By: Diane Becker

Who likes to go grocery shopping? Not me. A few years ago I found a website that I could order groceries online with free shipping. That was heavenly, while it lasted. Click on a few items and nonperishable goods show up at your door a couple days later. It sure beats hitting the grocery story on a Friday afternoon.

I don’t like the hour of time grocery shopping takes that I could be home with the kids or reading a good book. It’s a pain to haul a bunch of hefty bags of groceries into the house and put them all away. And it bites to spend up to $200 every time I’m at the grocery checkout counter. Our four kids at home and two more that visit like to eat…a lot.

God made us so we need to eat not just once a week or once a month (wouldn’t that be handy?) but multiple times a day. That’s a lot of energy and that’s a lot of money. I probably need to change my attitude about buying food because there’s a lot of meal making in my future.

In 1943, President Roosevelt was being pressured to appoint a Food Czar- some one who would look into the price of food and make sure the consumer was not paying more than they should. At the time, people were angry because over 30% of their income was spent at the grocery store.

A USDA chart shows that in 1920 the average American spent 23.4 percent of their income on food. In 2010 that dropped to 9.4 percent. (http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/CPIFoodAndExpenditures/Data/Expenditures_tables/table7.htm)

Crazy, isn’t it?  We think we are going to the grocery store and getting gouged when we’ve got it made here in the U.S. when it comes to our grocery bill.

With just a little grocery Googling, I found that the Azerbaijanis spend 50 percent of their income on food. Indonesians spend 40 percent of their income to feed their families. Libya imports 90 percent of their grain. Imagine that.

My kids spend $8 to get in a movie and have enough clothes to outfit an army. Food doesn’t gaze at us from the refrigerator for very long so it seems like a waste. It’s not like a car or a great pair of boots we can enjoy for years. In a week it’s gone. That’s just the cost of being alive.

We’re farmers so we appreciate the time and energy it takes to make sure there is enough relatively inexpensive food available. We just celebrated National Ag Week, so it’s a good time to recognize the efforts of people who work to get the food on those grocery shelves.

We, everybody else, have to eat and I’ve gotta get groceries so the family can complain to me that I bought the wrong ranch dressing. I’m just thankful it’s not costing $500 and more every time I bring home a load of those grocery bags. Thank a farmer for that.

Seventeen Nebraska soybean producers and six South Dakota producers got together this week to attend a See For Yourself International  Marketing mission out to Grays Harbor, Washington. After a long day of traveling the group got down to business and started learning exports.

The mission kicked off with an afternoon in Tacoma, visiting the Port of Tacoma and the TEMCO facility. The port is the fastest loading and discharge yard in the country which the group witnessed first-hand as containers were being transported across the yard. The port contains 100 miles of rail and shipped out 1.5 million barrels last year. The group learned quickly how important their products are, not only for other countries, but for maintaining business in the U.S. As noted by our port tour guide, "Washington is one of the sole states that does not have a deficit. There are three main reasons for that and one of them is the ag business."

From the rail yard, the group headed over to MacMillan Piper, the largest Container Freight Station in the Pacific Northwest. Gary Geiser, vice president of marketing, took us over to the transloading facility where we witnessed soybean flakes being transported from hopper car to container. Most of this will go to Japan for baby formula.

From there we headed to TEMCO (Tacoma Export Marketing Company), which is a joint venture between Cargill and CHS. The only products that ship through their facility are corn (25%) and beans (75%). They fill ten ships a month, 220-230 million bushels per year. The facility is capable of loading 2,000 metric tons per hour and unloading 1,800 metric tons per hour, which makes it a fast in and out operation.

While ships are being loaded with corn or beans, samples are taken every 15 seconds in order to ensure a high-quality product. The facility just recently installed "the roof" which allows for loading during rain and supports more productivity in a city where rain is common. The Port of Tacoma is growing in popularity as filling here saves ships between two and three days of fuel compared to leaving out of New Orleans.

