Modern Farmer 09/25/21 Jacksonville Journal-Courier

MODERN FARMER PLAYING IT SAFE Having an emergency plan is vital for farmers START TO FINISH More to growing than planting seeds

A special section of the Journal-Courier | Saturday, Sept. 25, 2021 | $1

2 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

MODERN FARMER Sept. 25, 2021

5 Future of farming important to youth 6 Farmland values are on rise 6 Farmer mental health initiatives expanding

On the cover: Morgan County farmer Ric Coop stands on the 750 acres of land he farms with his son, Doug. After the season is done and everything stored away for winter, Doug Coop will turn his attention to reviewing his emergency preparedness plan for the family farm. “Noah didn’t build the ark once it started raining. He built it well ahead of time. Disaster preparedness is all about what you can do ahead of time,” Doug Coop said.

Angela Bauer | Journal-Courier

3 Having an emergency plan is vital for farmers 4 More to growing than planting seeds and waiting

7 Fall armyworms causing havoc for lawns, fields 7 Farmers still recovering from derecho crop loss

family farmers 14 EPA bans pesticide linked to health problems in children 15 Chiropractic care not just for people 16

Imaging speeds effort to reduce crops’ need for water 17 Farm runoff creates massive worries beyond lake

8 Black farmers awaiting billions in debt relief

18 History etched in farm’s sunflower field

10 Cattle producers have a beef with marketing campaign

19 Nutrient-rich human waste poised to sustain ag

11 Pressing for fair play for

20 Power in seeds: Urban gardening gains momentum

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 3

Growing preparedness Having an emergency plan is vital for farmers

By Angela Bauer

abauer@myjournalcourier.com

Right now, Doug Coop is working to finish harvesting the 750 acres of corn growing on Morgan County land he farms with his father, Ric Coop.

Once the corn is safely dried and stored and his harvesting equipment cleaned and put away for the winter, Doug Coop will tackle another task — reviewing his emergency preparedness plan for the family farm.

Farmers may be a resilient bunch — “It’s bred out of necessity,” he said.

“We’ve got to be able to take care of ourselves” — but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to plan ahead for potential crises.

“I think it’s something we’re better prepared for than a lot of folks,” Coop said of crisis

management and emergency preparedness.

“It’s always on the back burner for some people. … But Noah didn’t build the ark once it started raining. He built it well ahead of time. Disaster preparedness is all about what you can do ahead of time.”

People in general — not just farmers — often put off making an emergency plan. No one truly wants to consider the possibility of a tornado blowing through or a home flooding.

“I encourage people to go a step further than that and think about the things we think will never happen,” Coop said. “One such recent example is the coronavirus pandemic. It had been probably over 100 years since our last major pandemic had an international impact.”

In this region, the list of unlikely crises also includes earthquakes, despite the St. Louis area — just 90 miles from Jacksonville — falling within the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

“I’ve heard experts speak on (the New Madrid fault) before,” said Coop, who worked in crisis management during a two-decade career in the military, including active-duty, Reserve and National Guard service. “It’s not a matter of if; it’s a matter of when.”

A major earthquake in the St. Louis area could affect everything within a 100-mile radius, he said.

“Around here it’s not so much structural impact to buildings but damage to roads,” Coop said. “Fuel transportation, natural gas and propane. We’re no longer

BE PREPARED The Illinois Emergency Management Agency website at ready.illinois.gov has tips on preparing for a range of emergency situations, including severe weather, winter weather and earthquakes.

Among its suggestions: • Make a plan for when a disaster strikes, including how you will contact or reconnect with family members if separated.

• Build an emergency supplies kit that includes non-perishable foods, water, a weather radio, batteries, medications and other necessities for each family member. Keep one at home, at work and in your car.

• Consider home-improvement projects that help your home better survive a storm or other hazard, review insurance policies to be sure of what coverage you have, and practice tornado drills and fire drills at home and at work; they’re not just for schools.

• Teach children how to prepare for a disaster, including helping them build their own emergency kit — one that also provides comfort items such as a favorite stuffed animal, books, music or board games.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has released a downloadable Disaster Resiliency and Recover Resources guide for rural communities through its Rural Development offices.

The 16-page guide offers Rural Development disaster resources, preparedness and recovery partners, federal agencies involved in disaster assistance, and other USDA resources.

Angela Bauer | Journal-Courier

Doug Coop operates a combine Sept. 13 while harvesting his corn crop on the Liberty Road land he farms with his father, Ric. When not tending to his farm, Coop is actively involved with Cass-Morgan Farm Bureau and encouraging other farmers to think about an emergency preparedness plan for their farms.

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From here to maturity: There’s more to growing crops than planting seeds and waiting

By Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree smcdaniel@myjournalcourier.com

It takes more than putting the seed in the ground and waiting for it to grow for farmers to get a good yield on their crops, whether it be corn, soybeans or wheat.

It’s something that takes them time to learn and adapt each year, changing with the weather, crop and the unknowns that come with nature.

The students at Triopia High School are learning how to grow these crops with help of local agriculture businesses and their ag teacher.

With 14 acres of land behind the school, the agriculture program works to grow the crop, market and sale it each season, with the help of Sunrise FS and Western Grain Marketing, who help oversee the entire process, especially when students are not present.

“We work with the students, walk them through the process, every step of the way,” said Jacob Millard, a crop specialist for Sunrise FS. “I help them develop the

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plan for the field, what we plant, what fertilizers we’ll use.”

Then, with the help of the sponsors, the kids put the plans into action.

Sunrise FS donates all the seeds and fertilizer, while Beard Implement donates all the equipment for the planting and harvesting.

The students get to learn how to operate the machinery and help in the process, starting with learning about soil health, chemical levels and taking care of the land.

Then they get to learn about the various varieties of whichever crop they are planting that year and what would grow the best in the fields under which conditions.

While the students learn about the various chemicals that get applied to the field throughout the year, they are not a part of that process, which is handled by Millard.

“I spray and stuff —usually when the students are not in school,” he said. “I do talk with them about what my plans are though and why I’m applying certain chemicals at certain times.

Millard said he, along with the students

Photos by Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree | Journal-Courier

Triopia High School sophomore Brooklyn Beck counts the number of pods on a soybean plant.

try various things throughout the years.

For example, they’ll try different fungicides, or one year they planted the corn right into the living barley cover crop — which still made a good corn yield.

Ag teacher Brianna Harmon said having the kids raise a crop and learn from their sponsors is a part of getting them interested in agriculture.

“This is about getting the kids experience,” Harmon said. “A lot of kids don’t necessarily know how a combine works or how in depth the process is. This gives them a hands on experience.”

For senior Laila Beck, some of the experiences she is learning about at school, she is also learning at home with her father and uncle who also raise crops.

“My dad has talked about the types of varieties and how he picks the seeds based on the program we want to use in the spring,” she said. “My dad explains the background of things to me.”

For sophomore Bryson Dotzert the opportunity to work in the fields and learn the process is pretty rewarding.

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Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 5

Future of farming important to youth

By Rochelle Eiselt rochelle.eiselt@myjournalcourier.com

Many farms in the region have been passed from generation to generation, but the number is thinning in Illinois.

The number may be thinning due to lack of allure to the youth for the farming lifestyle.

The state is making efforts to create pathways for those interested in agriculture at a younger age.

This year, two bills were signed into law to expand educational opportunities.

The laws add agricultural science and agricultural education as options to fulfill coursework required for admission to state universi-

ties. Sen. Doris Turner was one of the advocates and said the laws highlight the importance of agricultural science across the state and offers a way for high school students to gain interest in agriculture before pursuing college.

At Triopia Junior-Senior High school, students agree that agricultural education is important to have in their education.

Raye Greenstreet, 14, takes Biological Sciences Applied in Agriculture at Triopia High School.

She has learned many different things while in class such as what compacts together in soil.

Greenstreet said the class made her interested in how

Photos by Rochelle Eiselt | Journal-Courier

Triopia student Brooklyn Beck checks the soil after watering a plant at the greenhouse at Triopia High School.

farming works.

As she learned different things, it helped spark her interest in farming, she said.

The class was beneficial.

Farming is a big source in Arenzville as there is lots of corn in the area. “It definitely has a big source where we’re at,” Greenstreet said.

