The Scoop on COOL

Today I have a special guest blog post from my husband Jeff! As I've mentioned in my weekly reviews, he is now on the Board of Directors for Montana Farmers Union, and is working on MFU's legislative efforts for the current Montana session. One of the issues he's become particularly endeared to is Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL, especially as it pertains to beef. Jeff is actually headed to Helena today to lobby and testify on behalf of Montana ranchers, in favor of better labeling for our beef. Please read on for more information!

Hi folks, this will be either a rare treat or a fiasco, as I attempt a guest blog for the first time. I know Katie has built a substantial and discerning readership, so I’ll do my best to live up to that!

As you no doubt know from reading this blog over the years, we’re cattle producers in addition to being grain farmers. We are proud of the way our animals are raised, and proud of the product they ultimately turn out to be: US Beef. Born, Raised, and Processed in the United States.

As you also may remember, Katie and I have been active members of Montana Farmers Union for the last 7 or 8 years. One of the issues we became most engaged with, due to our pride as Montana cattle producers, is Country-Of-Origin Labeling of meat products. National Farmers Union fought alongside several other industry groups for years to label meat, both to give consumers a choice in what they purchased at the meat counter, and to aid US producers, because when given the choice, consumers in this country will buy US Beef and not think twice. 

However, the meat packing industry has always fought against COOL, stating basically that consumers didn’t really NEED to know what country their meat came from, and that it was just too hard to keep all those animals separate anyway, and we should just forget the whole thing. Quite a bunch of nonsense, but nonsense backed by a ton of lobbying clout and $$$$. We finally prevailed, and we had national COOL as law in 2013, 2014, and 2015, but other countries were battling the law at the World Trade Organization (WTO), on the grounds that our product being labeled and differentiated from theirs was negatively impacting their producers, violating the provisions of various free trade agreements. The law was tweaked twice and re-submitted to the WTO, but in 2015 Congress decided to give up on that fight and repealed COOL.

Here’s the thing, though: Those meat packing companies, the ones who always said COOL was an impossible, over-bearing regulation, never stopped labeling meat when the law was repealed! But, the law was gone, and replaced by a Food Safety Information Service rule. That rule says basically: Any meat product that comes into a USDA-inspected processing facility and undergoes a change in its structure can be labeled “Product of the USA.” Key word: any. A box of side of beef cutouts from Brazil, Australia, Mexico, or anywhere else can come into the country, be processed into your chuck roasts, rib steaks, sirloins, etc., and be labeled “Product of the USA.” They’ve taken all the work that those of us in the industry did on behalf of US producers and consumers, and basically turned it into a method to mislead consumers. Why? $$$.

So, you ask, what can be done? Several states have tried to create state-level COOL, by passing laws that require a placard in the grocery store to accurately describe a meat product’s origin, either by saying Product of the USA, or Country of Origin Unknown, processed in the USA (or some variation of that language). This year, there are a couple of attempts to create a law like this in Montana, and MFU is monitoring them closely, so stay tuned.

So why is it important? Well, for one, consumers want to know what they’re buying and eating, and the current rule is an active impediment to that pursuit. Certainly most beef consumed in this country is domestically produced, but that’s the point, isn’t it? You, Joe and Jane Consumer, want to know what you’re getting, and you currently don’t know. 

Second, the beef industry is consolidating and globalizing to the point where producers are at risk of losing their independence, and their ability to discover a fair price for their product. The US hog and chicken industries are basically run by the meat-packing industry, with no competitive marketing available to producers even if they want any. The largest meat company in the world, JBS, is now Brazilian-owned. You can see how this system could lead both to producers being squeezed into a system of dependence on the packers, and to consumers being sold product which has no verifiable information about where it may have come from.

Whew, that was long. I guess that’s why she keeps me away from here most of the time! I hope you learned a little something, anyway, and that it kept your interest. Thanks for reading, talk to you again sometime!

Wow! Thanks Jeff for that super informative post! I hope everyone learned something. What can you do as an individual consumer who cares about where their meat and food comes from? 