Terry Johnson, TEMCO plant manager, took the group into the control room to see where all the loading and ship coordination takes place. While we were at the facility, a ship that was half full of corn was preparing to be filled.

Throughout the day the group saw rail cars, transloading, shipment containers, vessels and various operation systems which are enabling their soybean products to be exported to other countries, mostly China.

Day Two:

Immediately after arriving in Washington D.C., participants started digging into the current issues, and by the end of the day, had a deeper understanding for how issues are shaped and how regulations, such as the Farm Bill, come about.
From the get-go, the participants realized just how important their trip out to Washington D.C. was, and how education is the first step to understanding farm regulations. “It is critical for us to hear messages and concerns from our nation’s farmers and local people. Reach out to your congressional staff when you are back home and invite them to your farms,” said Beau Greenwood, executive vice president of Government Relations and Public Affairs, CropLife America.

Participants heard from various organizations and speakers including, Krysta Harden, Chief of Staff, USDA; Doug O’Brien, Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development; Beau Greenwood, Executive Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs, CropLife America; and William Murphy, Administrator for the Risk Management Agency.

“I now have a deeper understanding of the current issues affecting agriculture, and with the education I received through this mission, I can stay abreast of all the issues directly affecting Nebraska farmers,” said Nathan Dorn, farmer from Adams, NE. “We heard over and over again how important it is for us to reach out to our local government officials when we are back at home and I now realize the impact we could have with a simple visit.”

Day One:

On Thursday, eight producers from around Nebraska gathered in Omaha to partake in the Nebraska Soybean Board’s first    See For Yourself Regulatory mission. The program is designed to give farmers an opportunity to see firsthand how their soybean checkoff dollars are being invested and to share the information they learn with other farmers.

With all the issues facing farmers today, plus the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill and pending regulations regarding containment of fuel and fertilizer storage; it’s more important than ever to know the facts and learn how to communicate better with lawmakers and those who influence policy. As Jordan Dux, Nebraska Farm Bureau, stated, “If you want your message to be heard; educate yourself, be courteous and tell your story. You are the best advocates for your industry.”

The program kicked off with a half-day program in Omaha including presentations from Nebraska Department of Agriculture, AGP, Nebraska Farm Bureau and Nebraska Soybean Association. As participants started diving into the issues affecting Nebraska producers, the most common themes discussed were water issues, animal agriculture and manure management. It is quite obvious that these topics are top of mind for Nebraska producers and they were all excited to learn more about the regulations that will be and are affecting their practices.

As the conversation kept going and thoughts got rolling – the group was prepared to take on Washington D.C. and learn more about the top issues facing the agriculture industry.
 

By: Diane Becker

The website offers a unique gift. It’s “the last calendar you’ll ever need.” If you haven’t heard yet, you will. December 12, 2012 is when it’s all supposed to come to a screeching halt. It’s all made plain in the ancient Mayan calendars, which come to an abrupt end on December 12 of this year.

Some Mayan experts say that people are reading too much into this. The people who wrote the calendar were just starting a new cycle but there’s no fun in that and there isn’t advertising dollars either. There’s at least three ads sponsored by some major corporations continually rotating on the December122012.com website.

You can also buy all sorts of t-shirts on the site. It seems that the people who think the world will end in less than a year want to accumulate some money in the meantime.

I have a feeling we’re going to get really tired of hearing about 12-12-12. There’s supposedly a countdown clock in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, where Mayan priests officially performed an end of the world ceremony.

This all vaguely reminds me of the turn of the millennium but those predictions were more believable. It seemed much more likely that the computers, which run much of our daily lives, weren’t going to be able to handle going to 2000. But they did. I do remember not being able to use our credit card in a grocery store on January 1, 2000 because they had to do a little more reconfiguring. Quite the apocalypse.