Brooklyn Beck, 15, is taking Ag Mechanics and Horticulture.

In Ag Mechanics, she said she’s learning about welding in class. It’s interesting to learn about because you get to see things improve, Beck said.

“It’s different to see how other people do it,” Beck said.

Beck’s family is already into farming. She has a uncle that farms. Her dad’s a grain worker.

After taking Biological Sciences Applied in Agriculture, Beck said it helped her interest a lot by learning things about farm animals she didn’t already know.

One of the lessons in class she will always remember is about soil. Foods such as Oreos were used to demonstrate what soil was like in class.

“It’s easier for us to visualize what different things are and how they form,” Beck said.

It’s important to keep having agriculture classes at school, Beck said. A lot of families come from agriculture to school and it’s easier for them to learn new things that may have not have learned at home at school.

Triopia High School students Riddick Workman and Raye Greenstreet work on arranging plants inside the school’s greenhouse.

“Without the classes that Mrs. Harmon allows us to apply for we wouldn’t have prior knowledge or any motivation to go into any farming careers,” said Riddick Workman, 16, Triopia High student. “The more you know about it, the more you may get interested into it.”

Teacher and FFA advis-

er, Brianna Harmon said having agriculture classes in school is important and what she focuses on more is preparing the consumer.

She teaches a horticulture, Ag Science, Ag Mechanic, and a work-based learning class for freshmen and sophomores.

In her classes, she said she focuses on meat produc-

tion and how safe the food system is.

“I think it’s really important to offer Ag classes at schools just because everyone is a consumer of agricultural product,” Harmon said. “It’s more of a view point I look at it from is to prepare the consumer as oppose to preparing the farmer.”

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Farmland values throughout central and southern Illinois increased 8.54% on average from last year, according to the 2021 annual study of 20 benchmark farms by the Farm Credit Illinois appraisal department.

The study has been ongoing since 1974.

This is the third consecutive year of an increase in Farm Credit Illinois’s 60-county territory. In 2020, the study showed values up 2.07%. The annual study’s historical trends show the market peaked in 2014 and then experienced a steady decline in values from 2015 to 2018.

The 2021 study showed 18 of 20 benchmark farms increased in value and two were unchanged. Results varied considerably across land classes, reinforcing that agricultural real estate is a location-specific asset. When considering the farms individually, the year-over-year change ranged from no change to a 20.51% increase.

“The significant increase in farmland market values is attributed to a bump in commodity prices and a strong demand for Illinois farmland,” said Kent Reid, Farm Credit Illinois chief appraiser. “These primary factors combined with pandemic assistance programs and low interest rates helped fuel the rise in values.”

Forecasted higher input prices and rising cash rents will present a challenge for farmers in the upcoming growing season. However, the 8.54% increase indicates a strong market with values nearing the all-time highs of 2014.

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Southern Illinois farmland values saw the third consecutive year of an increase in Farm Credit Illinois’ 60-county territory.

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Farmer mental health initiatives expanding Journal-Courier

Illinois Department of Agriculture Director Jerry Costello II has announced a grant award of $500,000 to increase farmer stress-related mental health initiatives statewide.

In 2019, the Farm Family Resource Initiative was established in Illinois to specifically address mental health needs of the farming and agricultural communities. The Farm Family Resource Initiative Committee consists of members from government, commodity groups, academic institutions, healthcare and industry.

Led by Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, the Farm Family Resource Initiative launched a six-county pilot program to provide resources to Christian, Logan, Macon, Macoupin, Morgan and Sangamon counties through a telephone hotline connecting farmers with mental health resources and providers.

This grant will allow for the expansion of the pilot program to the entire

Getty Images

The Farm Family Resource Initiative in 2019 launched a six-county pilot program to provide resources to Christian, Logan, Macon, Macoupin, Morgan and Sangamon counties through a telephone hotline connecting farmers with mental health resources and providers.

state.

Additional plans for grant funding include: • Text and e-mail communication options (in addition to telephone hotline) • increased marketing of helpline • voucher program for professional behavioral health services • agricultural literacy training for mental health providers to increase knowledge of agricultural community • further mental health first aid trainings for

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agricultural community members “As governor, I’ve sought to make Illinois a state where mental health care should not and cannot be treated as a secondary healthcare service,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said.

“That includes tailoring mental health resources to better support our farmers and farm families, whose industry keeps everyone else afloat. I’m proud to expand our Farm Family Resource Initiative to all 102 of our counties to ensure our rural communities are getting the care they deserve.”

“Illinois is uniquely positioned with farmer mental health initiatives already in place,” Illinois Department of Agriculture Director Jerry Costello II said. “This award allows programmatic expansion statewide tailored to the needs of the agricultural community.”

“Small farms are the core of our state’s economy, and farmers are on the front lines to provide food for our communities.

The reality of this pandemic is that a new layer of stress has been put on farmers and farm families,” Sen. Scott Bennett said. “These additional funds for the Farm Family Resource Initiative will give farmers the support to help recognize and navigate these unprecedented times.”

“SIU School of Medicine’s mission is to optimize the health of central and southern Illinois. The Farm Family Resource Initiative program is one the best ways to serve the region and the rural families that have been the backbone of many of the communities we serve,” said Jerry Kruse, provost of SIU School of Medicine. “With partners like the Illinois Department of Agriculture, we can move the health of farm families forward.”

“Farmers, ranchers, and producers give so much of themselves to produce the food that we eat and to be good stewards of the land on which Illinois agriculture thrives,” said Shelly Nickols Richardson, University of Illinois Extension associate dean and director. “When mental health concerns affect our farmers, this impacts us all. This grant will provide the resources that our farmers, their families, and communities need to stay in good mental and emotional health as they contribute so much for so many.”

The Farmer Assistance Helpline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 1-833-FARMSOS.

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 7

Fall armyworms causing havoc for lawns, fields

Farmers still recovering from derecho crop loss

By Katie Parker

By Cara Smith

University of Illinois Extension

Fall armyworms are here — and can you say destructive?

Some entomologists have even said it is the worst they have seen in 30 years. Damage done by fall armyworms this year has been seen in lawns, hay fields, pastures, soybeans, corn and gardens.

Fall armyworms can be found in the Midwest pretty much every year, but this year multiple generations of fall armyworms in the South (southern Florida, southern Texas and in Central and South America) created a larger than normal population of moths that moved to Midwestern states in late July/early August. The moths laid eggs, which then developed into the caterpillars or larva that feed on crops and lawns.

Fall armyworm caterpillars can be green, brown or black with white to yellowish lines running along its back from head to tail with an inverted “Y” between the eyes.

Another identifiable characteristic is four black spots in a square on the top of the segment near the back end of the caterpillar. Caterpillars are small at first (less than an eighth of an inch); however, after feeding for about two to three weeks, they grow to be about 1 to 1.5 inches long. With a large appetite and their habit of “marching” in large numbers, fall armyworms can

do some damage in just a few days.

After feeding, caterpillars tunnel into the soil about one inch and enter the pupal stage from which a moth emerges after about 10 days. From there, it will repeat its lifecycle. Moths are gray with a pattern of light and dark areas and a wingspan of about 1.5 inches.

Moths are more active at night feeding on nectar and depositing eggs. A female moth can deposit up to 2,000 eggs, with four or five generations per year. Fall armyworms overwinter in the south in areas such as southern Texas and Florida; southern populations increase in early spring with future generations moving north as the season progresses.

Damage to corn can occur as ragged-edged holes on leaves, tassels or ears; they will also feed on the kernels of the ear. In turf, hayfields, or pasture, the damage often appears as brown or burned out patches and can often be confused with drought damage.

Scouting in the cool part of the day when the caterpillars are actively feeding will allow you to determine the size and number of fall armyworms, which will help decide control strategies.

If you are not scouting when caterpillars are actively feeding, you will need to look deeper into the canopy either by parting grass or using a sweep net. Insecticide

applications are not usually economical for control of fall armyworms; however, infestations of three or more caterpillars per square foot may justify an insecticide application.

Fall armyworms are best controlled when caterpillars are a half-inch or smaller. Pyrethroid insecticides provide effective control; if used, it is best to make applications early in the morning or later in the evening when larvae are most active.

