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February 2019 Articles

• Just Rambling February 2019:
Spiritual Corner: Mundane to Magnificent
Thompson, area farmers honored at Ag Expo event
The Importance of Energy —
Conventional Versus Non-Conventional Beef Production
Beef Cattle Market: 2018 in Review and a Look Ahead
Louisiana Master Farmer Program graduates 13, honors outstanding participant
AgCenter holds digital agriculture conference
Timber producers told of changes, opportunities at Ag Expo meeting
Farm safety highlighted at field day
Try starting plants from seeds
Duvall Reviews Achievements, Plots Course as Farm Bureau Moves Toward Centennia
Farm Bureau Adopts Policies on Government Shutdown, Trade, Opioids, Cell-Base
Farm Bureau Ready to Work With Lofgren On Immigration
Attract birds to your garden
Annual crops and cattle forum set for Feb. 26 in Alexandria
Acadiana Beef Cattle Producers Field Day
2019 River Valley Beef Cattle Conference
La. Master Cattleman Course Offerings:
FILL THE GAPS IN YOUR FORAGE PROGRAM
Ham Casserole
February Scripture to Live By

(22 articles found)

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Just Rambling February 2019:

Just Rambling: During this year’s Ag Expo, State Senator Francis Thompson was awarded the Distinguished Service to Agriculture Award. When receiving this award Senator Thompson referred to Agriculture as the backbone of this nation and he went on to say that President Trump had stole his words referring to Agriculture as the backbone of our state and nation. After hearing these remarks I thought about a speech I wrote and delivered in January 1967, as a seventeen year old junior in high school. I was competing in the area public speaking contest for the Future Farmers of America (FFA) organization. I hope you enjoy reading my speech entitled, U.S. Agriculture—The Strength of America. As you can see from Senator Thompson and President Trumps remarks, Agriculture remains as the Strength of America. Honorable judges, friends, and fellow FFA members, I would like to discuss with you U.S. Agriculture—The Strength of America. Americans are blessed in the abundance of good farm land which makes up our nation. We have been and continue to be at times, wasteful of our rich inheritance of land. Down through the years, we have directed our technology and science to making the land yield bigger and better crops from which to feed an ever growing population. The United States has only about six percent of the world’s land, yet today is able to produce about seventeen percent of the world’s agricultural output. Not only are we the best fed people on earth, we are also more cheaply fed than any other nation. On the average, only eighteen percent of U. S. Income is spent for food. In Russia it tales fifty percent; in Italy forty, and in Africa seventy percent. In contrast with some other nations, we did not lose sight of the needs of our agriculture during the period (mid—1800’s to the present) when we were concentrating on developing our industries and more recently, our scientific technology. We recognized the need for progress and change in the methods by which we cultivate the soil and preserve its life-giving energies. At the same time our cities, born of our industrial skills, have provided us with growing markets for our farm produce. Although America today is one of the greatest industrial nations in the world, its basic strength springs directly from its agriculture. America’s agriculture is the most modern and most successful in the world. Industrialized as we have become and as large as our cities have grown, agriculture remains our No. 1 industry. More than seven million people are employed directly in food and fiber production. This is more than the combined employment of the steel industry, automobile industry, our public utilities, communications and transportation industries. When all elements of the agricultural enterprise such as food processing, education, service industries—are included, agriculture provides employment opportunities for about 23 million people. Almost $200 billion is invested in agricultural equipment, land, buildings, farm chemical and farm equipment manufacturing plants and many other businesses allied to agriculture and serving the farmer. This investment is the equivalent of three-quarters of the value of all the assets of all the business corporations in the United States. Agriculture is, in effect, the base on which we grow industrially and so advance our scientific knowledge. The people of many other nations are not so fortunate. Their agriculture has stood still while ours has moved forward. Their farming methods have remained relatively undeveloped and as a result, incapable of supplying the food and fiber necessary for health and as a base on which to build new industries and businesses. It is this way in China, India, and many Asian and African nations. Even in Russia, where major scientific accomplishments have been made, agriculture has not enjoyed the same degree of progress as the Russians have achieved in other technical fields. One Russian farmer today is able to only feed himself and six others, and the food is 75 percent starch. A two-pound chicken you can buy for 75 cents costs $3 in Russia if you can find one. One of Khrushchev’s great goals a few years ago was an egg a day for every Russian by 1980. One average American farmer, on the other hand, produces foods of a high-protein content for himself and 30 others. A top