Michigan’s oldest college newspaper
Vol. 142 Issue 9 - November 1, 2018
Volleyball
Michigan to vote on legalization of
Kara Vyletel leaps for a kill on Tuesday’s win against Findlay. S. Nathaniel Grime | Collegian
recreational marijuana Tuesday
Hillsdale beats Findlay to clinch G-MAC regular season championship By | Regan Meyer Web Content Editor “We don’t need to go any further than they’re Findlay, and we’re Hillsdale,” head coach Chris Gravel said before Tuesday night’s game against the Oilers. Charger volleyball now reigns supreme over its conference foes with a victory against Findlay Tuesday night. Hillsdale secured the G-MAC regular season championship for the second year in a row. The victory didn’t come easily for the Chargers with Findlay finding every chance to rally. “Overall, the match wasn’t at our peak performance, but there were a lot of great rallies last night,” senior outside hitter Kara Vyletel said. “Findlay had some good plays, but that’s just how volleyball goes. Overall we were more consistent and performed when we need to.” Freshman outside hitter Karoline Shelton said the team dipped in the middle of the
www.hillsdalecollegian.com
game but was able to pull it together in the end. “We came out really strong, but we got comfortable and complacent,” Shelton said. “It really came out well and we played together as a team.” Head coach Chris Gravel said his team was able to capitalize on Findlay’s errors. Hillsdale also secured the number one seed in the tournament. “We’re excited to be hosting, but ready for our matches this weekend,” Vyletel said. “That is our priority as of now.” Gravel said that he’s proud of his team but is focused on the games ahead. “A G-MAC championship is just one of our goals,” Gravel said. “We need to have a good weekend heading into next week’s conference tournament.” The team completed regular season travel last weekend and will be on their home court for their last few games.
“We’re really happy not to be on the road,” Gravel said. “It’s been a long month. It’s a tough stretch being on the road and playing that level of competition.” The Chargers will take on Ohio Dominican University on Friday. “Ohio Dominican had a lot of issues in the beginning but they’re starting to play well. Their entire year will be worth it if they can beat us. They’re going to come with their game.” After ODU, Hillsdale plays Walsh University Saturday night. “Walsh is the no. 1 team in the other division and has a win over the no. 3 ranked team in the region,” Gravel said. “If we can beat them, that’ll help solidify our regular season conference championship. It puts us in a better spot for being selected to move on to the NCAAs.”
By | Madeline Peltzer Collegian Reporter Michigan voters will decide next week whether the Great Lakes State will become the tenth state in the union to legalize recreational marijuana. Proposal 1 comes a decade after Michigan legalized medical marijuana, which will remain legal regardless of the election’s outcome. “Our goal is to end marijuana prohibition because we feel that prohibition has been more of a problem than the substance it’s trying to protect us from,” Josh Hovey, communications director of the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, told The Collegian. “We believe marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed similarly to alcohol and that adults 21 and over should have the personal liberty to choose what they put into their bodies for themselves.” Besides ensuring individual freedom, legalization would make possible regulation that is vital for public safety, particularly among youth, Hovey said.
“It’s true that marijuana content is much stronger today than it was in the 1960s,” he said. “That’s why we should have it regulated. The state will require very clear packaging and child-proof containers. They would very strictly ban marijuana in edibles that would be appealing to children and that could be confused with non-marijuana infused candy.” Laurie Brandes, coordinator for the Hillsdale County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition, however, said she believes the consequences to society, especially for children, would be too great. While technically only adults ages 21 and over would be able to purchase marijuana, she’s confident this won’t stop youth from getting their hands on weed. “For me, it’s all about our young people,” she said. “The teenage brain is not finished maturing until the age of 24 or 25, and marijuana has a very significant impact on brain development. The longer I’ve spent in the social service department, the more I think the government needs to
play some role in protecting children, even if that means keeping it illegal.” Proponents of recreational marijuana claim that legalization would deliver economic benefits, such as additional government revenue from taxing marijuana sales. They argue that the new businesses would crop up with the spread of dispensaries across the state and that the market for marijuana paraphernalia would broaden. The need for a method for law enforcement to test those driving under the influence of marijuana would also offer a significant economic incentive. But Brandes said she fears that the proposal could actually hurt businesses and the economy. She shared the example of a local business that posted a job opening. Of the 40 people who applied, only four could pass a drug test. “I’m very concerned that if this passes, it will limit the growth of industry because there just won’t be enough employable folks,” she said. Brandes said she’s
See Marijuana B5
Oh, deer: Read more about a campus wildlife encounter on A3. Aaron Tracey | Courtesy