The feeding damage being experienced now is from the fall armyworm that visits Illinois in late July/early August, but there is also the true armyworm that moves to the Midwest from the south in April and May.

Moline Dispatch (TNS)

Jeff Kirwan, a soybean and corn farmer in Mercer County, was playing golf in central Illinois at an event for the Illinois Farm Bureau when the derecho hit in August 2020.

After driving home through the storm, Kirwan arrived home to find damage to some of his crops. He was just thankful all of his crops weren’t “steamrolled” like some farms in eastern Iowa.

“I’d say we fared much better than some of the areas in eastern Iowa and northern Illinois,” Kirwan said. “We’ve had some areas that got wind blown going on and it made it a bit trickier to get it harvested.”

Kirwan’s land was among the 37.7 million acres of farmland impacted by the derecho in the Midwest, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Despite the damage, Kirwan was able to harvest all of his crops.

Many of Kirwan’s peers in both Iowa

and Illinois were not as lucky, and suffered total crop loss. Farmers in Iowa were unable to harvest 850,000 acres, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report from September 2020.

Farming equipment that was damaged in the storm made it difficult to harvest remaining crops. Kirwan said farmers are still waiting for repairs on grain bins, sheds and buildings.

“The costs have all escalated and it’s hard to get supplies,” Kirwan said. “I know folks are trying to rebuild those kinds of structures that were a key part of their farm and we’re still trying to get that completed. It just puts a lot of stress on the system.”

Many farmers also faced extra costs this year to try and eradicate volunteer corn, corn left over from past crops, through chemicals and pesticides.

But things are looking up on the road to recovery for farmers, according to DeAnne Bloomberg, director of issue management at Illinois Farm Bureau, because corn and soybeans are planted annually.

“Midwestern farmers are going to plant corn and soybeans once,” Bloomberg said. “We don’t have specialty crops as widely. If this happened in southern Illinois where the peach trees [are] that could have been completely devastating.”

8 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

Black farmers awaiting billions in promised debt relief

By Roxana Hegeman and Allen G. Breed Associated Press

There was a time when Black farms prospered.

Just two generations out of slavery, by 1910 Black farmers had amassed more than 16 million acres of land and made up about 14% of farmers. The fruit of their labors fed much of America.

Now, they have fewer than 4.7 million acres.

Black farms in the U.S. plummeted from 925,000 to fewer than 36,000, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest farm census.

And only about one in 100 farmers is Black.

What happened?

They were able to overcome the broken promise of “40 acres and a mule” to the newly freed slaves — a military order, later rescinded. But again and again over the last century, they faced one obstacle after another because of their race.

Lenders — chief among them, the USDA — often refused to give them

money, and often rushed to foreclose. Suppliers and customers undercut them.

Laws of inheritance led to the breakup of homesteads.

Now the government wants to make amends by providing billions of dollars in debt forgiveness for farmers of color. But a judge has put the money on hold in the face of lawsuits filed by white farmers claiming that the program is unfair — reverse discrimination.

Today’s Black farmers and the descendants of Black farmers who lost their stakes argue that they are the ones who have been the victims of injustice: A farmer who barely was able to keep part of his farm when the USDA threatened to sell it at auction. A man who lost the land his grandparents once homesteaded. A farmer who is holding on by a thread, praying the federal aid will come through in time.

It was racism, says farmer John Wesley Boyd Jr. And it still is.

“I think discrimination is still pervasive. I think that

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Documents from a USDA internal review show investigators found farmer John Boyd Jr.’s operating loan requests were not processed for years, despite explicit instructions from the agency’s state director.

it’s done in a much subtler way,” Boyd says.

Boyd was just 18 years old when he assumed an existing USDA loan when he bought his first farm

in the early 1980s. He says walking into his local USDA office was like a return to the Jim Crow era.

Black farmers had supervised accounts and could only get appointments with the local lending officer on

a single day of the week, a practice that came to be known as Black Wednesday.

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Just two generations out of slavery, by 1910 Black farmers had amassed more than 16 million acres of land and made up about 14% of farmers.

Boyd endured racial slurs. A loan officer once spat tobacco juice on him — he accidentally missed the spit can, the official would claim. Another time, Boyd saw an official tear up his application and throw it in the trash.

In 1996, USDA took just 30 days to foreclose on some of his farmland.

Then the department moved to auction off the remaining 110 acres.

Boyd joined other Black farmers at a protest in Washington, tying a mule named 40 Acres to the White House gate. Less than a week later, then-Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman declared a farm foreclosure moratorium.

Boyd had just enough time to save his farm.

Documents from a USDA internal review show investigators found his operating loan requests were not processed for years, despite explicit instructions from the agency’s state director. It also found that his account was improperly referred to a credit bureau as delinquent when it should have been restructured, deepening his financial difficulties.

These kinds of practices prompted approval of the landmark settlement of the Pigford v. Glickman lawsuit filed by Black farmers in 1999. Though USDA paid more than $2.4 billion, state taxes eroded recoveries, debt relief was incomplete and the settlements did not cure the problems faced by minority farmers.

Government lawyers noted in a court filing that between 2006 and 2016, Black farmers were subject to 13% of USDA foreclosures — despite receiving dfewer than 3% of direct

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 9 loans.

Tucked amid vast plains are the remnants of what was once the bustling Black settlement of Nicodemus, Kansas. Just a couple of miles outside the town sit the 200 acres that the grandparents of Theodore Bernard Bates once homesteaded.

The Black farmer and his father bought the family homestead in 1970, taking a loan from what was then the Production Credit Association of Stockton, Kansas.

USDA’s farm loan lending agency refused to even give them an application to fill out, said Bates, one of the original named plaintiffs in the Pigford lawsuit. He received, as he puts it, “not a penny” from that settlement.

Three years before the former president of the Production Credit Association died, he swore in a 2012 affidavit that there was a plan to get Bates “out of farming.” Elvin D. Keiswetter said that the lender’s board decided it would “rather foreclose, even if they lost money” than take Bates’ money, regardless if it was paid on the notes.

After they took everything, Bates says the family was forced to go on food stamps to survive.

The USDA was not responsible for all the misfortunes of Black farmers.

Other structural impediments also have taken their toll. One involves family land that is passed on to several surviving kin without a will, known as “heirs’ property.”

The result: a lack of access to money, because lenders are usually reluctant to extend credit without a clear title to the land.

Congress authorized in the

Farmer John Boyd Jr. runs his hay bailer at his farm.

2018 farm bill language that would ease loans to those farmers. But it was not until this year that USDA actually funded a $67 million heirs relending program to resolve land ownership and succession issues.

USDA spokeswoman Kate Waters says the agency is committed to rooting out systemic racism and reducing barriers to accessing services. She says the department plans to launch an Equity Commission later this year to identify problems and fix them.

Congress, meanwhile, approved $4 billion in debt relief for 16,000 farmers of color in March as part of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package.

White farmers have filed lawsuits in Illinois, Florida, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming and Minnesota. A nationwide, preliminary injunction halted the program in June.

Texas Agriculture Com-

missioner Sid Miller, who is suing in his personal capacity as a farmer, contends the debt relief is unconstitutional because it excludes white farmers based on their race or ethnicity.

“It is just flat wrong,” Miller said.

But minority farmers still suffer disproportionately. As of May 31, 11% of white farmers were delin-

quent on a government farm loan, compared with 37.9% of Black borrowers, 14.6% of Asian borrowers, 17.4% of American Indian borrowers and 68% of Hispanic borrowers, according to court documents.

For Abraham Carpenter, a 59-year-old Black farmer whose family grows fruits and vegetables near Grady, Arkansas, the injunction means he has to wait and

hope for help with about $200,000 in loans.

“I’ve seen some really, really tough times, you know, but I’ve always been able to survive because of God’s blessing and his mercy and his grace. … ” Carpenter says. “So I am not going to say I am going to go belly up. I am going to work a little harder and I am going to pray a little harder.”

10 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

Cattle producers have a beef with 35-year marketing campaign

By Roxana Hegeman

Associated Press

Cattle producers for 35 years have been bankrolling one of the nation’s most iconic marketing campaigns, but now many want to end the program that created the “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner” slogan.

