Jack Kingston, from Rep to ag lobbyist

After a failed bid for Saxby Chambliss's spot in the U.S. Senate, Jack Kingston, former representative of Georgia's 1st District, is following the unelected politician's well-worn path to K-Street. Per the AJC, Kingston will join the "powerhouse lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs" to "'assist with business development and strategic counseling' in areas where Kingston specialized in Congress, including defense, health care and agriculture" (emphasis added).

Clearly, Kingston's tenure in Congress didn't wow the voters of Georgia. I know a certain few, myself included, still galled by his rider to pull the main road on Cumberland Island out of Wilderness designation. However, Kingston deserves credit for a campaign strategy that tried to grab Chambliss's base from the get-go, emphasizing South Georgia and agriculture long before those became talking points for the contestants late in the general election. His signs were the only ones displayed on the road to the 2013 Sunbelt Ag Expo that I can remember. And for a period of time, he seemed to be the only candidate speaking for residents of that huge swath of dirt from Donalsonville to Sylvania--the peanut and cotton economy.

It'll be interesting to see how visible and influential Kingston continues to be, with his political career likely at its end. But the larger questions persist. While it's not as if any newly elected senator from the Peach State will forget that agriculture is Georgia's number industry, the concentration of political power in Atlanta is alarming for a place as large and divided as Georgia. Two senators from the same city is not good for Georgians.

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Genetically modified crops on the rise

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The June 30 crop progress report, besides signaling the smallest U.S. corn crop since 2010, had some interesting data about actual plantings of GM crops in 2014. Despite calls from consumer groups and activists across the country to label genetically-modified organisms or ban them altogether, farmers continue to purchase and plant these crops to the point of almost complete market saturation. Planted acreage in each of the major commodities with herbicide tolerance and/or insect resistance increased over 2013:

  • Corn: up 3 points to 93%
  • Soybeans: up 1 point to 94%
  • All cotton: up 6 points to 96%

Cotton's surge in 2014 places it ahead of soybeans in total percentage of planted acres for the first time ever. The data doesn't suggest whether this jump owes to good marketing or Southern farmers' attempts to combat herbicide-resistant pigweed (more on the circular logic of controlling superweeds at another time). 

The charts from USDA ERS below track the rapid adoption of GM crops since their introduction. The data does not include information from 2014. Note that crops with stacked traits--Bt (insect resistance) and herbicide tolerance together--comprise the majority of planted acres in both corn and cotton.  

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U.S. bumper crops equal free-falling prices

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No real surprises from the recent WSJ article on the production/price trends facing the major U.S. commodities. Farmers are realizing their second consecutive year of good weather and environmental factors that favor increased production. The USDA forecasts the current corn crop to reach about 13.86 billion bushels, which beggars belief since the estimate is not far off of 2013's record 13.93 billion bushel crop despite 11 percent more acreage devoted to soybeans in 2014. 

In fact, American farmers planted corn on 91.6 million in 2014, 4 percent less than 2013, according to USDA NASS. However, the agency estimates a record 84.8 million acres planted in soybeans, as producers went looking for demand following 2013's robust corn output. Of course, this shift en masse has led to the same kind of downward pressure on soybeans that has afflicted corn. U.S. soybean producers also face stiff competition from Brazil, which saw an 8 percent increase in exports (read China) through May 2014.

As of July 25, 2014, future prices on the Chicago Board of Trade were around $3.63 for the September corn contract and $12.12 for the August soybean contract. With break-even points generally running $4 and $10.00-$11.50 per bushel for corn and soybeans, respectively, the nation's corn farmers "will likely fail to cover their costs for the first time since 2006, according to agricultural economists."

“But the slide in corn prices is expected to cut sharply into overall incomes in the U.S. Farm Belt because corn is the country’s largest crop, grown on 350,000 farms and yielding about $60 billion in farmers’ revenue last year.”
— "U.S. Corn Farmers Face a Cash Crunch." The Wall Street Journal. 24 July 2014. Web.

One man's loss is another man's gain. Cheap corn will likely buoy the entire meat supply chain through 2016. Expect that topic to be revisited often.

Devising crop rotations with limited space

“There becomes two schools of practice in sustainable agriculture when it comes to annual crop production, extensive and intensive. The ‘extensive’ farmers we know basically have two farms, one in cover crops and one in cash crops flipping them each year or so. This allows them to rest the soil and build organic matter but also means they have to have twice as much land, a luxury most farmers don’t have, like us. The other end of the spectrum is no cover crops and to just rely on organic matter sources imported onto the farm- manure, leaves, hay, compost, etc. Not only more expensive and labor intensive but in many ways not as biologically diverse which can lead to a less stable/sustainable system.”
— Alex Hitt, Peregrine Farm
Alex Hitt at Peregrine Farm.

Alex Hitt at Peregrine Farm.

If you're interested in sustainable vegetable production in the South, then you need to know Alex Hitt. 

Hitt and his wife, Betsy, own Peregrine Farm outside of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Farming organically since 1980, they have pioneered the local food movement in Southeast and become leading experts in the operation and maintenance of sustainable production systems. While Betsy handles the cut-flower side of the business, Alex grows vegetables--in addition to speaking regularly at regional conferences and thoughtfully blogging on the technical details of growing specialty crops without synthetic chemicals and large off-farm inputs. 

In a recent post he covered the thorny subject of implementing crop rotations with limited space: specifically, how to balance a cover cropping and rotational strategy with year-round demand for market crops. "We currently have 5 quarter acres blocks that we are now trying to fit nearly 9 quarter acres worth of crops into and another 4 of cover covers crops, not easily done," Hitt says. His answer is to expand his current five-year rotation, which rebuilds soil and breaks disease and pest cycles, into a less elegant six-year plan. 

Hitt is even generous enough to share his schematic for one bed (see below). Read the entire post here. Note: blocks in green are cover crops.

Six-year rotation for a single bed: http://peregrinefarm.net/2014/06/20/peregrine-farm-news-vol-11-15-62014/.