An Aerial Perspective of Nordland

An Aerial Perspective of Nordland from Michael Fletcher on Vimeo.

Trying To Reduce Methane Emissions From Cattle

Bloomberg:

Isolating the impact of direct livestock emissions versus indirect emissions such as fertilizer, crop production, and transport for animal feed is also a challenge, companies and investors say. "The issue for agriculture is identifying the actors and creating levers for change,” Cynthia Simon, senior manager of investor initiatives at CDP, a not-for profit focused on corporate carbon and water measurement, said in an e-mail.

Some big producers are banding together to try to tackle the issue. The U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, which includes companies such as McDonald's Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Tyson Foods Inc., JBS USA Holdings Inc. and Cargill, launched in 2015 with the aim of finding better ways to measure the environmental impact of cattle. Greenhouse gas emissions is one of its six "high priority" indicators for sustainability, but “it is a challenge to align the entire value chain,” to get emissions measurements, said John Butler, chair of the roundtable, in an interview.

Some companies are also taking matters into their own hands, getting creative when it comes to cutting emissions from their herds. Cargill, for example, uses domed lagoons to capture some of the methane released from biodegrading cow manure. Yogurt maker Danone found through its research that adding Omega-3 fatty acids to a cow’s diet — largely through infused flax seed — can reduce methane emissions from cows by up to 30 percent. Further research, however, found that while the flax additive reduced methane, it also reduced milk production, pushing Danone to focus on other ways to cut farm emissions.

"We’re really actively engaged in supporting research in this area," said Britt Lundgren, Director of Organic and Sustainable Agriculture at Danone-owned Stonyfield Farm Inc.

The article also has a picture of a cow donning a methane collection system in a research project in Argentina.  Why do I get the feeling that that picture will appear in some conservative fundraising letter claiming EPA is requiring farmers to equip their cows with these in California?  Anyway, this issue is down the list of concerns for farmers below overuse of antibiotics and resistance to GMO traits in corn and soybeans, but it still should be on the list.  Concerns about greenhouse emissions will eventually turn to contributions by livestock.

Quebec - The Saudi Arabia of the Maple Syrup Market

I love that there is a maple syrup cartel.  Of course it is in Canada:

After eight years of tightly limiting output to keep prices high, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers next year will boost its quota by 12 percent for 13,500 sap farmers who operate in the Canadian province. The goal is twofold: Reclaim the 10 percent of market share lost to the U.S. over the last decade, and quell a rebellion by producers increasingly turning to black market sales for growth.
Boosting the quota now is “almost perfect timing” as farmers are seeing record output, according to Alan Bryson, 41, who drains sap from 45,000 taps on trees in Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci, Quebec. The prospect of more sales “outweighs the frustration” felt by farmers in the past, he said....
The unanswered question is where all this additional product is going to go. Tappers this year will be paid C$2.88 ($2.20) a pound, based on a weighted average, federation data show. That’s up a penny from the previous two years...
U.S. production this year totaled 4.2 million gallons, a 23 percent boost from a year earlier, with Vermont accounting for 47 percent of the total, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in June. The number of taps rose 5 percent this year, to 12.55 million, after increasing 45 percent from 2007 and 2015, according to the USDA.
That growth frustrated Quebec farmers, who have been urging an end to quotas. While the government-sanctioned cartel kept prices stable by limiting output and maintaining strategic stockpiles, tappers complained that the system imposed a “heavy, inflexible handicap to the province’s performance,” according to a 70-page report commissioned by Quebec Agriculture Minister Pierre Paradis, released earlier this year.
That frustration was leading some farmers to sell on the black market, and some said they felt harassed by the federation, according to the report.

Nothing like a cartel to cost itself market share.  Previous story on the Great Maple Syrup Heist here.

The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere

The Shining Star of Losers Everywhere from The All-Nighter Room on Vimeo.

Final Touches Being Made on Iowa State Fair Butter Cow

Des Moines Register:

T-minus six days until the gates swing open for the Iowa State Fair and Sarah Pratt puts some final touches on the face of the iconic butter cow, a tradition still going strong after 105 years. The hooves still need some detail work and she needs to finish the tail.
Five-gallon buckets of butter await in a cooler while giant blocks that just arrived need to be cut and kneaded to release water and make her medium more pliable.
But by the time Aug. 11 rolls around, Pratt will finalize her 11th version of Summer, the butter cow, as the official butter sculptor of the Iowa State Fair.
Pratt took over the sculpting duties in 2006 after 45-year veteran Norma “Duffy” Lyon retired. Pratt spent 15 years apprenticing under the first woman butter sculptor in the country, learning to use clay sculpting tools, even a dentist’s pick and mainly her own hands to take 1,000 pounds of butter and turn it into a cow...
Pratt, a former special education teacher, sketches out her sculptures in advance and welds together a metal and wire form on wood that gives her the basic structure of the piece. Already she completed a replica of the Starship Enterprise as well as Nyota Uhura and Spock, part of the butter cow companion exhibit. Capt. James T. Kirk’s metal frame already leans on his elbow in the commander’s seat and Dr. Leonard McCoy awaits his coating of butter.