• Buy and eat locally, especially in places that work with local and small scale producers.
• Get to know some farmers. You may be able to purchase beef or other food directly from them. If nothing else, you'll learn a whole lot more about food production!
• Join farm/food advocacy groups, such as Montana Farmers Union. You don't have to be a farmer to care about where your food comes from and groups like MFU are working to keep farmers on the farm and keep good information in the hands of consumers.
• Contact your local representative and let them know your thoughts on COOL or any other issues you may have a "beef" with! (See what I did there?!?! haha!)

Product of the USA! (Or should we say Siberia?!?!)

Winter Wheat Harvest 2015

What a crazy growing season it has been!

Harvest is really when we see what we have for a crop. It's a reflection of a year's worth of planning and work, mixed with some luck.

Grain cascades out the back of the truck in to the hopper of the auger, where it is carried up into the grain bin.

As you may have read in my harvest post from last week, we started cutting winter wheat last Monday and went pretty hard for seven days straight. The crop is mostly decent in some places for the weather conditions we had throughout the growing season this year. Our bushels per acre are definitely down from what they have been in recent years for winter wheat and in some fields, they're downright poor with barely enough yield to pay for running the combine. The crop is what it is and there's not as much of it, so it's just a matter of getting it cut and moving on.

Jeff walks between the tractor, which powers the auger, and the grain truck.

Montana is the third-highest wheat producing state in America, after Kansas and North Dakota. Hill County, where our farm is located, is right in the middle of what's called the "Golden Triangle,"--one of the best wheat-producing areas in Montana. Hill County had a doozie of a weather pattern this year-- drought conditions through the first six months of the year, then a horrendous 4th of July hail storm. So, what that means is farmers who may have had thinner-than-normal crops to begin with due to drought, then got hit with hail, which in some cases, knocked down what was left. According to this article from the Great Falls Tribune, Hill County experienced over seven million dollars in hail damages: Hill County Hail Damage Could Exceed $7.5 Million Farmers saw a significant portion of that damage. Our own farm was affected.

Winter wheat near Minneota Hall that was cut on Sunday. Sweetgrass Hills in the background.

This is the first year of implementation of the new protection programs for farmers from the most recent Farm Bill and we are learning all about how that works. Let it be known to my non-farming readers that no farmer wants to see their crop do poorly; everyone wants to cut a gangbuster crop every year. No one wants a "hand-out" from the government. But, if there weren't protection programs and Farm Bills in place, there wouldn't be farmers. Some years, the crop is not a bin-buster, but a complete bust. A successful Farm Bill keeps farmers farming and keeps food and land in production.

A wheat field, baled as hay to use for our animals, rather than being harvested for grain.

The above photo is of some land that a neighbor of ours farms. His crop was unfortunately so poor that it wouldn't have paid for him to harvest it. But, you still have to clear the field somehow so it can be ready for it's next crop. So, we used a swather to cut the wheat and make hay bales, which we'll feed to our cows this year. Sometimes you just have to be a bit creative and think of other ways to use what you have.

Grain bins between Minneota Hall and the Inverness Road.

After shutting the combine down for the evening on Sunday night, we haven't started it up again yet this week. It started raining on Sunday and has gone off and on until this morning. Hopefully tomorrow we can cut the last 100 acres or so of winter wheat. Then, it will be time for barley, then spring wheat.

Before the night was over on Sunday, however, we did take part in what is sometimes a harvest necessity, but definitely a tradition: meal in the field! Sometimes, the location where they're cutting wheat is far from the house or it is inconvenient for the harvest crew to come in to the house to eat dinner. So, whoever is in charge of cooking will take the meal out to them. Sunday night was one of these occasions. It just happened that we were cutting right by Minneota Hall, which is an old community call out in the country near our farm, so it worked perfectly to serve the meal right on the cement step in front of the hall!

Carol cooked. We had hamburgers, pasta salad, chips, and fruit, served out of the bed of the pickup.

Carol and Jeff eat while Tom (unpictured) makes another pass in the combine.
When we eat in the field, the guys typically take turns so that the combine can keep rolling.

It seems like it was the winter wheat that was hit the worst by the drought. We had pretty outstanding sub-moisture last fall for winter wheat seeding, and then a warm and mild spring. So, the winter wheat came up hard and fast early in the season, using up all the soil moisture that was available. Then, when the rain stopped, the winter wheat stopped. By the time the storm of the 4th of July hit, it was really too late to be helped by the rain that did come along with it. We've had the rain in July that our crops desperately needed in May and June. Our spring wheat and barley still had a chance to be influenced and helped by a little rain. So, we'll see how it looks when we start cutting those crops.

