- Hello and welcome to Farm Connections.

I'm your host, Dan Hoffman.

On today's program, we learn what goes into producing chocolate at Squash Blossom Farm.

We sit down for a conversation about the state of soybeans with Bill Gordon of the American Soybean Association.

And the University of Minnesota provides us with a new best practices segment.

All here today, on Farm Connections.

(cheerful acoustic country music) - [Announcer] Welcome to Farm Connections, with your host, Dan Hoffman.

- [Woman] Farm Connections, made possible in part by- - [Announcer] Absolute Energy, a locally owned facility produces 125 million gallons of ethanol annually.

Proudly supporting local economies in Iowa and Minnesota.

Absolutely Energy, adding value to the neighborhood.

The Agricultural Utilization Research Institute, collaborating with businesses and entrepreneurs to foster longterm economic benefit for Minnesota, through value added agricultural products.

You can learn more, at auri.org.

(gentle acoustic music) - Our mission is local food, local art, local music.

So we're trying to combine all of our passions, music, art, and great food and restoring this gorgeous old farmstead that we really love, back to its glory, and inviting the community in to share it with us.

- You know, this is just such an amazing spot.

We lived in town for a long time but were always driving around the countryside sort of looking for the perfect spot, and we came across this one 10 years, 10, 11 years ago.

It was way outside of our reach, but we really liked it, and so we kind of persisted and worked on it.

We feel, we're not super religious people, but we feel sort of blessed that, to have this space and feel some sort of an obligation to share it with people, so that's the, the aspect of community is really important to us.

- A big theme in my life is like, just thinking about like, different ways that people are connected to nature.

And working on a farm really is, like, kind of like ground zero for doing that, and so I think, you know, there's like, an infinite amount of stuff to learn and different ways that people farm, but, just like, having your hands in the dirt, and being around the plants and, kind of like, the, and like, you know, the entire environment of it, I think, you know, I think that's really valuable for just thinking about like, what are the possibilities.

- We're a little different than a corn and soybeans farm.

We have a lot of different sort of smaller operations.

So we have a large garden that we've done some, a CSA out of.

This year we're just doing it, farm stand by the side of the road, you probably saw that when you came in.

We have some, a variety of animals that, at this time, are somewhat more pets than anything else, but we do have a lot of ... we do eggs and, from the chickens and that kind of thing.

So, those are sort of the farm kind of things.

In non-pandemic years, we have an operation where we do pizza on the farm.

So people come, we have live music, we make pizza in our commercial kitchen, and serve it and people just hang out on the grounds.

And then, also, in the kitchen we do a fair amount of baking for the farmer's market, typically.

And we also sell stuff at a people's food club, so, I do a sourdough bread, Sue does a lot of other kinds of baking, so, those are some of the things.

- We have a book of ideas and plans and dreams and, it never gets shorter.

Like, we check things off but we keep adding things.

Sometimes I think I would really like to morph it gradually into almost a folk school.

We already have classes on the farm sometimes, where we'll have someone come and teach, we've taught making bread, but people have come in and taught hand crafts, Ukrainian Easter eggs, weaving, things like that.

So I really like that idea, I don't know if we're quite big enough of a site.

But, or you know, down the road, we're getting older, we may have to step back a little bit from our long work days, but, I'd still like the idea of it being kind of a park, gallery, gathering place, in some form or other.

- A year or so ago, our daughter Sara, introduced us to this idea.

She had gone to Costa Rica a couple of times and had worked on a chocolate plantation there.

Came back and started doing it here and offered us the opportunity to do it more commercially here.

Since we have a commercial kitchen we're able to do food kind of products, safely, and officially, so, over the last year we've just been trying to figure out the process and it's kind of a long process, so a lot of different steps in it.

And, you know, kinda get our chops down and work through that and, so now we're at the point now where we're able to make things fairly consistently and be able to sell it commercially.

- I have always been really interested in like, botany and like learning about plants and how, sort of the ethnobotany of how people use plants in different cultures.

I had started visiting Costa Rica in order to learn about tropical plants and, a couple years ago ended up working with a chocolate maker there who was also running a botanical garden and doing a lot of herbalism, and so I kind of had like a mini apprenticeship there.

I had some friends who were, you know, raising cacao there and it just seemed like kind of a mutual aid thing to be able to like, share it with people here and also help be a market for people there.

I came back home with like a big backpack full of cocoa beans, and started like, learning about, you know, what machines do we need to make chocolate and, and it was handy that my dad and mom happen to have this bakery here at the farm.

So, you know, I brought the beans down here and we just kind of started experimenting with it.

But, for a minute I was making chocolate in my house in Minneapolis and realized that it really needs a little bit more space and like an actual kitchen, so.

It's a really technical process to like, work with the beans.