I love me some butter sculptures and massive amounts of fried foods, with some creepy carnies thrown in for laughs.  Our county fair starts on Friday, and we've got the food and carnies, but lack the butter art.

How To Overcome Procrastination

I didn't get a chance to watch this, but I will later, I swear.

How To Overcome Procrastination from Stuart Langfield on Vimeo.

NASA Photo of the Day

August 2:



A Rocket Booster Falls Back to Earth
Video Credit & Copyright: Matthew Holt Explanation: What's that crossing the sky? Although it looked a bit like a large meteor, it was actually the booster of a Chinese rocket returning to Earth after its launch two days earlier. On the night of July 27, the rocket component heated up and broke up into glowing pieces as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere. The path of the falling booster took it over several US states, moving west to east, from California to Utah. Space debris can usually be distinguished from meteors by its slow speed and expansive break up. The featured video was taken in front of the Provo City Library in Utah, which was coincidently occupied by over 100 people -- many with smartphones already out of their pockets playing Pokémon GO.

Rio Opening Weekend Links

Here are a few stories for your enjoyment:

41-year-old Oksana Chusovitina may be the most incredible athlete at the Olympics- ESPN

Why Big Pharma Wants to Switch Billions of Farm Animals to Vaccines From Antibiotics- Bloomberg.  Ag has to change its antibiotic use.

Why Do Milk Prices Spike And Crash? Because It's Like Oil - The Salt

Hop Growers Cheer Craft Brewers For Saving An Ailing Industry - The Salt

The Huelskamp Mistake - Wall Street Journal.  I disagree with the premise.  I think it is more that most voters hate other peoples' government programs, but really like their own.  Huelskamp was against the Farm Bill and the Export-Import Bank.  That doesn't sit well with farmers and the aircraft industry in Wichita. All the free market bullshit in this article is just that.

Meet the New Owner of the Playboy Mansion - New York Times.  I only highlighted this because these guys used to own PBR.

Climate Change is Hell on Alaska's Formerly Frozen Highways - Bloomberg

Former cleanup workers blame illnesses on toxic coal ash exposures - Center for Public Integrity

The Coolest Shipyard in America - Politico

Calling the U.S. Navy’s Littoral Combat a ‘Frigate’ Doesn’t Make It Any Less Crappy - War is Boring

How Did GOP Presidential Nominations Decline From a World War II General to a Narcissistic TV Celebrity?- Andrew Bacevich.  Bacevich is one of my favorite political commentators.

The Executive Mr. Trump - Politico

Party of Rage - New York Review of Books

What do Donald Trump voters really crave? Respect - The Guardian

Ichiro Has 2,998 Hits - And A Few Even Left the Infield - Wall Street Journal.  I remember getting pissed at a bartender in Davenport, Iowa who was celebrating Mickey Mantle's quote about Pete Rose, "if I hit that many singles, I'd wear a dress."

The Case For More Government

NYT:

Last month, four academics — Jeff Madrick from the Century Foundation, Jon Bakija of Williams College, Lane Kenworthy of the University of California, San Diego, and Peter Lindert of the University of California, Davis — published a manual of sorts. It is titled “How Big Should Our Government Be?” (University of California Press).

“A national instinct that small government is always better than large government is grounded not in facts but rather in ideology and politics,” they write. The evidence throughout the history of modern capitalism “shows that more government can lead to greater security, enhanced opportunity and a fairer sharing of national wealth.”

The scholars laid out four important tasks: improving the economy’s productivity, bolstering workers’ economic security, investing in education to close the opportunity deficit of low-income families, and ensuring that Middle America reaps a larger share of the spoils of growth.

Their strategy includes more investment in the nation’s buckling infrastructure and expanding unemployment and health insurance. It calls for paid sick leave, parental leave and wage insurance for workers who suffer a pay cut when changing jobs. And they argue for more resources for poor families with children and for universal early childhood education.

This agenda won’t come cheap. They propose raising government spending by 10 percentage points of the nation’s gross domestic product ($1.8 trillion in today’s dollars), to bring it to some 48 percent of G.D.P. by 2065.

That might sound like a lot of money. But it is roughly where Germany, Norway and Britain are today. And it is well below government spending in countries like France, Sweden and Denmark.

To me, this seems like common sense.  But I've yet to be able to convince any of my neighbors that that is the case.  I think the article hits on an important note: that people are fine with programs that benefit them, but they are sure the "lazy blacks" or whoever are unfairly benefiting from their tax dollars.

Personally, I think the biggest job creation plan of all would be a national healthcare plan that took the burden of the provision of health insurance from employers and put the government in charge of cost-control.  For-profit health insurance makes zero sense whatsoever, and higher income tax rates on the truly wealthy might convince doctors they don't need so much income to keep up with the hedge fund assholes and overpaid attorneys (not to say anything about entertainers, athletes and untalented reality stars like Donald Trump and Paris Hilton).

