Uncle Bob's Blog

Exploring Sustainable Agriculture, Transition, Peak Oil and Climate Change in the Heartland of the USA

Obama, Carter and Public Service

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Progressives have been hopeful that with no future elections to concern him, President Obama would consider the economic plight of ordinary citizens and move in a more populist direction. His nomination of Jack Lew is just one indication that this is a false hope. Taking a page from Bill Clinton, the legacy that concerns Obama is feathering his own post-presidential nest, and in that regard Wall Street offers far more than Main Street.

Clinton’s closing gift to Wall Street (the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000) put him on the Goldman Sachs lecture circuit and has put millions into his pocket (and teed up the 2008 financial crisis, but hey, not his problem!). He gets fancy public speaking gigs and TV appearances and by now has a net worth far beyond what he had when he left office.

In contrast, it looks to me like the last president to embody the idea of public service – in office and after – is Jimmy Carter. His efforts for Habitat for Humanity stand in humble but stark contrast to Clinton’s grandstanding.

The Reagan/Thatcher ‘greed is good’ ethos infuses not just the 1 percent, but plenty of 1 percent wannabes. Obama’s spiritless non-leadership on the ‘fiscal cliff’ gave up the strongest negotiating position he’ll have for at least two years to kick the can down the road a couple of months and only raise taxes on folks making over $450K (middle class? yeah – right!). If that doesn’t show whose side he’s on, just watch as the Robert Rubin acolytes like Lew continue cuts to the common good in the name of ‘austerity’ while pumping up those profitable defense expenditures.

Better than the alternative? Certainly. A principled leader for all Americans? Not this president. And here’s the irony: he hasn’t prosecuted any of the crooks who wrecked the economy but continue to make obscene sums, the banks have barely had their hands slapped, he’s put corporate puppets in his cabinet and on and on – but still I wouldn’t be surprised if these folks turn their back on him when he’s done. Then he’ll have failed to stand up for the 99% only to be shunned by the 1%. His love of compromise – to the ultimate sacrifice of whatever principles folks thought he might have had – might, in the end, leave him very few friends indeed.

 

Imagining URLs

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As a glance at any URL will tell you, unless you’re a computer with internet access, a “Universal Resource Locator” is nearly meaningless. Further, as IT standards continue to evolve no doubt even this seemingly bedrock spec will probably change. Further, far from “Universal”, URLs are only meaningful in specific, limited contexts: there are many resources that cannot be located with a URL.

This leads me to ponder a truly Universal Resource Locator. What form would it take? What attributes would it have? How would you use it?

The question stems from a practical problem in my current work with the James Madison Carpenter Folklore Collection edition. In the final printed volumes we wish to reference original documents, their digital counterparts and some digital-only resources in a way that is comprehensible to an ordinary human (as much XML can be, for example), not tied to a particular technology which will no doubt become obsolete or superceded, and which can describe many kinds of things: documents, sound recordings, photographs and so on.

Bibliographic references offer an analog: various standards have evolved over the years to reference different kinds of print materials in particular contexts. Of course, no standard is universal: Chicago, APA, etc. are all variations on this theme which appear to vary more in presentation than actual substance. But these standards have evolved because they’re useful: they provide a consistent and clear way to cite a book, article or other document.

So that’s the challenge I’d like to pose to anyone who’s interested: help me imagine a technology-independent, obsolescence-resistant and truly Universal resource locator.

Husking Bee – Picture Perfect

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After months of work by (mostly) Rina and Sam, the culmination of the Corn Patch Project took place on Saturday, October 13th. A pleasantly warm but overcast day greeted scores of huskers who arrived through the afternoon to husk and braid the corn, share a potluck supper and finally, enjoying the hard work of so many folks who helped fix the barn, dance! Thanks to Rina for spearheading, thanks to all the huskers, thanks to the local breweries (Indeed and Excelsior) for the fine beer we enjoyed, thanks to the musicians (who were those folks? I’d never met a number of them – some fine old-time tunes!). Thanks to the neighbors who stopped by and the kids who . . . had a good time!

In short, it was a rousing success start to finish. You’d have to go a long way to fine a more picturesque and enjoyable event.

What’s happening down on the farm?

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Here’s the latest update on our as-yet-unnamed farm. We have three projects, one news report and two upcoming events.

Projects:

Alfalfa in the Evening

Alfalfa in the Evening – looking east across the largest field

The tillable acreage is home to three efforts this season. The largest portion is in alfalfa for the second year of organic transition. The alfalfa is being sold to Thousand Hills Cattle Company where, in time it turns into hamburgers and steaks. You can find Thousand Hills products at the Wedge, and many other places.

Broadfork Farm at Linden Hills Market

Kelli selling at the Linden Hills Farmers Market

Next, Kelli Tennyson is growing vegetables on a couple of acres and selling them at the Linden Hills Farmers Market and to Harvest for the Hungry. She calls her effort “Broadfork Farm“. Kelli’s growing all sorts of things but so far the kale, beets and watermelon have been particularly wonderful.