There is a long list of “believers” on the December 12 site, hundreds of them actually, as you can enter your name if you think the world will end next near. There is a funny thing I noticed. They listed all the states that are represented and Nebraska is missing from the list. Maybe most people here just haven’t seen the site, or maybe we’re just too busy doing the whole living life thing.

Not sure how all the true 12-12-12 believers will be adjusting their lives this year—I hope they don’t do anything too drastic, like quit their jobs and selling their homes to live on some mountain until next December.

Not in Nebraska. This year we’ll be doing things like planting our crops and the researchers in Nebraska will be thinking of important things like better crop traits so we can feed the expected 38 percent increase in world population in the next 40 years. 2050, not 2012, is a year people ought to be thinking about. It’s expected that we’ll have an estimated 9.5 billion people on earth by then. Those extra people won’t all be farmers and they won’t be making their own food in their backyards. They’re going to depend on someone else for that— like the United States farmers and ranchers, who supply most of that food.

So the Smashing Pumpkins Band believes 12-12-12 is the end. Hope they don’t waste a lot of time and energy on it. We’ve got more important things to work on.
 

Please click here to print an application form to this year's See For Yourself program at Grays Harbor.

Please mail application to:

Nebraska Soybean Board

Grays Harbor Trip

3815 Touzalin Ave. Suite 101

Lincoln, NE 68507

Interested in Learning More About the Soybean Checkoff? Come See for Yourself this year!

The Nebraska Soybean Board has kicked off another year of its “See for Yourself” program this fall. The See for Yourself program is designed to give Nebraska soybean farmers the opportunity to learn more about their checkoff. Farmers selected to take part in the program will attend checkoff-sponsored activities in an attempt to gain a better understanding of how their checkoff dollars are being invested to build demand and increase profitability.

See for Yourself is designed to include the opportunity to attend state, national and international activities. The in-state program gives farmers the chance to attend functions in Nebraska that are vital to the continued success of the soybean industry. The national program includes attending meetings sponsored by the Untied Soybean Board, United States Meat Export Federation, National Biodiesel Board, United States Soybean Export Council, Untied States Poultry and Egg Export Council, as well as many other important national meetings and activities. The international program is designed to show soybean farmers first-hand what the checkoff is doing to build global demand.

The Nebraska Soybean Board is currently planning its visit to Grays Harbor in the Pacific Northwest as a part of this year’s international tour. Grays Harbor is a vital shipping area for Nebraska soybeans, connecting our farmers with international buyers in Asia and the Black Sea region. The Grays Harbor tour aims to give Nebraska soybean farmers a better understanding of the logistical chain soybeans go through on their way to some of our international customers.  Stops on this trip are planned to include a tour of the Union Pacific rail system in Omaha, a tour Grays Harbor port and a tour of a large user of biodiesel in Washington state.

The Nebraska Soybean Board is committed to increasing the profitability of your soybeans and wants to give you the opportunity to gain a better understanding of checkoff activities. To get involved or learn more about the program, please contact the Nebraska Soybean Board office at 402-441-3240. Thank you for your support of the Nebraska Soybean Board and this exciting program, and we hope to see you at our next event!

2011 See for Yourself Tour in Guadalajara, Mexico.

By: Diane Becker

I miss silos. There are new shiny grain bins popping up across the countryside like milkweed but you don’t see anyone putting up a concrete silo anymore.

My dad had a Hanson silo on our farm, which I was proud of all my childhood. We could see the top of that silo when we pulled off the highway onto gravel headed to our farm five miles away. At least I thought it was our silo. It could’ve been our neighbor’s silo to the west or to the south. Concrete silos were the thing for awhile.

Ours was about 70 feet tall with a ladder that led to the top of the concrete blocks. A silver dome cap sat on the top of our little prairie skyscraper. There were additional steps that led to the top of the dome, which only a city visitor armed with a camera was foolish enough to ever climb to. I never stepped even on the first step of the silo although I’m not afraid of heights and to this day love to get to the highest floor of a building to look at the view below. The bottom of the ladder was about eight feet off the ground to discourage farm kids or their visiting friends who think they’d like to see if they could see the state capitol from the top. Or maybe just the steeple of the St. Francis Catholic Church in Humphrey seven miles to the south.

