Minnesota State Fair

On Saturday I had the privlidge of attending the Minnesota State Fair. The State Fair is the equivalent to our Melbourne Show or Royal Sydney Easter Show. Not a lot of agriculture there but I was encouraged to see how many people were in jammed into the various animal pavilions. They had pigs, sheep, cattle, horses and chickens. Live births of lambs and piglets were extremely popular amongst the crowds.

Not sure how they calculate these sort of numbers but it is probably somewhere in the ballpark. At least they are creating some sort of awareness to the general public. Throughout my travels all over the world I have seen the need to bridge the gap from people in the city to us farmers the worlds population food and beverage providers.

This one I am not so sure about? The beef figure I think could be higher. Might as well take lamb off the list, it is just not part of the diet here. Poultry and Pork -probably ok. Same with fish. The fruit and vegetables not so sure. Of the veges, if you could further break this down - spuds, corn

and beans would be a huge %. Lettuce would also be a huge amount. Salad over here consists primarily of lettuce with a small cherry tomato if you are lucky and cabbage - nice.

It was worth going just for the food. If you can deep fry it, cover it with cheese or put it on a stick then you will find it here. People LINING UP at the beer tent at 9am also made me chuckle.

Funnily this stand was pretty popular amongst the various food samplers. Some of them looked like they had a fair amount of food sampling experience too. I gave it a wide berth though.

This dude must share my thoughts on the whole thing.

I did try one of these though - not bad either!

Back to Iowa

I dropped Alastair off in Omaha on Thursday and headed back to Iowa. I went to Iowa State University to catch up on some of the research they are doing there on integrated farming systems. 25 000 students had justed started back after the summer break. The place was buzzing. A little bit different to my uni days at Dookie Ag College.

I was also lucky enough to get a personal tour of an ethanol plant. After looking at corn for the last week I thought that I had better go see what it is all used for. I just drove in and asked if

someone could show me around. Thinking I already knew the answer, surprisingly they said yes. So I spent the next hour on my own guided tour through the plant. This was a plant a group of farmers built as a co-operative. The furtherest supplier is only 30 miles away. Some of the farmers also buy back the by-products such as DDGs - dried distillers grain and corn syrup for their feedlot rations. One thing to remember - 1t of corn produces 33% ethanol, 33% DDGs and 33% carbon dioxide. The CO2 can also be sold to companies like Coke-a Cola for use in the food chain

As I drove back towards Minnesota I spotted this machine. 'Curiosity killed the cat' they say so I went and had a chat to them. Turns out this was a proto-type attachment to collect corn stovers after harvesting for energy production or whatever else you want to use them for. Good idea I reckon. I got to see it working (@40% moisture) and it did a good job.

The farmer was one of the most interesting blokes I have met on my travels. Turns out he was also part of the brains that started the enthanol plant I had justed visited. Bill Couser, Couser Cattle Company have a 4000 head feedlot, grow seed corn and soya beans as well as commercial crops. They also have the contract to harvest all the seed crops for either Pioneer or Monsanto (I can't remember I was that overwhelmed). And they obviously do some testing for John Deere as well. A very impressive business that I would love to one day go back and spend some more time with.

Rising City

We visited Bart Ruth on Wednesday afternoon to look at farming in his local area. We had met Bart earlier in the year in Washington at the Contemporary Scholars Conference. Bart grows corn and soya beans, a lot which is irrigated with effluent from a local dairy.

The dairy is about 5000 cows in two locations, all barn style, milked 3 times a day, 24 hours a day job. A few people, especially some of the locals, are skeptical of these types of systems however they do have their benefits. They create employment and wealth in local communities. It provides opportunities for local farmers to diversify into growing feed and fodder - lots of mouths to feed remember. Opportunities for relationships such as the deal Bart has with regard to effluent management also exist. Part of me does feel cows should be outdoors, however this is a controlled environment and I can see some benefits to it.

They had just started chopping maize silage for the dairy. The dairy employees 6 different teams of contractors from as far away as Montana and Kansas and some local crews as well. Once again, job creation.

CNH

On Wednesday morning we visited the Case/New Holland header manufacturing plant in Grand Island. They make 23 headers a day or about 5000 a year. 85% of which are Case, as NH has other factories in Belgium and Poland.

They also make 400 bale wagons a year - amazing I didn't think they still made these things. Who buys them and how the hell do they afford them? I don't think they have changed the cabs on them since the 70s either.

Windrowers and sickle bar fronts are also produced here. They were great hosts, giving the two of us a personal tour. We were encouraged to talk to the employees and got to do the final

test on one of the machines. Not many of these joints let you take photos either.

We drove around the yard to see the finished product. I reckon that there would have been over 200 red ones and 6 New Hollands (I think that they had sold them all!). Do you think they would notice if one went missing? Lets call it product testing maybe?