You know, it's an art, and people do it for, you know, their whole lifetime to become like an expert chocolate maker.

So it just seemed like the kind of thing that would be fun for them.

(chuckles) And I think it is.

- [Susan] It's been really interesting getting our beans from the indigenous people of Costa Rica, the Bribri people, and our daughter Sara, who's developed a relationship with some of the women farmers in the Bribri tribe, set up a video conference call with a couple of members of the Bribri, with a member of the Bribri tribe, who told us all about the importance of chocolate in their culture and their religion.

And it was really fascinating, and really brought home the fact that we wanna be really respectful of how we use the chocolate and how we market it and, be fair to them as well, and paying a fair price.

And so, we're really excited to develop this international relationship with another culture and to help each other out.

- What we've been trying to do all along is be as diverse as we can.

And sort of minimize the amount of investment in any one thing, but to kinda spread it across the board, so that gives us some resiliency as things change, you know, on a hot dry year some things grow better than a wet rainy year.

And the chocolate is kind of another piece in that puzzle, we've got some other prospects, we're thinking about opening up a farm winery, only to make wine with, out of, out of honey, so a meadery.

And that's one thing that's on the list of things to do.

But just so that, you know, as things go up and down in the marketplace, then we're thinking we've got some various ways that we can accomplish, kind of, staying in business and staying alive.

- [Susan] This is the first summer ever that Rodge and I have been alone on our farm, we usually have live-in interns.

And we've just gotten to take on some really fun projects that have been on the back-burner forever because we haven't had time to do them.

And work together as a duo, and that's been really quite marvelous.

- [Announcer] Farm connections best practices brought to you by ... (upbeat country rock music) - Hi, this is Jochum Wiersma, I'm the small grains extension agronomist at the University of Minnesota, and work with the University of Minnesota extension.

Today we're gonna talk about best management practices for rye, in particular fall rye.

Which most people in Minnesota probably only know as a cover crop, but it is also surprisingly, the hybrids out of Germany, do very very well in Minnesota, and making rye actually a viable alternative to spring wheat or barley, and even winter wheat.

To get the max benefit out of, for instance, the hybrids, you wanna have, you need, still, you know, moisture, and so, we recommend that actually in well-drained, but in soils that have some water-holding capacity, and then we really like a couple of things that are really important.

Rye is a fall seeded crop, and you have to get it large enough that it can withstand the winter, but you don't wanna start it too early, because if you start it too early, there's two problems.

First, we have this concept called the green bridge, where pest problems like aphids, et cetera, that would be volunteer small grains in the area, could migrate over to the young seedlings of the rye, and infect it and potentially with virus diseases or fungal pathogens as well.

And so we wanna start late enough that we don't create this green bridge.

The second thing we've learned is that rye in Minnesota, seeded too early, almost gets too lush, and that actually probably hinders its yield potential the next summer.

Ideally, for northern Minnesota, we talk as a planting date probably September 15th.

In southern Minnesota, we're probably looking closer to October 1st, and maybe even a little bit later.

That comes later in the season, and that's around heading.

Rye is susceptible to fusarium head blight, so it does pay to pay attention to the risk models that University of Minnesota has, and, nationally, we also have a risk prediction model about how high the risk is for development of fusarium head blight.

And we have some preliminary data, that suggests that indeed, the use of fungicides can reduce the incidence of fusarium head blight, which is important in both the feed and the food side, because scabby seed, fusarium head blight damaged kernels, contain a vomitoxin called deoxynivalenol, nivalenol, or DON for short.

And that has, the FDA has a advisory of a maximum of two parts per million in the market.

So, once you have harvested it, obviously you wanna dry it down as quickly as possible, to about 14% moisture for longterm storage.

If it's not at 14 at harvest, and then, you have to see, when you market, how bad ergot is.

If it is, if there's a fair amount of ergot in it, it is advisable to actually run it over a gravity table, prior to marketing, because in the market, ergot is an issue, and both the feed and the food side, and so removing the ergot bodies can save you a lot of discounts.

With that, those are some of the highlights as far as best management practices for rye, and hybrid rye, in Minnesota.

This was Jochum Wiersma, University of Minnesota small grains extension agronomist, and small grains specialist at the University of Minnesota.

- We're pleased to have Bill Gordon, president of the American Soybean Association, join us on Farm Connections today.

Welcome, Bill!

- Hey, thanks Dan, thanks for having me!

It's exciting to be here.

- It's great to have some talent from Minnesota representing us at the American Soybean Association.

As president, what's your role?

- So I represent all soybean farmers, the association is the advocacy arm of the American soybean farmer.

So we have 26 affiliate states, affiliate groups, representing 30 different states.

We have a 56 member board that represents those 30 states.

