(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to this episode of Farm Connections.

I'm your host Dan Hoffman.

On today's episode, we meet with Commissioner of Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Tom Peterson, to discuss some of the issues facing today's farmers.

We sit down for a conversation with one of the directors of the National Corn Growers Association, Brian Thallman and the University of Minnesota extension provides us with a new best practices.

All here today on Farm Connections.

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

- [Narrator] Farm Connections made possible in part by, - [Man] Absolute Energy, a locally owned facility produces 125 million gallons of ethanol annually, proudly supporting local economies in Iowa and Minnesota.

Absolute Energy, adding value to the neighborhood.

(upbeat country music) - [Announcer] 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.

- [Narrator] EDP Renewables North America, owner operator of Prairie Star and Pioneer Prairie Wind Farms, Minnesota and Iowa.

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

- Welcome to Farm Connections.

We're in Zumbrota, Minnesota in front of the covered bridge.

And with me is the Commissioner of Agriculture, Tom Peterson.

Welcome.

You've been very busy recently the state fair, what happened and what'd you hear up there?

- [Tom] Well the state fair is really great to be there.

You know, the crowds were about half of what they normally were, there were some good things to that, you could move around easily, but you know a lot of it felt like the same old state fair for me as attending a lot of the livestock shows, I personally have shown at the livestock and horse shows for almost 40 years.

And so it's just really fun to be back there and see everybody work with the FFA, the Four H, all of our great, you know, people that we have, the dairy building, Princess Kay.

You just go on and on and so good to see, but it's also good to visit with farmers from all over the state.

I can literally talk to farmers from all 87 counties almost and get a real good feeling about what's going on in our state.

- Well, I think it was important for you to be there as a representative of agriculture, but also to show our farm community, there's resources available.

What kinds of things does the Department of Ag have for them?

- You know, it really starts with, you know, a lot of the things that going on that we really help them, you know, with, you know, we do a lot of inspections, are big things like our meat inspection or dairy inspectors.

So we try to be as helpful as possible to our regulated parties, but then we also have a lot of grants and loans.

You know we have almost 50 million dollars available to farmers in loans through the department, whether it's our beginning farmer loan, our farm opportunity loans.

We have loans right now for disaster, for COVID.

And we also have grants for improving your livestock facility.

So a lot of options and things like our stress hotline or ag in the classroom, our water certification program.

Being at the fair is something that we can tell people about and also visit to see how it's working.

- We'll come back to that.

Speaking of grants and opportunities.

But what was the tone from the farmers that you visited with?

- You know I think the biggest concern and thing that we heard from our farmers was concern about our drought that persists in a lot of the state.

Really, you know, I'd say from St.

Cloud north has been the real problem area, all the way to the Canadian border.

You know, and we have got some timely rains here in the last couple of weeks, but for a lot of people, we could have needed those rains at the end of June or in July, it's too late for, you know, to really make that hay crop.

Some of our farmers are going to be really short.

We've had a massive cattle sell off in Northern Minnesota, our specialty crops.

You know we have crop insurance, but the specialty crops and the cattle producers just don't have the safety net that other farmers do.

So that was a big, big concern.

- And sometimes when you sell off the feeder animals it's one thing.

But if you have to sell off the brood cows or the breeding stock it's quite another.

- You know, and that's what I'll see, like what some of the farmers are paying for hay prices right now.

And that's one of the things I asked them, "How can you afford to pay almost $300 a ton for hay?"

And a lot of those farmers, they want to hang onto those genetics.

They built years, you know, if they can just get through that.

So they're selling off a lot of their culls and some of their animals that maybe aren't the best performers and really trying to keep that herd and those genetics that they built up over generations.

And so we're trying to help them do that through the department and working together on that.

- And selling a feeder animal's like selling a crop, but selling the breeding stock is like selling the farm.

You take away your sustainability.

- It really is.

And that really gets into a mental health issue for a lot of our farmers too, that you think about, you know, that those generations that you built up and then, you know, you're not the one that, you know, can hang on to it.

And that's a lot, a lot of stress too, and we're glad that we have resources like our counselors and our farm advocates that, that farmers can call to help them get through this.