There were a few people who had smiley faces or U.S. flags painted on the side of their silos. Ours had a checkered black and white pattern where the concrete met the silver top. It was a nice silo and it was especially valuable, not for the grain it could store, but for what its real purpose was—to hold the star at Christmas time.

If I could, I’d ask my dad how the heck he ever got that star on the top of the silo. He never claimed to have carpentry skills but managed to construct a six-foot tall star with five points evenly spaced apart. I picture my mom and him winding strings of large colored bulbs around the wooden slats to outline it. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting it 70 feet up the narrow ladder.

My dad wasn’t a thin man. I can’t imagine how he could climb up all that ways wearing his insulated coveralls and tall mud boots. He had to climb up in pretty much darkness as the ladder’s cage was completely enclosed. My husband, Tom, guessed that my dad took a rope with him up the ladder. Once he got to the top of the ladder, he threw down the rope to Mom, who attached the star and then he hoisted it and assorted extension cords up the side. First, it had to be a little difficult coming up to the top of the enclosed ladder to pop your head out into the big wide open sky then, as you perch there on the ladder, pull up an unwieldy star.

He probably used his pliers and number nine wire to attach the star to the top of the ladder and the wire was wound tight because that star hung there for many years.

I picture my mom plugging in the end extension cord dangling down the side of the silo to test if it worked, which would be hard to see during the day from the ground. It was probably hard for even Dad to tell if those bulbs were lit from two feet away.

Lit they were, though, and what a surprise it was for my five siblings and me to come home that evening and see that beautiful star shining at us from the top of the silo. I think the Wise Men would’ve ended up at our doorstep if we’d had that star up 2000 years ago.
   
Alas, farmers don’t put up those sturdy concrete silos anymore. Steel grain bins are more useful, I know. Silos weren’t meant to hold bushels of grain which is ready to haul to the elevator any day of the year. Silos held moisture laden grain and even silage which had a tendency to get hot. We had the fire trucks out one fall day trying to douse the heat that was being generated inside our silo that was used less and less in the ‘70s. A new, shorter, steel grain bin now stood next to the concrete silo where the firemen spent hours spraying water through one of the blackened doors as the sound of the Nebraska football game on the radio poured out of the fire truck’s cab. This wasn’t the first silo fire they’d put out that fall.
    
We’ve got a bin on our farm but it’s not that tall, not really tall enough to mess with putting a star on. The antennae on top of our house is probably taller and I don’t know if I can convince Tom to rig up and wire a star to the top of it.
    
There’s just something majestic about tall silos and a dark snowy evening looking up at a star on the top. Not sure we can match that but we can always try—maybe a star on the side of the barn will do. Wishing a Merry Christmas to you and yours!
 

By: Diane Becker

The machine shed is the hub of our farm. That’s where the tools, the bench where Tom fixes things and farm equipment storage is located. This week, though, our machine shed is a dance floor.

It’s our third daughter’s sweet 16-birthday dance and we’re trying to make our shed to, well, look like it’s not a shed. We had to hide the grimy 5-gallon buckets and tuck the power tools under the shelves. We scrubbed the floor with wide brooms and strung lights from the ceiling. Hopefully no one will mind that there’s a large sprayer in the corner or that there’s a couple of lawnmowers hiding underneath it.

If the DJ is good enough, the dancers won’t hear the air compressor occasionally running. Natalie invited everyone in her high school – all 120 of them. She posted the invitation and directions to our farm on their lockers and most have told her they’ll be attending.

Tom and my only duties will be to keep the chip bowls full and cut the cake towards the end of the evening. So there’s oil stains on the floor and wrenches hanging on the wall. It’s her 16th birthday, a few friends are staying overnight afterwards and there’s free pop for all. We get another licensed driver to boot.  Tom and I may just have to take our own turn at the dance floor.
 