Sure, a lot of unique ingredients contributed to the egalitarianism and shared prosperity (amongst white folks) of the post-war years, but I feel confident that a progressive income tax and government investment and transfers contributed significantly.  I don't think it is a coincidence that income inequality increased as top marginal tax rates and government programs for the poor decreased.  But, hey, what do I know?  I'm just a stupid farmer (who gets plenty of help from the government, in spite of being pretty well off.)

Tea Party Poster Boy Huelskamp Losing Primary Election

Kansas City Star:

Huelskamp, the chairman of the House Tea Party Caucus, has garnered a lot of attention as well as scorn during a combative tenure that saw him booted off the House Agricultural Committee.
With 13 percent of precincts reporting in the western Kansas district, Huelskamp trailed with 41 percent of the vote to Marshall’s 59 percent.
Marshall, an obstetrician from Great Bend, gained the endorsement of the Kansas Farm Bureau — giving him some clout against Huelskamp’s backing from anti-abortion and gun-rights groups, as well as the Club for Growth and the National Federation of Independent Business.
Huelskamp rode into office in the 2010 tea party rout and was part of standoffs, including tension around the government shutdown in 2013, that drove former House Speaker John Boehner from office a year ago.

A little background:

Kansas farmers are taking on some of America’s most powerful conservative interests in an attempt to oust U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Tea Party favorite kicked off the House Agriculture Committee for ideological rigidity.
The Club for Growth and the Koch brothers, whose Koch Industries Inc. is based in Wichita, are backing Huelskamp, who opposed a farm bill providing crop insurance farmers deem vital -- which former Speaker John Boehner backed. For farmers, little means more than Huelskamp’s opposition to the bill and loss of his committee seat, marking the end of almost a century of Kansas representation. Agribusiness groups support Republican primary challenger Roger Marshall, an obstetrician who says regaining the state’s voice on farm matters is his first priority.
“As a farmer or a rancher, we need the safety net of the farm bill,” said Orrin Holle, a Rawlins County farmer. “Western Kansas, which is most of his district, sees severe droughts.”
The Aug. 2 primary may show the limits of the anti-establishment politics that have swept Kansas. In 2012, Governor Sam Brownback, promising a “real live experiment” for Tea Party policies, won enactment of broad tax cuts. The resulting $400 million budget hole forced public schools to end the school year early and led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade Kansas’s credit one step to AA, third-highest, and to put it on watch for further reductions.
Brownback won re-election, but the state’s Republican Party was bitterly split. Huelskamp’s loss of the Agriculture Committee seat provides another test of the state’s faith in ideology over pragmatism....
Huelskamp, a 47-year-old, fifth-generation farmer from Fowler who began his tenure in 2011, said he’s sensitive to constituent needs.
“Crop insurance was my first, second, third priority in the farm bill and it was in there,” he said. He voted against the bill, he said, because it didn’t require stricter work requirements for the more than 46 million Americans seeking food stamps at the time.

The Tea Party has always been playing with fire when it comes to voting against the Farm Bill because they hate food stamps.  They should be smart enough to know that urban Congressmen only vote for the Farm Bill because of the food stamp program, but as we've seen, Tea Party congressmen aren't that smart.  Goodbye, Mr. Huelskamp.  I'm not going to miss you.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/election/article93390117.html#storylink=cpyKansas farmers are taking on some of America’s most powerful conservative interests in an attempt to oust U.S. Representative Tim Huelskamp, a Tea Party favorite kicked off the House Agriculture Committee for ideological rigidity.
The Club for Growth and the Koch brothers, whose Koch Industries Inc. is based in Wichita, are backing Huelskamp, who opposed a farm bill providing crop insurance farmers deem vital -- which former Speaker John Boehner backed. For farmers, little means more than Huelskamp’s opposition to the bill and loss of his committee seat, marking the end of almost a century of Kansas representation. Agribusiness groups support Republican primary challenger Roger Marshall, an obstetrician who says regaining the state’s voice on farm matters is his first priority.
“As a farmer or a rancher, we need the safety net of the farm bill,” said Orrin Holle, a Rawlins County farmer. “Western Kansas, which is most of his district, sees severe droughts.”
The Aug. 2 primary may show the limits of the anti-establishment politics that have swept Kansas. In 2012, Governor Sam Brownback, promising a “real live experiment” for Tea Party policies, won enactment of broad tax cuts. The resulting $400 million budget hole forced public schools to end the school year early and led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade Kansas’s credit one step to AA, third-highest, and to put it on watch for further reductions.
Brownback won re-election, but the state’s Republican Party was bitterly split. Huelskamp’s loss of the Agriculture Committee seat provides another test of the state’s faith in ideology over pragmatism.