What’s the ranchers’ beef? It’s that their mandatory fee of $1 per head of cattle sold is not specifically promoting American beef at a time when imports are flooding the market and plant-based, “fake meat” products are proliferating in grocery stores.

“The American consumer is deceived at the meat counter and our checkoff funds do not do anything to help create clarity or answer the question of where was that sirloin born, raised and harvested,” said Karina Jones, a Nebraska cattle rancher and field director for the R-CALF USA trade group that is seeking to end the checkoff.

Opponents of the beef checkoff program, which was established by federal law in 1986, are urging cattle producers to a sign a petition calling for a refer-

endum vote on terminating the program.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last month granted an extension until Oct. 3 for them to collect the required signatures due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Petition supporters argue the beef checkoff is a government-mandated assessment to fund government speech. Beef checkoff funds by law cannot be used to advertise against other meats such as pork or chicken, nor can they be used for lobbying. But they complain much of the money nonetheless props up lobbying groups such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association that oppose mandatory country-of-origin labels.

They also point out that today’s U.S. cattle industry is radically different than it was when the checkoff program was put into place, with more imported beef and greater meatpacker concentration.

“Now we are paying the advertising bill for four major meatpacking plants that are able to import beef and source it from cheaper countries and fool our consumers,” Jones said.

The petition has created

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a schism in the livestock industry between those who support the checkoff and those who don’t.

But consumers have a stake in the fight as well.

One way to look at this is that consumers probably should not like the checkoff program because it raises their beef prices, and some consumer groups are opposed to it for that reason, said Harry Kaiser, director of Cornell University’s Commodity Promotion Research Program.

Another way to look at it is that the checkoff also funds research into beef safety and the development of new beef products, he said.

“Consumers pay a few pennies more, but it is a safer product, a better quality product,” Kaiser said.

Kaiser, who conducts research for the U.S. Agriculture Department on commodity advertising and promotion programs, wrote in an economic analysis that domestic beef demand between 2014 and 2018 would have been 14.3% lower without the consumer advertising and other promotional activities of the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board. In 2019, the board had a budget of $40.5 million to spend on activities that aim to increase beef demand.

Kaiser also noted in a phone interview that the checkoff-funded marketing research found that one reason consumers have been reluctant to purchase beef is because they felt it takes too long to prepare after coming home

Nati Harnik | AP

Cattle producers for 35 years have been bankrolling one of the nation’s most iconic marketing campaigns, but now many want to end the program that created the “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner” slogan. What’s the ranchers’ beef? It’s that their mandatory fee of $1 per head of cattle sold is not specifically promoting American beef at a time when imports are flooding the market and plant-based, “fake meat” products are proliferating in grocery stores.

from work. That led to development of more easyto-prepare beef products that consumers can buy at the supermarket and just pop into the microwave to cook.

But cattle producers say it’s been two decades since checkoff-funded beef innovations like the flat iron steak, a high-value cut that came out of a low-value area of the carcass that previously had just been made into chuck roast.

Since 1966, Congress has authorized industry-funded research and promotion boards to help agricultural producers pool resources and develop new markets. USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service now provides oversight for 22 such commodity programs, according to its website.

The mandatory nature of the various commodity checkoff programs has been controversial, sparking thousands of lawsuits over the years. Three cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court with mixed outcomes, Kaiser said.

The nation’s highest court ruled in 1997 in a case by fruit tree farmers that commodity advertising was constitutional because it was a part of a broader regulatory program. But four years later, the Supreme Court ruled a federally mandated mushroom advertising program was not part of a larger regulatory program and was therefore unconstitutional as compelled private speech. And in 2005, the Supreme Court found the beef checkoff program was constitutional on government speech grounds.

While these programs are now constitutional as part of a broader regulator scheme, Kaiser said a conservative Supreme Court could overturn these precedents, which are similar to requiring workers to be in labor unions.

This is not the first time critics of the beef checkoff program have tried to wrangle enough signatures on a petition. The Agricultural Marketing Service received a petition from cattle producers in

1999 and determined the signatures fell short of the required number.

It takes the petition signatures of 10% of the nation’s cattle producers — in this case 88,269 valid signatures — to put the issue before the agriculture secretary. Any cattle producer who has owned, sold or purchased cattle from July 2, 2020 through July 1, 2021 is eligible to sign the petition. Vilsack would then decide whether to hold a referendum on ending the program.

So far, checkoff opponents have gathered around 30,000 signatures, Jones said.

Kansas rancher Steve Stratford, one of the people who initiated the petition, said meatpackers — who do not pay into the checkoff program — are the ones whose profit margin has increased while the checkoff has been in existence.

“Long story short: The person that is paying the dollar is not the one reaping the benefits of better demand and higher beef prices,” Stratford said.

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 11

Seeking fair play for family farmers

By Marcy Gordon Associated Press

The consolidation of the agriculture industry, with dominance by a few major companies, has become a focus of Washington policymakers. It was a key theme of an executive order President Joe Biden issued this summer on competition in the U.S. economy.

Among the concerns is whether small-scale farmers and ranchers are being increasingly hurt.

Rob Larew is president of the National Farmers Union, which advocates for family farmers and rural communities.

The Associated Press recently interviewed Larew. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Q: The meat processing industry appears highly concentrated. Four big companies process about 80% of all beef. What’s the impact on family farmers?

A: Consolidation has virtually elimi-

nated competition in many agricultural markets. The farmer’s share of every dollar consumers spend on food has fallen from 50% in 1952 to less than 16%. A handful of massive plants process most meat. This system is vulnerable to shocks. A fire at a meatpacking plant in Kansas in 2019, the shuttering of many plants during the pandemic and a cyberattack on a major meatpacker have impacted markets, bringing lower prices for farmers and higher prices for consumers.

COVID hit the meat processing industry and its workers hard, with outbreaks at plants and people in crowded conditions getting sick.

What should regulators do to bolster the food supply and ensure a more competitive marketplace?

Instead of the large, inflexible corporations that dominate our food supply, we need to boost local and regional farm and food systems. The Agriculture Department committed $500

million in July to help build additional meat and poultry processing capacity.

USDA also established a new grant program to help smaller-scale plants get certified so they can ship meat and poultry across state lines.

The Packers and Stockyards Act, a law intended to protect livestock farmers from unfair practices by meatpackers, must be more strongly enforced. Regulators also must vigorously enforce antitrust laws, and they should review past mergers. If they find anticompetitive effects in mergers that violate the law, those companies should be broken up.

How are consumers affected by the problems with competition?

The shuttering of many packing plants due to the pandemic or fire has pushed prices at the grocery store through the roof. And consumers have only the illusion of choice at the store because so many brands are owned by so few corporations.

Mary Knigge | National Farmers Union (AP)

The consolidation of the agriculture industry, with dominance by a few major companies, has become a focus of Washington policymakers. It was a key theme of an executive order President Joe Biden issued this summer on competition in the U.S. economy.

There are moves to change the rules for “Product of USA” labels on meat. Why is that important?

Under current rules, meat can be labeled a “Product of USA” if it’s processed domestically but born, raised or slaughtered in another country.

We need mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat.

12 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

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14 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

EPA bans pesticide linked to health problems in children

By John Flesher Associated Press

The Biden administration has said it was banning use of chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide long targeted by environmentalists, on food crops because it poses risks to children and farm workers.

The Environmental Protection Agency acted after a federal appeals court ordered the government in April to determine quickly whether the pesticide is safe or should be prohibited.

During the Obama administration, the EPA had initiated a ban, but the agency reversed that decision shortly after President Donald Trump took office in 2017. President Joe Biden has pledged a review of more

than 100 of his predecessor’s environmental regulatory actions.

“EPA is taking an overdue step to protect public health,” Administrator Michael Regan said. “After the delays and denials of the prior administration, EPA will follow the science and put health and safety first.”

Chlorpyrifos is applied on numerous crops, including soybeans, fruit and nut trees, broccoli and cauliflower.

Studies have linked it to potential brain damage in children and fetuses that could lead to reduced IQ, memory loss and attention deficit disorders.

The Pesticide Action Network North America and the Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the EPA in 2007 to revoke all

approved levels of chlorpyrifos in food.