- You heard some things from drought, but you're in Southeast Minnesota and things look a little different here, don't they?

- Yeah.

And it's really great to see.

And that's what, you know, we always emphasize, Minnesota is a big state and that can be a much different from one size to the other.

And so talking to a lot of farmers down on this end, you'll hear that we're going to have a very good yields and we're going to have very strong yields.

And so that's really helpful and help balance out, you know, a lot of the different things, I'd say that we're really pleased to see some of the yields and projections that we're hoping to see here in Southern Minnesota.

- And hopefully our farmers use those economic windfalls so to speak with good prices and good yields to good things, but we always need to be supportive of them with things like you said, grants.

Can you talk a little more about that?

- Yeah you know, and the other thing I always encourage farmers to do is when you're on our website, very simply search loans and grants, or just search loans and grants, Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

And you'll get a list of about 25 different opportunities that we have for farmers.

And that can be like a zero interest loan right now, if you're dealing with the drought or dealing with COVID, to a micro loan for a farmer that maybe wants a small loan, who's just starting out a beginning farmer loan, grants that we have are our value added grants.

We're really trying to boost our meat processing in the state.

You know, we saw with COVID a real backup.

A lot of farmers tell us they have a year wait to get something butchered.

So we're really trying to get that out there.

Our livestock investment grants for farmers that are trying to expand or modernize their farm.

So a lot of opportunities there.

- Well, imagine a farmer with a large barn full of pigs ready, they're at the right weight, the right condition, no place to go for harvest.

- Yeah, that was really our nightmare in 2020 that we had to live through.

Minnesota got hit the hardest in COVID and, you know, to see that we unfortunately had to depopulate, you know, hundreds of thousands of healthy animals.

And that was a big stress and something we work together with the farms and the other state agencies, and we got through it.

You know, I'm proud of the work that we did but, you know, we had the problem with the lockers before we had COVID in that problem, but that exasperated it even more so we're, you know, onward and upward.

And so we're, you and I talked a little bit about labor too, and some of those lockers, like, they'd like to expand but they need workers, you know, and so we've had people, we had grant money last year and people just couldn't go because they'd say, "I'd love to expand, but I can't expand because I don't have workers that I can, you know, fill that spot with."

So that's another piece that we're working on.

- Any ideas of what's causing the labor issues, or can you enumerate?

- You know, I think really, you know, some of the different things with COVID, the economy in Minnesota is booming right now.

You know, we have a lot of opportunities, a lot of jobs, a lot of expansion.

Our growth in Minnesota with jobs, and is just really booming right now.

And so as we look at whether it was also some of the unemployment benefits that were provided by the government, you know, people look at that, that's ended now, we'll see if, I know our deed, Minnesota Deed is like calling people every day.

They made, you know, thousands and thousands of calls trying to connect people with workers and, you know, and so we'll see, we also had some issues.

We use a lot of H2A workers in agriculture, H2B workers for hospitality and energy.

And we had a hard time getting some of our workers with COVID from other countries.

And so just a lot of issues to work through with COVID especially.

- Well we certainly need labor to do the things that need doing in agriculture.

What's really on the line or at risk if we don't have a labor supply?

- Yeah and so really just pretty much everywhere I go, whether it's like sugar beets up in Northwest Minnesota, or canning companies, our meat processing, our farm laborers, everybody's looking for work, you know, and it's very competitive.

And so slowdowns are an issue that, if you don't have the workers, you're not gonna be able to process as much more.

You're not going to be able to move things forward, and you're going to have workers working longer hours, which also becomes a safety issue.

And so there's just a lot of those issues that we need to work through.

- Absolutely.

And crops have a time period where they need harvesting.

They need processing.

It's not like you sometimes can wait weeks, months, or years to put them through the plant.

- Exactly.

You know, I was just talking with the sugar beet growers today up in Northwest Minnesota.

And anybody wants to drive a beat truck this fall and make some extra money.

They're all looking for drivers, you know, and that goes for other things too, as well, silage right now and everything.

And so it's a lot of opportunities there.

- So one of the issues becomes, like you said, connecting people to jobs.

Is there a website or someplace that they can go to to learn more about opportunities?