By: Diane Becker

A few years ago, I discovered provolone cheese. There it was in the deli case on sale next to the tried and true Colby Jack. Bold shopper that I am, I had a half-pound sliced and bagged for my family. It’s a regular purchase now, right along with extra dark chocolate and vanilla bean ice cream. Thanks to the wide offerings of grocery stores, and to the specialization and entrepreneurship of farmers, we’re able to buy items unheard of by our grandparents.

Two-generations ago, a shopper would have bought a loaf of bread and a half gallon of milk at the grocery store and called it good. They wouldn’t have gone over the vast bread department looking for flatbreads to make a gyro sandwich. As for the milk, people now have the choice of drinking raw milk, goat milk, soymilk or coconut milk. Grandma only had to choose whether to bring home 2% or skim.

I’m not sure yogurt was ever in my ancestors’ refrigerators. Now you can choose from Greek yogurt, NoGurt and frozen yogurt sticks. Blackberry pomegranate Yoplait, anyone?

Speaking of pomegranate, did anyone over the age of 30 grow up eating that?

When I was young, we surely never had bagels. We also didn’t have salsa, hot pepper jelly, dried cranberries, or honey dew melon. Our spaghetti was yummy but not accompanied by garlic bread sticks. No lettuce salad I ate as a kid ever had large black olives and feta cheese in it.

Take a look in your refrigerator and pantry. What’s in there that you wouldn’t have found 20 years ago?  I know back then I wouldn’t have reached for a vitamin drink or a bottled smoothie.

My grandma would have looked at me blankly if I would’ve asked to borrow some Nutella, olive oil or sea salt. There was only one spread-peanut butter, one oil-vegetable and one salt-Morton.

I’m not sure Grandpa would’ve eaten bean sprouts but he probably would have liked blooming onions with mustard sauce. Grandma didn’t have a microwave so she didn’t have any microwave popcorn on her shelf. She might have had Minute Rice but probably not wild rice.

Our grandchildren will undoubtedly have pantries with strange items in them, too. To them, the terms “gluten free”, “organic” or “sushi” will be commonplace. Our grandparents would be scratching their heads trying to figure out what the heck a latte is.

Fortunately, turkey and dressing haven’t changed too much over the years. Grandma’s mashed potatoes and yams would have a welcome place on the family table still today.

By: Linda Wuebben

This time of year my days are consumed with last minute projects – those dastardly deeds, which have been put off all spring and summer but now, winter looms on the horizon. Most of my last minute projects are outdoor projects that need to be completed before the snow flies.

So just like the farmers who are combining with a vengeance to get this year’s crop out of the field and into a bin, I am feverishly washing windows, trimming hedges and doing touch-ups on painting and staining.

Washing windows – what a boring chore. I remember my mother washed all the windows on our house on the farm twice a year. I soon rectified that situation after I got married and decided the windows only needed to be sparkling in the fall as we headed into winter. There aren’t any bugs in the winter and the windows are shut tight as a drum or at least I hope they are so when we open up in the springtime, they’re basically still clean.

I imagine my hatred for window-washing came from my mother’s meticulous process when washing windows. I was on the outside and she was on the inside, washing the same window at the same time. It was always me who had streaks on the outside and had to go over that window again and again. There had to be better things to do than this mindless spit-shining project.

I was always gleeful to get to the upstairs where I washed windows alone. There wasn’t any way for anyone to be on the outside looking in to see the inside person pointing out the sloppy work they were doing. There wasn’t anyone on the inside to see my sparkling reflection on the outside and that was okay with me. The project from that point on was done lickity-split. It meant the process was almost done and another year’s hard work could be put on the back shelf.

And I could skip quickly away to find other more pleasing endeavors. But I never forgot Mom’s shining example of a clean and still happy home. Hope some of it rubbed off on me – but just not the window-washing part.