Rina's Enormous Corn!

Rina stands in front of some of her “Sweetheart” corn.

Finally, Rina Rossi is leading a project to grow corn for chicken feed – for real! Rina and a number of her friends keep chickens in South Minneapolis so they’re growing about an acre of corn to feed to their birds this winter. This project will culminate in a shucking bee and barn dance! You can find Rina on Facebook at “The Corn Patch at Bob and Julie’s Farm”.

News.
This summer’s crazy weather included a storm that dumped 10 inches of rain on the farm in just a few hours. It made a mess of many things and completely blew out our culvert – so we no longer have an easy way to cross the stream. You can see pictures at this earlier post. Our little farm office is nearly complete: we have electricity, hot and cold water with real floors and everything. Thanks to all the skilled friends who’ve helped.

Events.
We have two events planned for this fall:
Fall Farm Day September 8th
Come visit the farm, see our progress and, if you like, lend a hand building steps, setting up a hop trellis, fixing the barn floor, clearing the flooded creekbed, fixing washouts or beginning preparations for a controlled burn. Food, drink and good company provided. Overnight camping if you like.
Corn Husking and Square Dance October 13th
Help with the harvest then enjoy the hoedown! More information when I have it.

10 Inches of Rain

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Last night Cannon Falls got 10 inches of rain. The farm took a bit of a beating as you can see from the photos. We lost our culvert completely: a 6-foot diameter corrugated steel pipe was washed 120 yards downstream around an S curve, and a 4-foot diameter 40-foot long culvert wound up at a 45 degree angle, 100 yards downstream. We lost a number a trees and have a cleanup job ahead of us.

Makes me think about resilience in the face of weather extremes. Climate change?

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Searching for the Sweet Spot

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New Versatile Tractor

New Tractor at Issacson Implement

Next to a barn, a tractor is probably the most evocative symbol of “farm” in America. When I visited Issacson Implement in Nerstrand the other day (good folks, BTW), I saw this little number. The price, I think, was $280,000. Nearly as much as we paid for our whole farm!

Obviously, it makes no sense for us to buy a tractor like this – and clearly there are tractors more appropriate to our farm – but it does prompt me to think a bit about the nature and scale of different kinds of farms. Nowadays, it’s common for a farmer in Minnesota to ‘run’ 1000 or more acres – some owned, some rented. And many of these farmers – at least around Sogn – seem to be growing mostly corn and soybeans. The number of anhydrous ammonia trailers on the roads earlier this spring suggest that most of what is grown is conventional: i.e. using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. These have to be, then, high-dollar operations for which 400hp 4WD tractors are just tools of the trade. Makes quite a contrast to our little farm – and the farms of some of the folks I’m getting to know.

I’ve started to think of various kinds of farms on two axes of a grid: high dollar to low dollar (both investment and cash flow), and low to high diversity (for example, corn and soy rotation versus small farms that do poultry and eggs plus veggies and/or fruits for CSA and/or farmers markets).

Matrix GraphicNow, if you want to do a large conventional corn and bean (or dairy, or confinement beef, pork or poultry) operation, you can get lots of help from the University’s Farm Business Management program or the Center for Farm Financial Mangement (e.g. this report). These folks have worked with thousands of farmers over the years and can help design a business plan, or tell you if your costs are too high, production too low, interest expense too high and so on: they can tell you a lot about how to run certain kinds of farm businesses because, in part, they’ve seen lots of other farmers doing almost exactly the same thing.

But what about your small-scale diversified, sustainable or even organic farm? Where is the business model? How can someone running that sort of operation benchmark their operation or write a business plan? For these folks (and that includes our little farm) I can’t seem to locate any established benchmarks, and there seem to be few people who know the business side well enough to review the operation, business plan etc.

This has at least two important effects. First, small diversified farmers appear to lack some useful tools that could help them run their businesses. Second, these same farmers often lack the information they need to finance their operations – in part because lenders or investors don’t have tools to evaluate a small diversified farm’s business plan.

Now many of the small-scale early-stage farmers I’ve met recently are up to their necks in work already and record keeping and accounting – especially for their complex and diversified operations – are not top priorities. This leads to my query-du-jour: would gathering information about successful medium-sized, somewhat diversified farms (that is, in my suggested ‘sweet spot’, of which examples are rumored to exist in SE Minnesota and likely elsewhere) be a useful first step in establishing models and benchmarks to help farmers, lenders and, potentially, investors better understand and evaluate well-run sustainable farms?

What do you think? Would this be a worthwhile project? Or is this information available somewhere and I’ve overlooked it? Suggestions, comments or advice will be most welcome!

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This work-in-progress has benefited from conversations with many wise people. I don’t know if they’d like to see their names here so, for now, I’ll just acknowledge their organizations: The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, The Land Stewardship Project, Moonstone Farm, The First National Bank of Plainview, The Carrot Project, Renewing the Countryside, University of Vermont Extension, Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) and Featherstone Farm.

Thank You!