- You know I'd really work with our Minnesota Department of Economic Employment and Development is probably the best site to go through.

And I know there's an effort to underway with just our ag companies and groups, the Minnesota Agriculture Council, really working to address that issue.

So I think you'll see more and more coming out on that as days go forward.

- And what's at risk really is the supply chain and inventory that's already damaged, right?

- Exactly.

You know, and through COVID, you know, it really tipped our food system upside down with COVID.

You know I always think when we went into our shutdowns and everything, you know, Minnesotans were eating out more in 2019 than they were eating in.

And then by the end of March in 2020, we were eating back in the house 80% of the time and not going out as much.

And that really changed a lot of the food supply change.

And now we are opening back up and getting back at it and everything, but our food supply changes and people's buying habits have changed.

And so it's always interesting.

- Well it sounds easy enough to solve until you started thinking about logistics, packaging, pallets, transportation, vehicles, it really becomes a concern.

- Yeah.

And it was really highlighted in COVID, cause you had restaurants, you know, people weren't getting a little butter pads.

McDonald's wasn't buying big bags of poached eggs.

People were buying blocks of butter and cartons of eggs and people weren't buying 20 pound boxes of beef.

They were buying, you know, individual cuts.

And so companies had to adjust things very quickly to that.

And it was very, very difficult.

So, but they, you know, I'm proud of our companies in Minnesota.

I think that they worked and worked together.

We worked with a lot of them to find those opportunities and continue to thrive as we move forward.

- Well, Tom, You certainly highlight why agriculture and the consumer need to be communicating and talking to each other.

- Absolutely.

I'm a big believer in that.

I think that in this day and age with the internet and people have to be very transparent on what they do and what they produce and, you know, and there's a lot of opportunities there.

- Commissioner, thank you so much.

- Thanks Dan.

Appreciate the opportunity.

- Stay tuned for more on Farm Connections.

- [Announcer] Farm connections, best practices brought to you by, - Hello, I'm Dean Malvick, extension plant pathologist with the University of Minnesota and for today's best practice segment, we're going to be talking about a new disease of corn that's been spreading in the Southeastern part of the state for the past two years.

That disease is called Tar Spot.

It's a fungal disease of corn leaves that can be extremely damaging at times.

So a little bit of background.

So before 2015, '16, this disease was not known in the United States.

Nor in Canada.

It was only known in Latin America, such as Southern Mexico, Central America, and the Northern part of South America.

But in the last five or six years, it has not only been found in the US, but is has been spreading.

And we found it first in Minnesota in 2019.

So two years ago in southern Fillmore County.

And now it's been found in a number of other counties in the southeastern part of the state so far that we know of.

But again, we know the disease is spreading.

We want to try to figure out how far it's spread and that demands scouting, of course.

And so one thing, one point I want to make in this segment is we sent out a request for you to scout your fields, especially in the Southeastern part of the state, over toward the central part of the state.

And look for this disease.

This is a prime time now to look for it.

It's been developing more and more later in the season.

So it's a good time to look for it.

Again, like I said.

And why do we want to know, even though it is too late for it to cause an effect on yield?

What we've seen is where the disease is developed in the past, it will very likely develop again, or at least the risk is higher.

So a bit more about the disease and we'll have other pictures maybe to attach to the segment.

But if you can see the dark spots on these leaves, that is all caused by Tar Spot.

Again, it's a fungal disease.

It can be controlled to at least some extent and maybe to a great extent by fungicides.

And there are hybrids also being developed and rated with different levels of resistance to it.

So we have a different, a couple of different avenues.

We can look at managing this where we have a problem with it.

A bit more about the diagnosis that causes these very dark tar like spots on the leaves and how you can tell those from other leaf spots is they are kind of oblong in shape, elongated, they're raised above the leaf surface.

You can not rub them off with a wet fingertip, unlike some other spots that might be on leaves that are also dark and black.

You can separate them later in the season here from rust pustules that can also turn black late in the season by again, rubbing your finger over the surface.

If it's rust, you'll often see a little bit of rusty kind of spore residue on your finger.

Here, there will not be.

And you can also see these pustules through from one side of the leaf to the other.

And they're not just on one side.