Harvey stalks a bunny.

Just for fun, here's a photo of Harvey stalking a rabbit. He stalks them and chases them, but almost never catches them. Stay tuned as harvest and farm proceedings continue!

Starting Harvest

It is *officially* harvest!

We started cutting winter wheat on Monday afternoon. That morning, I helped Jeff quite a bit with all the very-last-minute preparations. We cleaned out a grain bin and swept out a truck. I washed all the windows on the combine, even the ones inside the hopper. 

This is what the inside of a grain truck looks like. 

 The sky was a bit broody on Monday, but no storms that night. This year, we grew winter wheat, yellow peas, spring wheat, and barley. After we finish cutting the winter wheat, we'll probably move on to barley, and then finish on spring wheat. We're actually not cutting our peas at all this year, but that's a topic for a separate post.

Each morning, to start the day, the combine is serviced and gassed-up, and the windows are washed. This is just to hopefully maintain smooth operating with this beast of a machine. Daily greasing and cleaning keeps it running as efficiently as possible.

Jeff gets into one of the hard-to-reach places on the combine with a grease gun, while Harvey looks on.

 Also, just because it's harvest doesn't mean that other farm work can be completely neglected. Jeff has been getting up very early every morning to spray while the wind is down. Then, he'll spend a full day on the combine or driving truck. He had been spraying our peas (again, it's a long story for another post, perhaps), and then this morning began spraying the fallow fields. I could probably do an entire post just about spraying-- why we do it, pros and cons, etc. So, that's another one that could be coming down the pike sometime, folks! But this post is about harvest kicking off, so let's continue with that!

I took a break from cleaning the windows and mirrors for a photo op. 

 Harvest is easily the busiest time of year for us. Remember that we spend an entire year planning and working just for this season, to harvest our grain. A significant portion of our income is based solely on how the crop does. I always like to make the analogy that harvest for us is like tax season for an accountant, or like Black Friday in retail. This is when you hope to make it into the black, so to speak.

I'll be doing several more posts as harvest continues on about how it's going, so stay tuned for that. I also want to give a big shout out to my friend Christy. She lives and works on a big beef ranch and dryland farm, similar to our operation only they're bigger on cows and less on crops while we're heavier on crops and less on cows. Christy is a very active member of Team Beef Montana and has a great running blog with many, many followers. We met in person at the Montana Farmer's Union Women's Conference last spring and she stood up during a goal-making session and said she'd like to spend more time on her running blog educating her readers about her farming and ranching lifestyle. She is definitely making her goal a reality! She has a really fantastic post today about her family's wheat harvest, which is also underway, and I highly recommend you check it out: You Like to Eat, Right? Learn A Bit About Your Food!

Golden winter wheat under that big Montana sky!

Happy harvesting, everyone!
If you are a farmer, how does harvest typically go for you?
If you're not a farmer, what would you say is your busiest, most important time of the year?

Thankful Thursday ~ School's Out For The Summer!

School's out for the summer! Our last day of school was actually a few weeks ago, on May 21. I spent that first weekend at State Track and in Bozeman and then all of last week was spent catching up on housework and me-time. Yes, I'm posting my Thankful Thursday post on Friday (sometimes that happens. I don't have all my shit together all the time, but who does? That's why you like this blog, right? Because I'm real? I'll tell myself that anyway... ;) ) and today I'm thankful that school's out for the summer! 

So what does school being out mean for me? In actuality, I still have to work over the summer. I'm not a teacher and I'm not employed by the school, I just work in the school environment most of the time. My co-worker and I are actually running a summer program for the kids in our program. So, we meet with them two days a week and continue therapeutic services, interventions, and a whole lot of positive skill-building throughout the summer. It's a little like summer camp or day camp for the kids. We do crafts, activities, and have deep and meaningful discussions and sharing circles. It's pretty fun, actually. Even though we're the ones as adults who are supposed to be serving them, and we are, often times it's the kids who teach me something. I get just as much "therapy" from them as I hope they get from me. That's definitely something to be thankful for.