farmer can feed 200 or more. Russian food production is now approximately at the level the United States had reached in 1870. Yet even Russia’s low production per farmer is far above that of China. A nation must first insure its ability to properly feed its people or all other accomplishments cease to be meaningful or important to the people. The ability of the American farmer to produce enough food for himself and 30 others means that thousands of men and women have been able to move from the land. They have taken jobs and learned new skills in our factories, schools and offices. They have helped develop our other natural resources and to establish thousands of other businesses whose products and payrolls contribute to the highest standard of living in the world. Just this year our Vo-Ag program has shifted to offer non-farm agricultural skills as part of the instructional program. This is to help young people fit into these non-farm occupations that are available due to the productivity of the American farmer. The richness of American agriculture is rooted in the tremendously varied nature of our food and fiber-producing land. It also comes from the ability of our farmers, if they so desire, to share in the benefits of new technological and scientific discoveries. These discoveries are serving to make the land yield more abundant and better quality crops. We should not forget that a great deal of this productivity springs from the fact that we are free people, able to work and worship as we please. All our people should guard against political power, or anything else, that would take away this freedom. We have in the United States nearly two billion acres of land. Of this amount about one-third (600 million acres) is presently considered favorable to crop production: that is, there is adequate rainfall in the area, the soils are deep and moisture holding and the terrain is level enough to allow use of today’s labor-saving farm machinery. But there is nothing fixed about the amount of cropland available to us. As new technologies develop, millions of presently unfavorable acres may well be converted to farm use. This has taken place in the past. Before the introduction of big tractors and harvesting equipment, it was not possible to develop the Great Plains area into the vast wheat producing region it is today. Modern irrigation, soil conservation practices and fertilizers have turned sterile, desert like acres into fertile farmlands. For example, thousands of acres have been reclaimed from the desert which lies east of Los Angeles, California. Modern and low priced fertilizers have also converted much land that was physically good but lacked fertile soil, into highly productive farm acreage. Consequently, wherever you look across the farmlands of America you see wide differences and contrasts in types of crops planted and harvested, in crop yields, in types of farming carried on, in climatic conditions affecting season of planting and harvesting, in the formation of the land and in the application of farming techniques and methods. Since the end of World War II, farming in America has undergone greater change than at any other time in its history. We are still farming approximately the same number of acres as we did as far back as 1920, but we are doing so with fewer farmers and fewer farms. We are also feeding a population that is 85 percent bigger than it was in 1920 and we are being fed better. American farms have grown larger, more productive, and more efficient. The development which brought this about is farm mechanization, the introduction of electricity and complex machines harnessed to mechanical horsepower. More recently, farm chemicals, fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides' have been dramatically adding to the American farmers’ productive capacity. Where mechanization has been applied on American farms, it has led to greater crop and animal production. It has also removed most of the back-breaking drudgery which has characterized farming down through the centuries. A full-time farmer today has an average of 80 horsepower available to do his chores. In 1920 he had only 5.3 horsepower and in 1870, only 1.6 horsepower. One hour of farm labor today produces four times as much food and fiber crops as it did in the 1920’s. Crop production is 65 percent higher per acre and output per breeding animal is 88 per cent greater. Since the 1950’s when wide-spread mechanization of American farms got under way, the productivity of the American farm worker has increased at the rate of six and one-half percent a year, while output per man hour in nonagricultural industries has increased only two percent per year. Ten years from now it is expected that our farm productivity will be twice as great as it is today because of further mechanization. What does this amazing efficiency mean? It means better health and better homes, more automobiles, and more TV sets. It also means the ability to help underdeveloped countries help themselves grow enough food to prevent mass starvation in the years ahead. Let’s never take for granted our nation’s ability to feed our families with more food, of higher quality and variety, with less money and labor than any other people on earth. All the agricultural forces of the U.S. must continue to strive toward a greater, more efficient and more productive agriculture because we know AGRICULTURE IS THE STRENGTH OF OUR NATION. Van Bennett 1967


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