‘We’re hanging in limbo’: Soybean tariffs spell uncertainty for Hillsdale County farmers By | Nicole Ault Editor-in-Chief Scott Welden checks grain prices on his phone the way some people check Instagram. “As a U.S. farmer, I watch the commodity trading like stockbrokers watch the market on Wall Street,” said Welden, who farms primarily soybeans, wheat, and corn in Jonesville, Michigan. “I keep looking at that app, and I’m like, I gotta stop looking at it.” These days, the prices have caused more concern than usual for Welden and other U.S. farmers: They’ve tanked since last spring as trade tensions heightened between the United States and China, culminating in China imposing 25-percent tariffs on corn, soybeans, dairy, and other agricultural products in July. Tariffs hit grains especially hard: Since May, the price of soybeans dropped from about $10 per bushel to just over $8, and the price of corn has fallen by nearly 15 percent, about 60 cents per bushel. Tariffs aren’t the only factor responsible for the price drops, but they’re a significant one. Soybeans are an especially large export product in the U.S. — in 2016-17, it exported 50 percent of its soybeans, of which more than 60 percent went to China — and tariffs have choked up the export market, driving down prices as demand wanes for the already-abundant commodity. Welden said that the value of his family farm’s harvest has dropped by nearly a quarter. “Most businesses, if they lost Follow @HDaleCollegian
20-24 percent of their revenue, could not survive,” he said. In Hillsdale County, corn and soybeans are staples of the economy. The county produced 9.6 million bushels of corn and 3.6 million bushels
omy. Though other agricultural products have been slapped by tariffs from China and Mexico and Canada as well — including pork and dairy, another significant sector of Hillsdale’s agricultural economy — soy-
Mark Kies (right) and his son Patrick stand in front of a combine at their farm in Hillsdale County. Nicole Ault | Collegian
of soybeans in 2017, and Welden estimated that grain farming constitutes 25 percent of the Hillsdale County econ-
beans suffered one of the most direct hits and largest price drops. Now in the heart of harvest season, grain farmers
face prices below the cost of production — and must decide whether to sell or store their crops while the future of tariffs and prices remains uncertain. Watching soybeans from his 3,500-acre farm in northwest Hillsdale County shoot through a bright-red auger machine into a grain silo this month, Mark Kies, who’s been farming for more than 40 years, said times are “as difficult as I’ve ever seen it.” “We’re kind of hanging in limbo right now,” Kies said. Tariffs impact decision making Right now, as farmers bring in the harvest and make decisions about what they’ll plant next year, the tariffs have a “very direct impact on what we’re doing,” said Terry Finegan, board president of the Hillsdale County Farm Bureau. The tariff blow isn’t catastrophic this year for farmers who forward-contracted their sales, which many do, said Jay Williams, who farms about 1,350 acres of corn, wheat, soybeans, and alfalfa in Hillsdale and Lenawee counties. Forward-contracting allows farmers to lock in a price for their products before they harvest; farmers who contract their soybeans when prices were $10 can avoid the $2 price drop when selling their beans this fall. “This year, we’ll be okay income-wise,” Finegan said, referring to farmers who locked in contracts and have
www.hillsdalecollegian.com
storage space. Next year, if soybean prices haven’t gone back up to $9 or $10, they’ll be in trouble, he said. Those who didn’t forward-contract — or those who did, but not for all their grains — have a tough choice: Sell for lower prices, or store their grains, if they have the space, in hopes that prices will rise before long. “What are you going to do with all that grain that you thought you were going to export?” said Heidi Schweizer, assistant professor and extension specialist at North Carolina State University’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. “If you haven’t already contracted you need to figure out if you’re going to market your grain and soybeans right now, or are you going to wait for a better price. That’s a really difficult decision, and it depends on whether you have storage facilities and whether you expect prices to rise.” Finegan said he plans to take advantage of storage this year for the grains he didn’t contract out. “This year I’m set pretty good,” Finegan said. “Next year I’m trying to decide what to do, what I want to plant, guess which way the prices are going to go, plant more corn or more soybeans, which way to balance my rotation.” Farmers tend to rotate corn and soybean crops on the same land, allowing them to change their ratios year to year based on expected pricing. Welden said he’s looking
at where he can cut costs, first, and then at his crop rotation. Since he can rotate corn and soybeans on the same land year to year, he can change his ratio based on expected pricing. “I don’t think there’s one simple change. It’s going to be lots of little incremental changes. We have to look at all aspects of our business,” Welden said. Kies said the tariffs are affecting purchasing decisions, adding that he hopes prices for inputs such as equipment and fertilizer will fall. “We’re treading water,” Kies said. “We haven’t bought any of the inputs that we normally have bought at this point because cash is tighter to come by.” The tariffs have made it harder to forward-contract as well, Welden said. Usually, he’d be selling some 2020 crops at this point in the season, but “those opportunities have been pretty minor” since the trade war began. Farmers do have an option to ease the tariffs’ financial blow: A Market Facilitation Program provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture offers farmers payments equal to their 2018 production times 50 percent of a set rate. Of all grains, soybeans have the highest rate of $1.65 per bushel (in contrast with corn’s $0.01/bushel rate); a farmer who harvests 100,000 bushels of soybeans could receive $82,500.
See Tariffs A7 Look for The Hillsdale Collegian