Nebraska

On our way back down to Nebraska we visited another farm that was into growing cover crops using no-till systems. Brothers Marlyn and Patrick Richter run a very diverse business of dairy, feedlot, cows and calves, agistment, some pigs, cropping and contracting. Now they grow cover crops whenever they can with up to 11 species in a mix. They are measuring production, soil health, moisture use and overall economic benefit of the system, which answered a lot of questions for me. Lots of people are advocating it be these guys were the first to put some numbers to it.

See the compaction layer in the soil and that is still after 8 years of no-till.

On our way we spotted this lonely bloke on the side of the road, so we picked him up. Turns out he was an organic farmer from Germany that milked 80 cows and grew organic crops. He was also able to give us a run down on using cover crops in their system. What are the chances? You spend 3 days talking about cover crops, pick up a bloke off the side of the road and

1. He is a farmer.
2. He grows cover crops.

Dont know what else he was into but when he threw his bag in the back I thought the tyres were going to pop. Talk about heavy.

We also saw some different crops apart from corn and soya beans. Sunflowers were sighted occasionally along with the odd crop of wheat.

The Dakotas

Alastair and I have had a big week on the road. Starting in Minnesota, we made our way to Sth Dakota, then up to Nth Dakota, then back down to Nebraska. Now I am back in Iowa. Although we have had some long days, we have seen some great countryside, met lots of interesting people and learnt a thing or two as well. Here is a quick overview of the week.

This is the Corn Palace. Every year they redecorate the front of it with a new design made out of corn cobs cut in half and nailed to the wall. At first I was a bit disappointed but by the end I did

appreciate it. I though I was going to a palace made of corn, not decorated by it!

We spent Monday morning with Dwayne Beck at the Dakota Lakes Research Farm. Dwayne

gave us an honest overview of agriculture in the area (and lots of other parts of the world too for that matter). Dwaynes a big advocate of no till and rotations, cover crops and using livestock. His aim is to have the farm self sufficient in energy production some time in the near future.

Dwayne organised for us to go up to Bismarck in Nth Dakota were we met up with a group of 'Ranchers' from Montana. We hopped on their bus and went out to Gabe Browns to look at his livestock/cropping operation. Gabe switched to no-till and livestock farming after 4 successive crop failures in the early 90s. Livestock to spread risk and no-till to reduce his input costs. He also started to play with cover crops in an effort to boost soil fertility and reduce nitrogen inputs. Now he uses 90% less fertiliser as a result.

Gabe is in to Holistic management as well. This is an automatic gate opener. Set off by a timer, the gate opens and the cattle move themselves as programmed. This allows for cattle to be shifted up to eight times a day. A good idea I reckon.

The Land of Corn

I arrived in Minneapolis on Friday and met up with Alastair Starritt, another scholar from NSW. We spent the weekend visiting some friends we met earlier in the year in Washington at the Contemporary Scholars Conference. So what did we see - corn, corn, corn and a few soya beans. Not much diversity in the rotations. Lots of ethanol production, piggeries, and a few feedlots. This is Tim Richtger. Tim is a farmer we met earlier in the year. He farms 7000 acres of mostly corn and a few soya beans. Some of his corn goes into his own piggery, and the slurry provides nutrients for his cropping program.

All of Tims land is tile drained. This is the local contractors machine that rips and lays the pipe in one go. $500 US/acre and they can do about 80 acres a day. This year has been particularly wet

and you can see the difference in the crop where the drains are.

We went to the top of Tims grain silos to 'get the lay of the land'. Lots of wind towers in the area. The crops look good and it should be a good harvest.

We also visited Nick and Jessica Ries. Nick and Jess farm with Nicks parents about 40 min from the city of Minneapolis. This location has opened up a number of business opportunities for them. They have a large compost business that mostly is for their own use. They have deal with the local council to take all their green waste. With 3-4 million people down the road this amounts to a fair bit. At present they have approximately 4 years worth in stockpile, slowly composting down. They also have a quarry, grow corn, have excavators with magnets in rubbish tips extracting metal and a feedlot in another location. In one of the best deals I have ever seen they

1. Sell corn stubble to the local feedlot
2. Get paid to take it back.

Now that is a good setup!

The Prairies

I had a busy week travelling around the Prairies mostly in Manitoba but I did mange to sneak into Saskatchewan. The weather has finally turned and it has stopped raining. most of the farmers are happy as they can now get back on with there harvesting. I have visited a number of farms including a piggery, future goat dairy, a bison farm, strawberry and corn farm, grain growers, hay producers and went to a Holistic management field day at a cattle ranch. Busy hey!

After visiting the Brandon Research Institute on Monday, I spent the afternoon with a bus load of Aussies, mostly from WA and SA, on a agricultural tour across US and Canada. It was good to

hear some aussie accents and not have to repeat my name 3 times to everyone. They just don't

seem to get it here.

On Tuesday I went to Moosomin in Saskatchewan to a holistic management field day. I hope not to offend anyone here but these are some of my observations. We drove around, horse and cart style, at a guess around 1000ha. Would be flat out if we saw 300 head of cattle. They graze long mature pastures once a year with the cattle trampling at least half of the production back in the ground. While I agree this feeds the soil microbes, provides ground cover and provides some insulation in the winter, I cannot see how a young person could buy a farm and pay it off under this sort of management system. Maybe I still have a lot to learn, but while the day focussed on environment and social issues, economics was not mentioned once.