In our first week of summer program, the kids painted flower pots in "a way that represents their personality," then they got to plant flowers in their pots and we had a discussion about what it means to take care of something, and empathy.
This is my flower pot, which I painted to match my patio furniture. :)

I'm also spending a lot more time with Jeff, which is awesome. Last week I helped him with several cow chores, including feeding range cake, some fencing, and setting up back-rubbers out in the pasture. I've also helped him with some farm and crop-specific stuff, too. It feels great to be involved and know that I'm helping out with our operation in a tangible way.

Cows eating cake. Love these ladies! 

Here's my arm, holding some barbed wire as we stretch it across the creek. I'm a RancHER. :)

Scouting out the pea crop. What do you think, Harvey? 

I'm thankful for more time during the summer for outdoor recreation and fitness pursuits! And again, thankful to be able to do more of that with Jeff, and Harvey of course, too. Last Sunday we went for another pasture bike ride. We think we covered between 8 and 9 miles. Photos from our previous pasture ride can be found HERE. The weather was warmer this time, so we made sure to find plenty of water stops for the dogs...

Harvey and Abby are enjoying some wading and a drink in the creek that runs through the pasture.
Jeff and I opted to remain on the bridge.

Of course, I'm getting in more running than I did during the end of the school year. I'm thankful that I have a little more flexibility to fit in some runs, and more time to fit in longer runs. Governor's Cup is just over a week away!

Here, Iggy is accompanying me. We officially adopted Iggy earlier this summer.
He's old, but he still likes to go for runs at his own pace.

And I've also been helping Carol, Tom, and Jeff with finishing up with planting our garden. We've got our raised beds full and the seeds are sprouting and yesterday we transplanted our tomatoes and peppers. We're all set, just need to keep up with watering and weeding and we'll be enjoying bountiful harvests, soon! We have already been eating the spinach from the garden and I think there are radish sprouts ready, too. I'm thankful in advance for the yummy veggies we'll have all summer long! Can't wait! 

Also, thankful for honeybee pollinators! Look at the size of those bumbles! 

Big bumblebees on chive blossoms! Seriously. We did NOT have bumblebees this large in Iowa! 

So many things to be excited about and thankful for when it comes to summer time! What are some of your favorite summer activities? What are you thankful for this week?

Harvey is thankful for pickup rides. I'm always thankful for Harvey!

Thankful Thursday (On a Friday) ~ Thanks Farmers!

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for stopping by today's Thankful Thursday post on my blog!

Yes, you read that right, and no, today is not Thursday. It is actually Friday today; I'm in delay for posting my weekly Thankful Thursday post. I spent the better portion of the last seven days away from home out of my normal routine while in Wichita, KS at the National Farmers Union Convention. I did arrive back home on Wednesday afternoon, but everyone knows the first day after returning from a trip is mostly a waste. Hence the delay in blog posts.

Anyway, let's get to the matter at hand, which is this week's Thankful Thursday topic.

Did you know that March is National Agriculture Appreciation Month? Wednesday, March 18 was National Agriculture Day, in fact! You probably saw little memes and posts on the internet and social media telling you to thank a farmer and appreciate the Ag lifestyle. I'm going to continue that theme today, and I'm going to build it around some of the comments that our Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, gave in his speech at the NFU Convention earlier this week.

Some of you probably already know that I am a huge fan of Secretary Vilsack. He's from Iowa, as am I, and was fairly popular as a Governor there before moving on to become Secretary of Ag. What I really like about him is that he is genuinely concerned with finding solutions that bring people together, and also in helping people. He also states things as he sees them and doesn't come off as a phony politician. This is a characteristic I can appreciate, especially in today's political climate.

US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack addresses the National Farmers Union Convention.
Photo by Minnesota Farmers Union.

Secretary Vilsack offered many words of wisdom to the convention audience, but something he said early in his speech rang very true to me: "If you're not a farmer, you're delegating the responsibility of feeding your family to someone else." He went on to explain that this is a freedom and a liberty that we have in the US that many others worldwide do not enjoy. If you're not a farmer, you are counting on those of us who are farmers, fishers, and ranchers to provide sustenance for you and your family. That's a pretty big deal. If you eat, you depend on farmers. Secretary Vilsack also pointed out that in the United States, we spend about ten percent of our paycheck on food. In other countries, that percentage is much, much higher. Obviously, these are aggregate statistics and not the reality for every American household, but on the whole, to spend only 10% of our budget on food is really very good. We live in a great country and we have an outstanding agricultural system, filled with variety of producers, methods, and foodstuffs produced, and we should be thankful for that. We are lucky. 