EPA said Wednesday it would do so, based on its findings that chlorpyrifos did not meet a legally required standard of reasonable certainty that exposure to the pesticide wouldn’t be harmful.

“It is gratifying to see the EPA once again adhere to the best available science when making critical regulatory decisions,” said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, chairwoman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

The European Union, Canada and some states including California, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, and Oregon have restricted application of chlorpyrifos on foods. Those limits — and development

Charlie Riedel | AP

The Biden administration has said it is banning chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide long targeted by environmentalists because it poses risks to children and farm workers. Chlorpyrifos is applied on numerous crops, including soybeans, fruit and nut trees, broccoli and cauliflower. It has been linked to potential brain damage in children.

of replacement pest controls — have led to a decline in farmers’ use of chlorpyrifos, EPA said.

“The ban will safeguard farmworkers, their families, communities and the

food supply,” said Allison Johnson, an attorney with the NRDC. “EPA is finally following its own findings on this poisonous pesticide.”

Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers,

said the group was “relieved that farmworkers and their families will no longer have to worry about the myriad of ways this pesticide could impact their lives.”

Corteva Inc. had been the world’s largest manufacturer of the pesticide but stopped producing it last year. The company, created after a merger of Dow Chemical and Dupont, said previously that declining sales drove its decision and that it considered chlorpyrifos safe.

EPA’s decision “effectively removes an important tool for farmers,” the company said in a statement, adding that “it appears that the rationale used by the agency is inconsistent with the complete and robust database of more than 4,000 studies and reports that have examined the product in terms of health, safety and the environment.”

EPA said after taking public comments, it would continue reviewing whether to allow use of chlorpyrifos for purposes not directly tied to food production, such as cattle ear tags and mosquito control.

Bills seeking to prohibit use of chlorpyrifos and similar pesticides have been proposed in Congress.

Introduced by Dow Chemical in 1965, chlorpyrifos was banned for household use in 2001.

Lawsuits were filed last month in California seeking damages against Dow Chemical and Corteva, as well as companies that applied the chemical. They allege contamination of personal belongings inside farming community homes.

Suits were filed last year on behalf of farm laborers in the nation’s largest agricultural state.

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 15

Chiropractic care not just for people Deb Robinson

Daily Ledger (TNS)

HAVANA — In the United States it is estimated people make around 280 million visits to chiropractors each year.

Chiropractic as a profession began in 1895 when Daniel David Palmer performed the first chiropractic adjustment.

In 1897 he established the first chiropractic school in Davenport, Iowa.

Most may think chiropractic care is strictly advantageous to the two-legged variety of species, however, it is also widely used to help our four-legged friends.

Dr. Renold Bleem grew up on a dairy farm. While welding, Bleem lifted a piece of steel and felt something odd in his back, “The next day I bent over to lift an object and something popped. I was stuck in a bent over position. My parents, being of the holistic mind, took me to a chiropractor nearby. I was seen several times and it corrected my back issue and I was back to full function. Loving science, biology, and anatomy and physiology that experience got me to thinking about a career in chiropractic. I was good with my hands and have a deep desire to help people, so it seemed appropriate.

I loved farming, but know that milking cows twice a day is a lot of work.”

Bleem graduated in 1987 from Sparta High School in Southern Illinois, then attended South West Illinois College (formerly Belleville Area College) to complete his pre-med degree, “In January, 1992, I transferred to Logan College of Chiropractic in Chesterfield, Missouri, which is now Logan University and began my chiropractic education.”

Upon graduation in April 1995, while attending Logan, he completed his bachelor’s degree in human biology.

“In 1997, spurred on by a need in the Havana area, I opened a human practice, Bleem Family Chiropractic, on Main Street,” he explained.

“I treat cradle to grave. We see the entire family. There is always room for one more. Everyone needs chiropractic,

but some just don’t know it yet.”

What about the animal side of his practice?

“For years I had people ask me to adjust their animals. There was so much going on running a business and raising kids, I didn’t pursue it. However, after the Affordable Healthcare Act changed the landscape of my office, I began to miss the ‘barn’. I knew I needed something familiar and attending animal chiropractic school gave me that opportunity,” he said.

Bleem went on to research animal chiropractic colleges. He elected to go with Options for Animals in Wellsville, Kansas. The program requires 220 hours of class time and lab total.

He attended one week a month for five months, “Incidentally, only a licensed DC or DVM can attend animal chiropractic college.”

Bleem graduated from Options in February, 2019. There are two major certifications in the nation. The American Veterinary Chiropractic Association (AVCA) and the International Veterinary Chiropractic Association (IVCA) are two rigorous boards held over two days that are utilized to prove competency in the profession, “I took and successfully passed both boards. When it comes to adjusting an animal, certification and training matter. We serve West Central Illinois and beyond traveling much of the state as needed. We prefer to see large animals on site so they don’t have to travel after their adjustment. Small animals are seen out of our clinic in Havana in a separate animal adjusting area away from the human adjusting room. I travel with my human table and was surprised by how many human adjustments I do on the road and at the barn. People are grateful for the timesaving aspect of the service we provide,” he shared.

Bleem explained the benefits of chiropractic care not only for humans, but animals, “With animals and humans, it’s all about overall function. Function of the nervous system. The nervous system controls every cell tissue and organ of

Getty Images

Many people likely think chiropractic care is strictly for people, but it is also widely used to help animals.

the body and chiropractic care releases the body to function at the optimum level. At the very least, it allows for the best possible function in its current state or circumstance, and it allows the body to heal itself.”

While a human patient is adequately able to articulate where they are hurting, animals, however are a different story.

Bleem said his services are requested when an owner notices something is ‘just off’, “Specific chiropractic applied to the appropriate joints will improve function. Many times, that means reducing pain or stiffness. Better function means better circulation and nerve flow, improving healing, reducing future recurrences and promoting better overall health. There is a symphony of moving parts in the body and chiropractic aims to promote the natural rhythm and function.”

Bleem went on to explain chiroprac-

tors treat something called Subluxation-joint misalignment or dysfunction causing some type of nerve interference, “It’s all about function of the nervous system and the body’s built-in ability to heal itself. We have been shocked how well these animals have responded. The vitality is improved immediately, and it’s been amazing to witness. Animals carry less baggage than humans so they respond to care authentically.”

Dr. Bleem has treated a variety of animals from ferrets, horses, alpacas, dogs and others in between. He’s seen dogs that have lost all function below the waist to horses that can’t bend properly; anything from a minor ‘checkup’ for best performance to life saving care, “Sometimes the owners are left two options, an expensive surgery or euthanasia. Chiropractic has changed the life of many animals and saved them from this sad ending,” said Bleem.

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16 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

Imaging speeds effort to reduce crops’ need for water

By Diana Yates

University of Illinois News

Scientists have developed and deployed a series of new imaging and machine-learning tools to discover attributes that contribute to water-use efficiency in crop plants during photosynthesis and to reveal the genetic basis of variation in those traits.

The findings are described in a series of four research papers led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate students Jiayang (Kevin) Xie and Parthiban Prakash, and postdoctoral researchers John Ferguson, Samuel Fernandes and Charles Pignon.

The goal is to breed or engineer crops that are better at conserving water without sacrificing yield, said Andrew Leakey, a professor of plant biology and of crop sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who directed the research.

“Drought stress limits agricultural production more than anything else,” Leakey said. “And scientists are working to find ways to minimize water loss from plant leaves without decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide the leaves take in.”

Plants “breathe in” carbon dioxide through tiny pores in their leaves called stomata. That carbon dioxide drives photosynthesis and contributes

to plant growth. But the stomata also allow moisture to escape in the form of water vapor.

“The amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide exchanged between the leaf and atmosphere depends on the number of stomata, their size and how quickly they open or close in response to environmental signals,” Leakey said. “If rainfall is low or the air is too hot and dry, there can be insufficient water to meet demand, leading to reduced photosynthesis, productivity and survival.”

To better understand this process in plants like corn, sorghum and grasses of the genus Setaria, the team analyzed how

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the stomata on their leaves influenced plants’ water-use efficiency.

“We investigated the number, size and speed of closing movements of stomata in these closely related species,” Leakey said. “This is very challenging because the traditional methods for measuring these traits are very slow and laborious.”