So those are a few of the diagnostic features.

Those of you that may be familiar with Tar Spot on maple leaves, this is a different fungus, different disease.

Although the appearance is quite different in the color.

Although the spots on corn are usually much smaller than those on maples.

So those are the key points I think that we have that we want to bring across to you today.

This is a new disease that's spreading, it's causing some significant level of concern in a few fields, but fortunately it's still limited and we need to keep track of it.

So this is today's best practices segment.

- Welcome to Farm Connections.

We're delighted to have Brian Thallman of Plato, Minnesota with us.

Hi Brian.

- Hi, Dan, how are you?

- I am good, and Brian, I know you're flying out to DC later today, so we want to be succinct.

What's happening in your world?

- Well, we're located 50 miles, west southwest of the Twin Cities.

And we are in the area that's blessed with some real good heavy soils.

So we were able to hold on quite well this past a hot dry summer but last three to four weeks, we've had some nice rain.

So that's actually allowed the crop to mature somewhat normally.

Thankfully we're not looking at harvest until most things won't start probably til at least two weeks or so, but prior to them, we've had some pretty dry moments this summer with the heat and dryness that we were dealing with.

- We recently spoke with the Commissioner of Agriculture and he pointed out on not all crops are equal this year, depending on soil type, depending on location, depending on rainfall and time of planting and a million other things, correct?

- Absolutely.

And you get, probably 30 miles Northwest of Lawson, from there north and west, things go downhill, you know, much more rapidly and areas with lighter soil pockets, even in fields around here, I mean there the damage was done months ago, but there's a lot of areas of Minnesota that are suffering, you know, much, much more so than around here.

I think in this area, I'm pretty confident we're going to be at least 90% of average yields and some spots might be a little bit better than that.

So no complaints whatsoever.

- Brian, a long time ago, you realized leadership is important and you also began to work with a local ethanol co-op.

Can you tell us more about that?

- Yes.

1995, our local ethanol plant, Harlan Corn Products, - Yes.

1995, our local ethanol plant, Harlan Corn Products, began production.

And what started as a small farmer-owned plant And what started as a small farmer-owned plant has grown into one of the largest, if not the largest, fully, still farmer-owned plants in the state of Minnesota.

What's unique about Harlan Corn Products is that every farmer member of our 900 member owners are responsible for delivering the corn for the shares that they own.

So the ethanol cooperative never purchases bushels on the open market.

That risk of product procurement lays with the member.

And the intent is for the member to be producing the corn and adding value to that bushel by delivering it to the ethanol plant.

There's some members that may have more shares than what they currently grow and they're buying some of those bushels but it's the member's responsibility, not the cooperative.

So the cooperative can focus on being the most efficient producer of ethanol and stiller screen around.

And it's been a great success story for greater Minnesota.

I've been fortunate enough to be on the board now for 17 years and watch the other company more than double in size.

And there's all kinds of innovation that we're looking at and other ethanol plants are looking at as well to add further value beyond what we're doing now.

And all of those dollars, again, stay right here, where they've been, where they've been generated, and not only in the return, going back to the people who grew the corn, but there's also a lot of good paying jobs that are staying right here in the state.

And I think kind of like to quote what Senator Torrey Westrom has always said at the Capitol is that, you know, 'Minnesota does have oil wells and that's the ethanol, and the biodiesel plants in our state and you know, the same value that they're seeing on the coastal states with the oil refineries, we can add those good jobs right here.'

- Brian, there's a lot of discussion about E10 and E15 What does that mean to the consumer of fuels and also our farmers?

- Well, so the farm and the biofuel industry, we want to get to the next step of going to E15, which would add, as I said earlier, so much more economic value, but really the bigger thing is environmental value.

We're going to be cutting harmful emissions by 30 to 50% just by making that 5% jump.

The challenge is, once you get the item above 11% ethanol blend, the oil companies are then truly losing market share, and they're going to fight that to the end.

It makes absolutely no sense to us in the ethanol and the ag community why they would want to fight us because I think the much bigger challenge is this move towards electrification.

And we've had many discussions saying that electrification is here and it's here to stay.

Are we going to have all electric vehicles on the road in 10 or 15 years?

