that's a fair market," right?

But when he's got stories from actual producers about the prices they're getting, what that means for their farm and their family, that allows him to be a much stronger advocate.

The same is true for our federal delegation.

And we need to hold them accountable and educate other folks, other elected officials who don't understand how important this issue is, that they need to care about it too.

It affects their communities.

If you're a renter in Minneapolis, you should care about consolidation, 'cause there are companies buying up all the houses in our communities and then renting them back out to people, driving up prices for real estate.

And if you wanna achieve the American dream of owning a home, just like farmers wanna own farmland, and that's how you build that generational wealth, that's gonna be harder for you, because of unchecked corporate consolidation and corporate control across our economy.

So we need to build that consciousness and push for these reforms.

- Great illustration, because I think most of our consumers are very used of a good high-quality food supply at a relatively reasonable cost.

So if we use another illustration like you did, it really helps us begin to understand that problem and what it could lead to.

- [Stu] Absolutely.

- So four meat producers is challenging enough.

What if we get down to two?

What if get down to one?

- Absolutely.

And that's where, that's a perfect transition to what Assistant Commissioner Patrice Bailey talked about, and it has been a focus of the Biden administration and Secretary Vilsack throughout the first two years of office is rebuilding more diverse processing and marketing opportunities locally and regionally.

Those local meat lockers?

Folks would be right to say, "Hey, there's no way we can move the type of product that we move through a Smithfield through those local meat lockers."

They're right.

We saw that.

But when those big processing plants went down, 'cause folks were working shoulder to shoulder, and we had nationwide hotspots for COVID-19 in those counties with those processing, the flex in that system was that distributed capacity.

And so it's gonna be a long path.

Are we gonna be able to do it overnight?

No.

But we need to start rebuilding that processing capacity in our communities.

And you know what?

We'll not only create more opportunities for farmers, but we'll create more opportunities for a diverse class of entrepreneurs who wanna run those businesses too.

And you know, that's what excites me.

When you have a foreign-owned entity who owns a consolidated processing facility, you have a whole bunch of that money going out the door and never returning to that community.

When you have a locker or regional processing plant, maybe it's farmer-owned, that money is going back into the community, being reinvested through wages, through purchasing inputs, and everything else.

And that's better for our communities.

And that's my vision of what I want our economy and rural Minnesota to look like going forward.

- Well said.

Do you think a CEO or a board of directors located far, far away from the Midwest will make decisions that are best for the Midwest?

- No, I don't.

I think they will make decisions that are best for their bottom line and their board, right?

And their shareholders, right?

That's the fiduciary responsibility.

And that's part of why this isn't a campaign that CEOs are bad, right?

Or boards of directors are bad.

Fine people, I'm sure, right?

But when you have a company that has a profit incentive, they've got middle managers all the way up that their whole job is to extract as much profit as they can from each part of the supply chain.

And right at the bottom of that is the farmer, right?

So, you know, do their interests sometimes align with farmers and our ag economy and do they need farmers?

Absolutely.

Do they have goodness in their heart and a warm feeling like me?

Absolutely.

But can we trust them to make the changes that we need to see in our economy and the way we process meat?

No.

We need to do that ourselves.

- How do we take the approach of being best for Minnesota being best for the Midwest, being best for our rural people, and balance it with pro-business to get businesses to come this to this area?

- Absolutely.

Well, one thing that I'm excited about is folks wanna invest in Minnesota, right?

We have, and we work all the time with folks who wanna start meat processing facilities, for example, to use that example.

The problem for a lot of those small businesses is that they can't earn a margin either, right?

Because they're dealing with consolidated suppliers.

And so it's really central.

I think there's this idea that pro-business is pro-Amazon or pro-Cargill.

And that's not pro-business, right?

Because when you have an Amazon, it's much harder for smaller businesses to get started.

And so, you know, I think an economy that's pro-business, that would allow, you know, my brother's a welder fabricator.

An economy that would make it more possible for him to run that business in the rural community that I grew up in is one that's truly competitive and provides opportunities for all those market actors.

- You work with Minnesota's Farmers Union, and there may be somebody in the audience that says, "How do I learn more?

How do I connect?"

- Absolutely.

A generous question.

You can find us at www.mfu.org.

You can email me at stu@mfu.org, and you can come to one of our events across the state.

We're at the state fair, we have county meetings across the state, and we'd be honored to have you to learn more about our organization, the work that we're doing.

If we're gonna be successful here, we need a broad coalition.

We need all perspectives.

We need folks telling this guy when he is wrong about things, that's just as important.

And so we would absolutely welcome that.

And thanks for asking that.

- You're welcome.

Thanks for joining us today on Farm Connections.

You heard from the Minnesota Farmers Union government relations, Stu Lorey.

And thank you for joining us on Farm Connections.

Stay tuned for more.

(calm guitar music) Adaptability to a changing environment has always been a necessary strategy for businesses, but the need for education beyond the normal scope of a daily routine is just as crucial.

Keeping on top of the latest trends and staying abreast of the newest practices helps to ensure that all of our hard work pays off.

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thanks for watching Farm Connections.

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