For example, determining stomatal density previously involved manually counting the pores under a microscope. The slowness of this method means scientists are unable to analyze large datasets, Leakey said.

“There are a lot of features of the leaf epidermis that normally don’t get measured because it takes

L. Brian Stauffer

Andrew Leakey (left), Jiayang “Kevin” Xie and their colleagues developed an improved method for analyzing features of plant leaves that contribute to water-use efficiency in crops like corn, sorghum and Setaria. They used advanced statistical approaches to identify regions of the genome and lists of genes that contribute to these traits.

too much time,” he said.

“Or, if they get measured, it’s in really small experiments. And you can’t discover the genetic basis for a trait with a really small experiment.”

To speed the work, Xie took a machine-learning tool originally developed to help self-driving cars navigate complex environments and converted it into an application that could quickly identify, count and measure thousands of cells and cell features in each leaf sample.

“To do this manually, it would take you several weeks of labor just to count the stomata on a

season’s worth of leaf samples,” Leakey said.

“And it would take you months more to manually measure the sizes of the stomata or the sizes of any of the other cells.”

The team used sophisticated statistical approaches to identify regions of the genome and lists of genes that likely control variation in the patterning of stomata on the leaf surface. They also used thermal cameras in field and laboratory experiments to quickly assess the temperature of leaves – as a proxy for how much See IMAGING | Page 18

217 488 3125 217 675 2302 217 476 3438 217 452 3545

Jiayang “Kevin” Xie

A new approach to analyzing the epidermis layer of plant leaves revealed that the size and shape of the stomata (lighter green pores) in corn leaves strongly influence the crop’s water-use efficiency.

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 17

Farm runoff creates massive worries beyond lake

By Chris Coates Herald & Review

Surrounded by some of the world’s richest soil and home to two major grain processing plants, Decatur has long been a hub for agribusiness in the United States.

These agricultural-based industries have largely been a positive in Decatur’s story, bringing jobs and money back to the “Soybean Capital of the World” while exporting food products found in grocery stores all around the world.

Yet economic benefits and a sense of identity are not the only things these industries produce.

One major trade-off comes in the form of excess nutrients, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus, that runoff from fertilizers used on local farm fields and from discharges from wastewater treatment plants and factories.

These nutrients seep into local waterways, including Lake Decatur, and eventually make their way down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico, contributing to a large hypoxic zone devoid of aquatic life.

It’s also contributed to problems at home — it was not uncommon in the 1980s and 1990s for the city to hand out bottled water to mothers and their newborn children as nitrate levels in Lake Decatur climbed above what was safe to drink. It was a black eye on the city’s reputation.

“People would go to what was then Holiday Inn because it was our biggest, nicest hotel when we were recruiting, whether it’s a physician or someone to be

Herald & Review

According to the Illinois State Water Survey, about 13 million pounds of nitrate loading occurs within the Lake Decatur watershed every year, causing it periodically to exceed safe drinking water standards.

or an executive at ADM,” Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe recalled at a recent study session focused on Lake Decatur. “And these young families would check in and there’s a notice posted: Do not drink the water if you’re pregnant or child under 2.”

“We gave away jugs of water to every mom who was pregnant, to every family,” she said. “Just about everyone I knew because I had young children at the time had water jugs in their house because we couldn’t drink Decatur water.”

Decatur solved that problem with the construction of a $7.6 million nitrate reduction facility in 2002.

The water is safe to drink.

But, that does not mean the nutrients have gone away as runoff from farms in the lake’s watershed and wastewater discharge from heavy industry find their way into the lake and, eventually, beyond.

This leads to problems both near and far.

Decatur draws its drinking water primarily from Lake Decatur, a 2,800-acre reservoir built nearly 100 years ago at the behest of companies like A.E. Staley and Archer-Daniels-Midland, which have water-in-

tensive industrial processes.

The lake’s watershed stretches 925 square miles across parts of seven counties in east-central Illinois.

Emergency water sources include well fields in DeWitt County and former

sand and gravel pits near the South Water Treatment Plant.

“Lake Decatur was built in the 1920s, and it was built in the middle of Central Illinois, which obviously has acres and acres of corn and soybean fields, in particular,” said water production manager Keith Alexander. “So literally ever since the lake was built, we’ve had challenges with sedimentation, which is dirt running into the lake, and obviously we’ve had challenges with nutrients, mostly farm-applied fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides.”

A major drought in 2012 was the catalyst for the city to move forward with a $92 million dredging project to remove sediment that accu-

mulated at the bottom of the lake. The project, completed in 2019, increased the lake’s storage capacity by 30%.

Sediment was the point of concern for Moore Wolfe and the city’s alderman at a study session in May. According to a report commissioned by the city, more than $1 million worth of sediment seeps into the lake every year. And in order to protect its dredging investment, at least $20 million may be needed over the next six years.

The concern about runoff is hardly confined to Macon County.

The Des Moines Water Works in Iowa six years ago unsuccessfully sued upstream drainage districts

after the Raccoon River had massive nitrogen and phosphorus levels. The waterway is the primary drinking water source for the region.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was asked about farm runoff during an interview with Erin Murphy, a reporter for the Herald & Review’s sister newspaper in Iowa, The Quad-City Times. Vilsack said the federal government offers various grants and loans for municipalities for water treatment and to upgrade facilities.

“And you combine that with the ability on the farm to reduce the level of those of nitrogen and phosphorus getting into the rivers to begin with,” he said.

18 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

History etched in farm’s sunflower field

By Anthony Zilis News-Gazette

Around a century ago, a large white barn with a rounded roof was built on a field north of Champaign. In any direction from that farm, the view was flat and unobstructed, meaning farmers could see for miles on a clear day.

For that reason, “Clearview” was written on that barn, which was torn down by the current owners of the property, The Atkins Group, because it wasn’t structurally sound. When the company decided to put in a new, regenerative farm on the land, it drew a rendering of the farm and made it its logo.

“That was the classic barn shape,” said Jim Goss, who manages The Atkins Group’s farms.

When members of the public visit Clearview Farm’s 25-acre sunflower field this summer, they are able to walk through the rendering of the barn carved out in the field. It’s similar to a

corn maze, but simple enough that it’s meant to be more of a path with a few clearings for people to go for a walk and take photos in a stunning field of sunflowers.

The Atkins Group planted a similar sunflower field last year at the former Stone Creek Golf Course, which was shut down before it was donated to the University of Illinois.

This year’s field, though, is better, Goss said.

“When you get that whole field of sunflowers in bloom, it’s stunning visually,” Goss said. “There’s a lot of topography that we didn’t have at Stone Creek. The sunflowers are a lot bigger this year, because they were planted on time, for one, and the soil is a lot better than what we had at Stone Creek to work with.”

While they’re out at the sunflower field, Goss hopes people tour the rest of the fields. Among the plants on the 140acre farm are quinoa, flax, canola, alfalfa, wheat, triticale, popcorn and sweet corn,

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A 25-acre sunflower field is similar to a corn maze, but meant to be more of a path with a few clearings for people to go for a walk and take photos.

most of which Goss said are rare in this region in this large of a field.

Some crops will be sold to individuals for different purposes. For instance, the sunflowers might be harvested and used for premium bird seed, he said.

“I’ve been managing farms for almost 33 years now, and this is one of the most fun projects I’ve been able to do,” Goss said. “It’s pretty exciting. We expected some things to fail, and we haven’t had complete washout failures on anything.”

This won’t be the last year for the regenerative farm. Goss said The Atkins Group is already looking at plans for next year, when it will rotate the crops with each other, phasing a few in and a few out.

“The ag nerd in me says this regenerative agriculture will be the future of agriculture,” he said. “We’re not necessarily early adopters, but we’re bringing it to the forefront with a lot of interesting things that other people aren’t doing.”

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Imaging From page 16

water loss was cooling the leaves.

“This revealed key links between changes in microscopic anatomy and the physiological or functional performance of the plants,” Leakey said.

By comparing leaf characteristics with the plants’ water-use efficiency in field experiments, the

researchers found “that the size and shape of the stomata in corn appeared to be more important than had previously been recognized,” Leakey said.

Along with the identification of genes that likely contribute to those features, the discovery will inform future efforts to breed or genetically engineer crop plants that use water more efficiently, the researchers said.