We also then represent all 300,000 American soybean farmers on the hill, whether it's in the state, but more on a national level, on Washington D.C. - Bill, why is it important that soybean producers in Minnesota and the United States of America have representation in Washington D.C.?

- Well, as farmers and most, you know, in rural America in general is you need a voice.

We're one percent of the population that raises all the food for the country and much of the world.

Now, that's a very small percentage, and so when you look at how a farmer gets his voice, his or her voice, out to D.C., associations like American Soybean Association is how that is done.

And we monitor, then, any legislation or any policies that come from Washington D.C., or nation levels then, for that rural development, rural economy or agriculture, and then try to help mediate, really, between what we in rural America need, and what the people out there, policy makers, are making decisions on.

- Well I think what some people don't understand is how much energy, time and effort farmers put into growing food, fuel, feed and fiber, but also how much money and energy and resources they put into working with their commodity groups.

This is funded by soybean growers, correct?

- Right, so American Soybean Association, you know, they have two sides, you have the United Soybean Board, and so a farmer pays in one half of one percent of their soybean sales checkoff.

They only do education, research, and trade.

They cannot do any advocacy work.

The American Soybean Association, the association part, we're on membership dues all through the state, like Minnesota Soybean Growers Association, Iowa Soybean, Illinois, you got Wisconsin.

And those 26 affiliates I was telling you about, all on membership or sponsorship dollars.

So when we go to the hill, it's our own farmer money, that we voluntarily give to the association to do, so yeah, thousands of hours of advocacy work and volunteers.

- Bill, you spoke a little bit about markets.

What's happening in the world wide market with soybeans?

- Well it's been kind of an interesting last couple years, you know, 2018 that we entered a trade war with China.

Our largest consumer, and, a lot of times we talk about China and China and China.

The reason we talk about China is, they buy about 80% of the world's soybeans.

There's just nothing, there's no one else even comes close, when you add up all the other markets, they can't compete with just that one juggernaut like China.

The last couple years they've basically stopped buying beans from us.

I'll rephrase that.

They bought about half as many beans as they normally buy from us, which is still a six, what, six billion dollars worth of soybeans last year.

That's a lot of money.

But in 2013, 14, we've sold 'em 13 billion dollars worth of soybeans.

A lot of difference and, USSEC is our organization, it's called the United Soybean ... United States Soybean Export Council.

They are the USB, ASA counterpart that does trade.

They were already doing a great job of switching over to other markets because we did a study and said, we have all our eggs in one basket, you know, with farmer terminology is, you put all your eggs in one basket, something happens, right, you're in trouble.

So, on the bright side, timing, luck, however you wanna look at it, we had already switched over.

But, that being said, we got in a phase one agreement with China here now.

We are hoping to see more purchases.

Just got some information that came here last week that the 2020-21 market year, which'd be this fall's crop, we had record amount of soybean sales going to China.

That's huge news for American soybean farmers and really the economy and rural economies, thinking back, we have 17 million metric tons booked to go into China, alone, in the new crop.

We were down to like six, five or six, last year.

So a huge difference.

The best part is, is we thought about it as, okay, this is phase one, it's politics.

It's not, it's a market driven demand.

Their hogs, and all the things that they had lost with that swine fever, they've rebounded already, and they think it'll take three to four years to have a full rebound, so we're looking at an amazing opportunity with China here.

Agriculture is set up to provide that.

- Fantastic, good news, really good news, and, eating and food really isn't optional, hopefully.

(laughs) - Well, and really, for us in America, we're mostly middle class individuals, right, we can go to the grocery store and buy food.

There's always the tops and the bottoms of that, but you always have good, high quality food, right?

And it's always usually available.

We had some COVID issues with, we didn't have food production issues, but we had food delivery issues.

We're working through that here with our end users and our middle consumer groups, but in China, it was opposite.

In the 80s, 80% of all the population lives on the farm.

They had one or two pigs, raised their own food.

Now that's all flipped in China.

Right, so now they're creating this whole middle class, and so that's where we see this huge influx of protein.

The demand for pork, the demand for our US poultry, it's just crazy, the growth around the world.

- Bill, you seem excited about doubling really the demand or orders, and then of course that translates to dollars for farms.

Why is that important to farmers, and then why is it important to their economy in general?

- Yeah, so it's really important to farmers, the last few years, it's been pretty rough.

And then you throw in 18 and 19 weather, our yields are off, and they weren't, or we had prevent plans and you lived on insurance, which, no farmer loves, is that, you know, it's great to have crop insurance and it's a key to our factors of our farms and our safety net, but it's not how we operate, right?

We wanna raise a crop, we wanna get paid for it fairly, and you know, grow our families.

So, part of it is just social and emotional, to be able to take a product you've raised and a good crop, and deliver it then to a consumer.

That's, I think a lot of times, rural consumers forget is, we're raised and bred and developed as a farmer to feed people.

