A New York Times article says farmers are cutting back on corn somewhat in favor of soybeans:

Strong worldwide food demand, and the accompanying higher prices, are beginning to influence American farmers.

A government report released Monday indicated that farmers intended to make significant cuts in corn acreage in favor of soybeans. That could help ease shortages of cooking oil, which have hit poor countries hard.

The shift also signaled at least a temporary decline in the appeal in farm country of the renewable fuels boom, much of which is based on corn. High corn prices and low ethanol prices have turned ethanol production into a difficult business.

Food for fuel is getting hit pretty hard these days, but who eats switchgrass?

Oklahoma has secured 1,100 acres of land for the world’s largest stand of switchgrass devoted to cellulosic ethanol production. Planting will take place within the next 45 days.

Many farming organizations aren’t happy with the conclusions of a two and a half year study by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, for obvious reasons. Here’s the overview:

The commission called for a massive overhaul in the livestock industry, aimed at protecting people, animals and communities. It made six main recommendations, aimed at Congress, state governments, universities and others.

Phase out and ban the use of antibiotics as a growth stimulant in livestock, because the practice could render some human antibiotics ineffective.

Improve disease monitoring and tracking.

Initiate new federal regulations meant to control the zoning and manure-management at industrial livestock operations, and provide instructions on what aspects states would regulate.

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Farmgate discusses the dilemma many crop farmers face with high grain prices tempting farmers to get land out of CRP. In this area, efforts to increase CRP in erodible land is increasing in an effort to reduce sediment going into rivers.

Perennially, USDA receives pressure from livestock owners and the grain handling industry to phase out the CRP so more grain will be produced and grain prices can fall. That will likely recur this year, while environmental groups continue to lobby for CRP expansion. But Babcock and Hart contend that high grain prices will cause many CRP landowners to suffer the financial penalty and plant their land. If that is the inevitability, Babcock and Hart suggest:

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I think mentioned an article in the past about efforts to bring good, locally-grown food into schools. Here’s another one:

Now, as awareness of the economic and health benefits of farm-to-school programs grows across Michigan, more school personnel, parents, health advocates, and farmers are urging officials to look to some of these other state models for policy guidance. A recent, pivotal push for doing something about the state’s restrictive food rules occurred on March 12, when nearly 330 people from schools and farms throughout northwest Michigan packed the Farm to School: Healthy Kids, Thriving Farms conference, in Traverse City.

Has anyone around here had an encounter with the Monsanto police force? Vanity Fair has an interesting story about the issue:

Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his “old-time country store,” as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.

As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.

Elizabeth Rosenthal has a great opening paragraph to her NYT story about the environmental costs of shipping food here and there around the world:

Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe’s peas are grown and packaged in Kenya.

Rosenthal says that Kiwis from Sanifrutta, Italy, travel by sea in refrigerated containers: 18 days to the United States, 28 to South Africa and more than a month to reach New Zealand.

More and more smaller dairy owners are turning away from confinement and switching to old-fashioned grazing, according to an AP story:

Bob and Karen Breneman found it difficult to accomplish all that had to be done around their southern Wisconsin dairy farm, but they didn’t want to hire more help.

So they joined the growing number of farmers in America’s Dairyland who broke with tradition by turning to grazing — saving them money and freeing up time.

Cows in a pasture. How decadent.

A year ago there were complaints about road destruction due to the hauling of manure from Vreba-Hoff dairies to a new lagoon built because the existing lagoons were about to overflow. Later in the summer, manure was hauled from Vreba-Hoff into Ohio to the Chesterfield Dairy to prevent an overflow.

Now the complaints are coming from east of Morenci due to manure moving north from the Chesterfield Dairy. Clement Highway, I was told, is not wearing well.

The question some people are asking is whether this is Ohio manure being imported into Michigan or whether it’s the Michigan manure from Vreba-Hoff being hauled back home.

The New York Times reports on the large acreage of farmland that’s being pulled out of the 25-year-old conservation reserve program in order to take advantage of high crop prices:

Out on the farm, the ducks and pheasants are losing ground.

Thousands of farmers are taking their fields out of the government’s biggest conservation program, which pays them not to cultivate. They are spurning guaranteed annual payments for a chance to cash in on the boom in wheat, soybeans, corn and other crops. Last fall, they took back as many acres as are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Over recent years I’ve heard about Michigan losing businesses to Indiana because there are fewer regulations in that state. I don’t know how much truth there is to that, but it’s apparently not accurate as far as agriculture is concerned.

Dairyman Johannes DeGroot of DeGroot Dairy has been banned from operating in Indiana due to repeated environmental violations:

Under the agreement, DeGroot will not operate any animal feeding operation, confined feeding operation or concentrated animal feeding operation in Indiana through 2048.

What’s to become of the dairy? It will be sold to Vreba-Hoff, the company that owns two farms near here that have been cited for repeated environmental violations.

The Oil Drum offers a very exhaustive report on a National Academy of Sciences study about ethanol and water. Here’s part of the Drum’s conclusion:

As discussed often here in the past, biofuels not only have a much lower energy return vis-a-vis conventional crude, but have between one and two orders of magnitude lower in power density, (or how much energy we get per unit of land). Furthermore, in our ‘Burning Water’ paper, (and alluded to here in this NAS report), biofuels also require significantly more water than even the least efficient fossil fuel systems.

There are also concerns about pesticides, nitrate and other environmental impacts. So when replacing energy with a ’substitute’, all other things do not usually remain equal. I commend the National Academy scientists for highlighting what will be a central issue in upcoming natural resource science - that of systems, and tradeoffs.

Two researchers at the Iowa State University consider the state of corn and ethanol if 2008 turns dry. Here’s the summary, but it won’t take to read through the entire post:

The relationship between corn, ethanol, and gasoline prices has resulted from the federal ethanol production mandates, and they will have an impact on corn prices particularly if a short corn crop results from weather issues. The reduction in production will raise corn prices to levels that ethanol refineries cannot afford to operate, and either the ethanol production mandates will have to be relaxed or refineries will have to be heavily subsidized to be able to buy corn at nearly $8 projected prices.

You haven’t read anything here lately about ethanol. Here’s something about feeding distillers grain, an ethanol byproduct, to cattle. It’s being studied at Colorado State University. Selling the grain to farmers for cattle feed is a big part of the ethanol industry, but too much of the stuff could cause problems:

Increased sulfur in the distillers grains comes from adding sulfur to the ethanol machines, Archibeque said. High levels of sulfur can cause sulfur toxicity in cattle. While that doesn’t taint meat, cattle suffer neurological damage that causes the animals to ram their heads into the wall, stare up at the sky and, if not treated, die.

It’s also said to increase E. coli levels in cattle manure by 50%, increase phosphorus levels by a large amount and might have an effect on the quality of meat and dairy products.

So if you have a new use for the more than 10 million tons of the stuff produced every year…. There might be less of it going into the mouths of cattle.

Terry Gross is speaking with Dan Koeppel, author of “Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World,” today on Fresh Air. It doesn’t sound good for banana lovers of the future. A fungus is expected to wipe out the banana we eat, the Cavendish, in the future unless some new development comes along.

There are a thousand different varieties, but only the Cavendish is suitable for shipping around the world. It’s odd, but Koeppel says the Cavendish is a really bad banana compared to what’s available in many locations around the world.

Listen to the interview here.

The banana, a victim of evolution.