Any sensible person is going to say absolutely not.

Where are we going to be 50 years from now, nobody knows.

I do know for a fact that by moving from E10 to E15, 95% plus of all vehicles on the road are approved by EPA.

We can make that switch tomorrow and we could get benefits that are going to take 20 or 30 years to recognize if we're trying to do it by electric.

So that is so frustrating, but we hope we can keep moving steps towards E15.

There's been a few push backs again, you know, this last summer and it just really gets irritating, but we have to keep moving forward on the E15 side.

Consumers are gonna benefit.

They're gonna be paying less at the pump.

They're gonna be getting a better product.

Beyond the E15 though we have to keep looking and we are looking at the next bigger level and that's upwards of an E25 or E30 blend and that's upwards of an E25 or E30 blend with engines that are designed exclusively to run on that higher octane fuel and take full advantage of that.

You won't see mileage reductions, you're going to see these other benefits.

And there's currently legislation being introduced at the national level in Congress called, the Next Generation Fuels Act, which does this, just this, it sets the octane level higher.

So we get rid of some of this poor grade gas that's currently being sold and marketed.

And lets the engine manufacturer develop products that keep up with the quality of fuel that the industry would love to provide.

- Brian, you not only were president - Brian, you not only were president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.

After that term, you went on to run for director with the National Corn Growers Association and were successfully elected.

What has your work been inside of the Corn Growers Association?

- Well, I've been involved, yeah, at the state level for 10 years.

And while I was living up through leadership at the state level, I got involved at the national level.

National has seven action teams that work in areas from biofuels to risk management, production research, and so on.

I spent four years on the ethanol action team working on national issues.

And now, yes, a year ago I was elected to the National Corn Board.

So I'm one of 15 farmer leaders from around the Midwest serving the national level on the board.

So they will continue that passion for renewable fuels.

And some of the things we've talked about are exactly, you know, what we're working on.

And I'm actually heading out to Washington DC for our fall board meeting.

And we'll be meeting there and having some discussions with our policy people and getting some updates.

I'm aware some of this legislation is at, but it's so important to keep farmers and to keep the people in any particular organization pulling together.

And I'm going to a broader scale of agriculture in general, we've got involved with the corn grower and we've got the saving growers and the wheat growers, and soybean growers, so on and so forth.

But we always want to do some work to keep everybody pulling together.

And there's some other coalitions out there to help do that.

But a good friend is Collin Peterson who spent many years in Washington, in the House, in Washington, in the House, and the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, but Collin has said repeatedly, "if agriculture cannot be on the same page, if the renewable fuel industry cannot be on the same page, coming with a consistent message, how in the world are we ever going to convince enough people in Congress to vote for things that we want?"

We don't need all of them.

We need 51%.

(laughs) And that's tough.

We've got people being pulled every which direction.

So we're getting into a more and more fractured society.

The whole political system is a mess.

I was told five years ago there couldn't be a resolution to pass and support a Mother's Day in Congress because if one side is for it, the other side has to be against it.

And it's a true statement.

That's just how messed up things are.

So agriculture, historically, at least in Minnesota has been an issue to bring people together.

And we've got people coming together from both parties.

We've been able to connect the urban and suburban people based on how you focus the policy, is it food security, is an economic growth for the rural areas?

Whatever the case may be.

We need to do the same thing at the national level.

And that's one of the things that we've focused on within the corn growers is to help reaching out to others.

And there was a challenge years ago, there was there's three, still there's three national ethanol groups: American Coalition for Ethanol, Growth Energy, and Renewable Fuels Association.

Those three were at odds with each other.

So National Corn set out and said, "We all got to come to the table", and they've got meetings now, you know, four times a year, Even if everyone has different ideas, at the end of the day you at least have to agree to, agree to disagree, but still have a common voice for informing those issues that you can agree on.

That's so, so important in agriculture.

- Brian, thanks for your collaborative and cooperative spirit, and what you do for the environment and farmers.

Good luck in Washington, DC.

- Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more on Farm Connections.

Well, that will just about do it for today's show.

Thanks for joining us.

And we hope to see you here next time.

I'm Dan Hoffman.

Thanks for watching Farm Connections.