We want the profit, but, that's our job.

So, the first part of that is having a good crop that we can deliver and get a price for, is awesome.

Second part of that is, is when you look at a farm lately with all the economies and all the issues we've had, farmers need a shot in the arm.

And we don't want it from the US government.

So, this will help, these prices and this extra yield, will help to give those farms that much needed shot in the arm, so they develop their farms.

And then last your question about how does it affect everybody else?

When farmers are successful, just like any small business, in town, they spend money locally.

Most all farmers turn that dollar that they raised and they turn it into the local, on Main Street.

Most of us don't go to the big cities to buy our things, we go to buy pickups, go buy our groceries locally, all those different things, so when a farm economy's booming, Main Street will boom too.

And that's what is so important for this rural economy and this agriculture to get these markets back up.

- If you're spending that locally, that filters into all regional hubs, all the way back to wherever those products are manufactured, and that means jobs for the population in general.

- Jobs and education, I mean think about, most schools in Minnesota are paid for on rural real estate taxes by farmers in farmland.

Right?

We gotta educate these kids, I mean with COVID and all these issues, I have four children, 17 to nine, and they're doing one to two days a week and everything else is virtual, and so it's, we're trying to figure that new normal out, but we gotta get this next generation educated, we can't leave them behind because of a pandemic, or because there's no schools available.

They've gotta pay teachers, they gotta pay people, and create those jobs, like you said.

- Well said.

And as we think about COVID, what's happened supply side, demand side, when, you know, our restaurants are disrupted, some of our other businesses are disrupted.

How has that impacted soybean demand and supply?

- Well as (indistinct) said at the beginning, you know, everybody needs to eat, it's not an option.

And so, we didn't see a big drop in some of that.

What we saw was a change, of meat consumption, or of how people ate, of you know, the Impossible Burgers and different things like that, of eating more at home.

And, so we're trying to work with our consumers and our groups to try to figure out what they need more, so the supply part has been pretty decent.

The other part that we can touch base on is bio fuels.

With the restaurants shutting down, one of the bio fuels, bio diesel, especially, what we deal with, is made out of animals fats, like you use cooking oil, after we produce the soybeans, create a oil, you know, you fry your foods in it, and the leftover oil we consume with bio diesel, as well as raw soybean oil.

But without the restaurants consuming soybean oil, and different fats, there's less of that to put into the bio diesel market.

And so now, we're using more soybean oil than we've ever used to create bio diesel, because the demand and the really consumer acceptance of a renewable fuel, is growing every day, especially in states like California, it just, it's awesome to see the growth there, and what it's doing for the environment.

- Well bio fuels are really interesting, they take the solar, they take the soil, they take the water, they take the resources that are quite plentiful, really, in Minnesota, groomed by farmers, and they really turn it into something sustainable and something that's environmentally friendly.

Can you talk a little bit about your work in those areas?

- Yeah, it's, you know, sustainability to a farmer is front of mind.

It's the first thing we think about when we wake up and the last thing really we think about when we go to sleep.

What we forget about a lot of times, Dan, is to tell our consumers and our friends and our neighbors about it.

So, I'm a fourth generation farmer.

This year we celebrated 100 years on our farm.

It's an awesome event, you know, COVID kinda messed up having a little bit of a celebration with the family, but my children are helping us on the farm, and I wanna create a environment and the land so that next time that they are here in the future when they take over, they can actually have it better than me.

And that's farming in general.

So, agriculture, especially soybean growers, all been working through sustainability issues we have and protocol that we use, you know, work with the government, the US government backs it up, that when we ship out soybeans around the world, we can actually put a sustainable label on.

US sustainably raised.

In the US, we don't tear down rainforests, right?

We don't deforest to plant soybeans.

We're actually losing land every year, to urban sprawl, so we're taking less and we're producing more with a better sustainable and better carbon footprint.

We look at, when my grandfather used to raise soybeans, compared to when I raise soybeans, I'm about 10 times greater, or less carbon impact, on the environment than he was, when you look at per bushel.

And so, we're working on the whole load, because we produce more, and that whole carbon thing and so we've been working with that.

But you can look at per bushel basis, we're already there.

Soil erosion, top of mind.

We gotta keep our topsoils there, that's where the nutrients are.

And then water quality.

We think about lakes and streams in Minnesota, especially Minnesota soybean growers, we've been talking about water quality for years and working on practices above stream to try to keep that water really clean.

- Bill Gordon, president of the American Soybean Association, thanks for joining us today!

- Thanks for having me, Dan, it was great!

- Part of the joy of the creative process is the payoff it returns.

That feeling of accomplishment after a hard day's work can make the results that much sweeter.

I'm Dan Hoffman, thanks for watching Farm Connections.

(lively acoustic country music) (dramatic jingle)