Here's another reason to thank a farmer or rancher. American agriculture is a JOB CREATOR. Ag producers are directly influencing the economic growth rate in our nation and especially in rebuilding the rural economy. According to Secretary Vilsack's speech, the United States has seen sixty consecutive months of private sector job growth, which is an unprecedented stretch in our history. Can you think of any farmer who moved back home to a rural area in the past five years? I count myself in that demographic, in fact. Jeff and I are contributing to growing our rural economy, if for no other reason than simply existing and continuing to farm our land. I'm sure all of you can think of people who have taken up farming or gone back to farming in the past five years. Give them a pat on the back for helping with our nation's job growth!

The Secretary also spoke on some of my favorite USDA programs and intiatives, including SNAP benefits, the dietary guidelines, and many other topics. But, the line that stuck with me the most from his entire speech actually came about during the question period at the end. The general topic of conversation was about the diversity of agricultural styles and production methods in the US. Sometimes there is a tendency for ag producers to squabble with each other over who has the best methods, who is doing the most-right thing for the planet, who is feeding the most people, etc. Secretary Vilsack himself gave a line which, to me, was the overarching message of the entire convention: "Every minute we are fighting among our selves about agriculture is one minute we lose to advocate for agriculture to the public." Pretty big, right? In the end, we can and should all focus on what we have in common rather than how to hurt one another. What tools will help all of us. Leave your bias hats at the door and come to the table with ideas and solutions to work together.

There is a lot of negativity about agriculture in the media today. As we know, the media tends to focus on the negative instead of what we are doing right. Part of the mission of this blog is to continue to spread the positive messages of agriculture to my readers and hopefully beyond. If you are a farmer, thank another farmer for the work he or she does. If you're not a farmer, find one, and say thank you. Let's all say thank you and continue to work together to find ways to keep the American agricultural sector strong. 

Stay tuned to my blog for a few more posts pertaining to the NFU Convention over the next few days! :)

Next Generation Advisory Council

I have some exciting news to start this post: I applied for and was selected to be on a committee through National Farmers Union called the Next Generation Advisory Council. My friend Jennifer encouraged me to apply along with her and we both made the cut! The two of us, along with five others from around the country will be serving on the council. The mission of the council is as follows:

(The council) will serve in an advisory capacity. They will be called upon as a focus group to provide feedback on current programs and outreach, as well as proposed ideas for the future. For example, the Council could offer feedback on convention speakers, breakout sessions, brochure content, etc. to ensure that we are speaking to the "next generation" of Farmers Union members. 

So, with that brief explanation, I now enlist YOUR HELP, dear readers! I would love input from YOU as to what this Next Generation Advisory Council should try to accomplish, in your opinion. If you are involved in farming or agriculture, please consider what you would be looking for in an advocacy organization. If you're not involved directly in agriculture, but, say, you love food and you love supporting people who grow food, think about how you as a consumer could better interface with people who produce food. Here are a few questions to get you thinking and hopefully responding:

What are the best ways an organization can communicate with you?

What do you want an organization, particularly an Ag organization, to do for you?

What are some ways that people involved in agriculture can better connect with consumers?

As a consumer, what do you want to know about your food and your farmer?

When considering joining a new organization (of any kind), what are the biggest draws? biggest deterrents? 

What do you feel is the "next generation" of agriculture?

What do you think is the future of food and food advocacy?  Who are the producers and who are the consumers?

What is your overall opinion of farmers and agriculture? 

Where do you get information about farmers and agriculture?

Thinking specifically about National Farmers Union or Montana Farmers Union, what are some reasons you like the organization? What are some reasons you dislike the organization?

I would really LOVE to hear from any of you on these topics! Or, if you have anything else to say that I didn't specifically address above, please let me know! Feel free to comment here on the blog, comment in Facebook, or even email me at katie (dot) r (dot) adam (at) gmail (dot) com. My first meeting with this group is this Sunday morning as part of the National Farmers Union Convention in Wichita, KS. I can't wait to read your feedback!