The new approach provides an unprecedented

view of the structure and function of the outermost layer of plant leaves, Xie said.

“There are so many things we don’t know about the characteristics of the epidermis, and this machine-learning algorithm is giving us a much more comprehensive picture,” he said. “We can extract a lot more potential data on traits from the images we’ve taken. This is something people could not have done before.”

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 19

Nutrient-rich human waste poised to sustain ag

By Lois Yoksoulian

University of Illinois News

The future connection between human waste, sanitation technology and sustainable agriculture is becoming more evident.

According to research directed by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Jeremy Guest, countries could be moving closer to using human waste as fertilizer, closing the loop to more circular, sustainable economies.

A new study characterizes the spatial distribution of human urine-derived nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – and agricultural fertilizer demand to define supply-demand location typologies, their prevalence across the globe and the implications for resource recovery. The findings are published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

“The total amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium largely remains constant in our bodies, once we stop growing,” said Guest, who also serves as the acting associate director for research at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment at the U. of I. “Whatever comes in through food and drink must come out in our urine, feces and sweat.

Knowing that, we can estimate how much of each of these nutrients is in a population’s bodily waste if we know their diet.”

Previous studies by Guest and others have assessed the potential for

L. Brian Stauffer

A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign helps define the global relationship between sustainable agriculture and sanitation technology.

recovering the nutrients from human waste across the globe and identified locations with a surplus of human waste-derived nutrients relative to the local demand for agricultural fertilizers.

“The new study is the first to describe human waste-derived nutrient supply-demand location relationships using a single mathematical equation,” Guest said. “The quality of sanitation infrastructure varies greatly across the globe, as do people’s diets and the availability of land

suitable for agriculture.

Having the means to characterize and quantitatively compare a location’s nutrient-recovery potential can go a long way to better inform decision-makers when it comes to future sanitation and agriculture policy.”

The team performed extensive numerical and geographic analyses of dietary, population, sanitation and agricultural data from 107 countries to accomplish this quantitative characterization at the global scale. The investiga-

tion revealed three distinct supply-demand typologies: countries with a co-located supply-demand; countries with a dislocated supply-demand; and countries with diverse supply-demand proximities.

The United States and Australia, for example, fall under the dislocated supply-demand typology. They have intensive agriculture in areas far from large cities, thus the human waste-derived nutrient supply is far away from where it is needed, Guest said. Even with advanced sanitation infrastructure in place, this means that nutrients would need to be transported over large distances, either as heavy fluids or converted into concentrated crystalline products. Economically speaking, Guest said, it would make sense to work with a concentrated product to implement a human waste-derived fertilizer in these countries.

The study reports that in countries with co-located supply-demand typologies like India, Nigeria and Uganda, human popu-

lations are more substantively in the proximity of agricultural areas, making local reuse possible. In many communities with co-located supply-demand, however, there is a need for improved sanitation infrastructure. Guest said implementing a human waste-derived fertilizer program could be highly beneficial to sanitation and agriculture in these places.

Countries like Brazil, Mexico, China and Russia exhibit a continuum of co-location to dislocation of nutrient supply and demand. The study reports that policymakers would need to approach human waste-derived nutrient use with more regionalized strategies and a range of local reuse and transport approaches.

“Higher income countries in this group may have the infrastructure and economic support for various technologies, but those with limited financial resources would require prioritization of resource-recovery technology in some areas,” Guest said.

The team was surprised to find the typologies corresponded closely to the United Nations Human Development Index.

“Higher HDI-scoring countries like the U.S., Western Europe and Australia tend to fall in the dislocated supply-demand typology and lower HDI-scoring countries tend to fit the co-located supply-demand typology. Of course, there are exceptions, but we did not expect to find such a strong correlation,” Guest said.

The team hopes this research will help clarify the salient economic, sanitation and agricultural characteristics of countries across the globe so that decision-makers can prioritize investment, policies and technologies that will advance goals for a circular economy and the provision of sanitation to all, Guest said.

Desarae Echevarria, a former Illinois civil and environmental engineering graduate student, is the lead author of the study.

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20 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

Power in seeds: Urban gardening gains momentum

By Katherine Roth Associated Press

On an assemblage of vacant lots and other pockets of unused land in the Bronx, gardeners from low-income neighborhoods have banded together to create over a dozen “farm hubs,” coordinating their community gardens and their harvest.

Several years ago, some discovered that, together, their small gardens could grow enough peppers to mass-produce hot sauce — Bronx Hot Sauce, to be precise, with profits from the sales reinvested in their communities.

During the pandemic, the farm hubs of the Bronx have again proved their might, producing health-boosting crops like garlic, kale and collard greens.

“The trick is, how can we learn from the pandemic so that we become

genuinely resilient?” says Raymond Figueroa-Reyes, president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition.

“When the pandemic hit, urban farming went into hyper-productivity mode. People saw that the (food) donations coming in were are not adequate in terms of quantity or quality, and there is no dignity in waiting on that type of charity,” he says.

The farm hubs are part of an urban gardening movement across the country dedicated to empowering residents of poorer neighborhoods by encouraging them to grow fresh food.

Areas (both urban and rural) with little access to healthy, fresh food have been called “food deserts,” and tend to have high rates of diabetes and other diseases, such as hypertension and obesity.

In cities, where many see

Getty Images

The farm hubs are part of an urban gardening movement across the country dedicated to empowering residents of poorer neighborhoods by encouraging them to grow fresh food.

the phenomenon as inseparable from deeper issues of race and equity, some community leaders prefer terms like “food prisons” or “food apartheid.”

Ron Finley in Los Angeles has been at the forefront of urban gardening for years. He sees gardening as both

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therapeutic and an act of defiance.

“Growing your own food is like printing your own money,” says Finley, who runs the nonprofit Ron Finley Project. “It’s not just about food, it’s about freedom. It’s our revolution, and our eco-lution.”

Finley grew up in South Central Los Angeles, where he says he had to drive 45 minutes just to get a fresh tomato.

His efforts to rejuvenate communities through gardening have included planting vegetables on neglected parkways and other pieces of unused land, and teaching online classes to global audiences about the power of growing food.

Millions of Americans live in neighborhoods without healthy food options. The same neighborhoods are magnets for fast-food restaurants and the packaged foods available at drug stores and convenience stores.

“The drive-thru is kill-

ing more people in our communities than the drive-by,” Finley says. “I want people to come back to reality, to touch the soil and take back some of the things that have been taken away. When you plant a seed, it will multiply. It’s a currency.

It’s a valuable resource.

That’s empowering. It’s about more than food.”

In the Bronx, Karen Washington, who has spent decades promoting urban farming, said it is about “food justice.”

(She helped coordinate the pepper-growing that led to Bronx Hot Sauce; the company they worked with, Small Axe Peppers, now makes hot sauce with community-grown peppers from Queens, Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and other cities.)

“Healthy food is a human right, along with clean water,” she said.

A board member of the New York Botanical Garden, Washington has worked with neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens, and helped launch City Farms Market, which brings affordable fresh produce grown in community gardens or on upstate farms to a weekly farmers market in the Bronx.

She co-founded Black Urban Growers and helped found the Black Farmer Fund, which aims to provide access to capital for black farmers and entrepreneurs.

COVID had a big impact on people wanting to grow their own food, and Washington said she sees more people grow-

ing food on city terraces and in yards across the country.

“It really gained urgency during the early stages of COVID, before the vaccines came out. If we are going to fight viruses, especially in these neighborhoods with a lot of diabetes and obesity, we need to start eating healthy,” Washington says.

Figueroa-Reyes concurs.

“Folks said, we gotta get into these unused spaces and we gotta grow food,” he says. “There is a collective effort around organizing farm hubs with the idea of growing more immune-boosting food and getting it to where it’s needed most.”

Through its Bronx Green-Up program, the New York Botanical Garden has long provided technical support to community gardens. It stepped up efforts when the pandemic hit, working directly with community farm hubs; organizing biweekly Zoom meetings to help with problem solving, resource sharing and harvest distribution; and providing more than 10,000 herb and vegetable seedlings.

“We came together with longtime community partners early in the pandemic, realizing that food insecurity has always been a big issue in the Bronx,” says Ursula Chanse, the program’s director.

“There’s definitely a lot of community gardening interest now, and more urban farm spaces,” she says.

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 21

Angela Bauer | Journal-Courier

Farm equipment, including a John Deere tractor dating to 1967, awaits use mid-harvest on the Coop farm along Liberty Road in Morgan County. Crops, storage and equipment — along with his family’s safety — are just a few of the elements Doug Coop takes into account when he considers emergency preparedness for the land he farms with his father, Ric Coop.

Emergency From page 3

companies and emergency crews working to help as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

“A lot of the needs are the same,” between city residents and rural residents, said Phil McCarty, Jacksonville-Morgan County Emergency Management director. “They still have to have water, still have to have power, still have to have food.”

But, realistically, rural residents might find themselves waiting a bit longer for assistance, McCarty said.

“If they can turn on (power for) 100 people by putting 10 poles up in town but they have to put 30 (poles) up to get (power restored to) 10 people (in a rural area),” McCarty said, “it’s not that the rural environment comes second, but … you want to get the best bang for the buck.”

It’s simply the reality, though “no one person is

more important,” McCarty said.

The reality’s not lost on Coop.

“With Hurricane Ida, some of those people were without power for days, weeks,” he said. “So the question for farmers, ranchers in area, is how long can you go without electricity? If we have major damage to our grid, especially if you’re a livestock farmer, how long can you go?”

A string of questions can lead one through the thought process.

“What’s your primary source of electricity?”

Coop asked. “If that fails, what’s your alternate?

What’s your contingency?

What’s your emergency backup?”

Those are important questions to ask before a crisis arises, he said.

Still, it’s OK not to have all the answers — “It gets to the point in the preparedness plan for some of these things that it isn’t economically viable,” Coop said — as long as you’ve considered the questions.

“When you think about a really worst-case scenario (when you can) no longer get fuel delivered and you’re without power, if the backup plan fails, there’s nothing I can do in this situation,” he said.

“That’s OK, too.”

Being able to realize quickly that there’s no solution to a problem allows a farmer to accept it and move on to the next one, Coop said.

Which then could be a question of how to keep a farm operating for a while without power. “‘I don’t have any other option for (getting) this energy, so what’s my plan for this livestock now?’”

Coop asked. “‘How do I

get them somewhere else or get them to market?’

We saw this in the pandemic with pork. There was a big surplus of hogs that were ready for market.”

But markets weren’t taking them, which raised a question of what to do with the animals.

“Some of (the hog farmers) probably had something in place ahead of time, some didn’t,” Coop said. “One backup plan might not be enough.”

Other things to consider: Where will you store your grain if it’s harvest time and a tornado wipes our your grain bins? What will you do

for money if power is out and ATMs aren’t working?

“Some of these things are fairly easily solved,” Coop said. “But we encourage people to think about it in advance.”

Coop also suggests widening the range of a backup plan in rural communities that tend to rely heavily on friends, families and neighbors.

“If your plan is to rely on your brother or sister at the bottom of the road, what if they’re wiped out by the same emergency?” he asked. “… Do you have someone out of the area but fairly close that you could go stay with?”

Still, one of the most

effective ways to get through an emergency is “a neighbor taking care of a neighbor,” McCarty said, noting that it applies to cities and rural areas alike. “Everybody pitching in is the main response. Government can’t fix it all. We work hard at it, but it’s neighbor taking care of neighbor. Rural areas are really good about that. That’s what it takes to overcome disasters.”

That and a bit of preparedness.

“We’re really talking about worst-case scenarios,” Coop said. “But, I got to tell you, the worstcase scenario seems to be happening more.”

22 • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Modern Farmer

Growing From page 4

“Getting to sit in the tractor all night, and then over the months getting to see the beans grow from the pod to a stock is pretty cool,” Dotzert said.

Sophomore Brooklyn Beck agreed.

“It’s pretty satisfying during harvest, watching as the combine goes through,” Brooklyn Beck said. “It’s there and then it’s gone.”

For sophomore Hunter Wooldridge learning about the various chemicals is the most exciting.

“You have to determine what chemicals to put on and when and you have to be careful when doing it,” he said.

When a crop such as soybeans or corn isn’t growing on the acres, there is a cover crop on the land, which he said helps with erosion and soil fertility.

For most, it starts with soil testing, before appropriate chemicals are applied to make sure the soil is ready to house the intended crop, Millard said.

Then it’s about preparing the land, if necessary before

Photos by Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree | Journal-Courier

Jacob Millard, a crop specialist for Sunrise FS and a sponsor for the Triopia school plot, shows members of the agriculture class one of the soybean plants from the fields and explains how to estimate a crop yield, as well as how to tell when a crop is ready for harvest.

planting the crop. Then there are routine chemicals throughout the growing months, including fertilizers and insecticides that have to be applied during certain time frames.

Then there is the harvest, which has to be done at the right time to make sure the crop is ready, but also doesn’t stay in the ground too long.

Following that, the process continues with more

soil tests to ensure levels, as well as planting of cover crops. Then it’s a repeat.

Millard said the students do a lot of research into various products and help make the decisions, decisions and knowledge that he then uses, not only on the Triopia plots, but also to help his customers.

Following the harvest, it’s time to sell, something else the students have to learn about.

Seth Coats with Western Grain Marketing helps the students learn about the market and make decisions on when to sell and how much.

“I try to help teach them how and why the markets rise and fall, how various events impact the prices,” Coats said.

But, it’s not only the newer generations that are learning.

Older farmers are still

learning as well and changing things year to year.

Arenzville farmer David Virgin has been farming for more than 40 years, but said he still doesn’t have the one-fit answer to a good crop each year.

“I am old enough to remember when they would pick ear corn,,” Virgin said.

He said his dad and grandfather use to pick the corn, store it and then it would go through the process of being shelled and shucked and prepped to be sold — a process that is now done at one time during harvesting.

“Now, it’s all one process,” Virgin said. “It seems times have changed. A lot more acres are being farmed by fewer people and you have to be more efficient.”

Virgin said over the years, farmers, like himself, have learned to adapt with new equipment, new science and new programs that have benefited their yields.

Things like hybrids, more advanced monitoring systems and soil tests, and more scientific knowledge have helped farmers increase yields and grow better, healthier crops.

“We base our decisions

off more facts based on the yield monitors,” Virgin said.

“It use to be that if you got 150 bushels a acre, that was good. Now, you push to see if you can average 250.”

Virgin said things change year to year based on soil needs, weather and economics — something farmers have to be prepared to adapt to.

“The number one factor in ag as far as producing row crops like beans and wheat is the weather,” Virgin said. “It is those situations that farmers can’t control. You just have to try and stay attuned to what you are doing…farmers are the eternal gamblers. We don’t bet, but we go out and plant our crop and hope for the best.”

For Virgin, it’s about being a good steward of the Earth and working to produce the best yield he can.

“It come to the point where you’ve watched it, nurtured it and done everything you could do to it,” Virgin said. “You get to the point where you don’t know what your yield will be, but you’ve spent too much time worrying about your crop. You just do your best.

Things are never the same year-to-year.”

Triopia High School’s agriculture classes help with about 14 acres of farm land each year. The students rotate corn and soybean crops.

Modern Farmer • Saturday, September 25, 2021 • 23

Establish Your Legacy Give the Gift of Health Visionary donors enable Jacksonville Memorial Hospital to provide quality healthcare to residents of Brown, Cass, Greene, Morgan and Scott counties through their gifts of farmland. We may have a new name and logo, but the cause is just as important, and your donations stay local like always.

Ask your estate planning professional how a charitable bequest can continue to support the health of your community for generations to come.

Contact Pam Martin, executive director, Jacksonville Memorial Foundation, for information on the many ways to make a gift.

Contact 217–479–5575

FARM DONORS 1928 Charles A. Rowe Thomas Tissington 1959 Nellie Rice

1972 Robert Shekelton 1973 Frances W. Corrington 1981 Frank C. Dinwiddie

1982 Mildred J. Dinwiddie Emma Lucille Hembrough Edward P. Hostman 1985 Irma Fox Barsnes

1999 William and Oley Beilschmidt Lloyd Gordon 2014 Howard and Vera Million

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