This farm was developed into a bison farm after the collapse of the PMU business. PMU was

using pregnant horses (mares) urine and extracting it for use as an estrogen hormone replacement. It seems this was a fairly big industry here.

This is Steve Hicks a scholar from 2000. Steve farms mostly strawberries and sweet corn, with a few onions and tomatoes. He also grows lentils, barley and canola. This is Steve standing in a crop of Buckwheat, like we used to grow at home. Seems that there is still a market for it here. Steve is scaling back his operation to get a better value of life. After being away for the week at his daughters rugby tournament, he spent the whole day showing me around when he could have been harvesting. At lunch time he asks 'Have you got time for a beer?'. Here I am justing casually making my way around the world and a bloke who still has 600 ha of crop to harvest on a sunny day asking me if I have time. Canada has certainly looked after me well!

Brandon

I am spending the weekend with Ryan Boyd. Ryan and his dad grow crops and breed and trade cattle. When you are driving around the area it is easy to know which paddocks are theirs because they are the only one with fences around them. Ryan felt that they were pouring money into their cropping land and not getting the returns, especially with all the capital tied up in machinery. So they now background around 400 calves a year on lucerne based pastures. As the pastures are rotated back to crops, they are growing much healthy crops that require fewer inputs. The cattle also have access to the stubbles post harvest, this allows more pasture cover going into the winter and then quicker access back to the pastures in the spring. The system was a win-win for both enterprises. I was amazed firstly at the amount and maturity of the pastures the cattle were going into and secondly at the residuals he was leaving post grazing. You could be excused for thinking he was under stocked but it is all part of the holistic management approach and building soil fertility.

Once again a lot of weather damage here. This canola was falling over and will be windrowed, or swathed as they call it here in a week or so.

Portage La Prairie

I spent the day with Don and Kim Scissons on Thursday. Don together with his brother and son run one of the tidiest farms I have ever seen. One thing people say about Nuffield is that you get to visit and learn from all the top farmers around the world, no matter what their enterprise is. This was no exception. They farm around 1600ha of wheat, canola and beans. They are also partners in two large sow units, 5 finishing sheds and a feed mill. Don said the two things he wanted to do after returning from his Nuffield travels was to integrate livestock into the business and buy more land. Fingers crossed, looks like I could be on the right track!!!

The Scissons are in the fortunate position of changing over ALL their machinery EVERY year. When I first drove in I thought I was in a John Deere dealership. They are just starting harvest and juggling rain/storms nearly every day. We have all heard about how wet it has been over here and flying over the prairies there is a lot of evidence of water logging in crops and they say that there is a huge area in Saskatchewan that didn't get sown at all. Good for our grain prices at home though. Still getting my head around converting bushels/acre to tonnes/ha.

They were harvesting canola the day I visited. Canola yields are generally pretty close to wheat.

Plenty of on farm storage. Don grows a lot of crops for seed, so needs lots of smaller silos for different varieties.

Two more were delivered the day I left.

Captain Compass

I flew into Winnipeg on Thursday, this time with my luggage, all fired up and keen to get going to my first visit. Little did I realise that if you buy a Tom Tom that says it has maps for UK, Europe (which it did), America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand you have to down load them first. Traps for young players hey. Anyway found myself an internet connection and soon realised that I didn't have a spare 13 hours to wait for a Nth America map to sort it self out. So back to the good old days of a map. The thing is, you don't even really need that. All you need to know is that there is the Trans Canada highway that goes from one side of Canada to the other, then everything else goes either North-South or East-West. So far - so good anyway.

Whistler

Spent Wednesday in Whistler along with 50 000 other people but it was still amazing to see. Not many integrated livestock and cropping systems here, but they did integrate livestock and recreation pursuits (bears and people). Although unfortunately I never got the chance to have a picnic with Yogi or any of his mates I had a great day out. The place just oozes money, like someone said to me "you are in (British Columbia), - Bring Cash".

Not again.....

Yes folks, the airport gods have done it to me again. I must admit I was not confident when I checked in this morning in Dublin that my bags would also be making the same journey as me. You now when you get that feeling. Anyway my thoughts were right. When I arrived in Vancouver, I was greeted over the PA system "Could Mister Roowann Paulette please make your way to the British Airways desk". They have assured me that they will be here by the morning but I am not getting my hopes up. Last time I lived out of my backpack for 8 days. So if there is no blogs posted in the near future it will be because my computer is flat with my charger leisurely making its own way around the world. Thats number three for me on my Nuffield journeys. All character building stuff they say.

Thankyou

I am off to Canada tomorrow for the third part of my Nuffield travels. A few days in Vancouver and then going to Winnipeg which I am looking forward to. Thanks to all those who have hosted me in the UK and Ireland over the last few weeks especially Jo and Luke, James and Fiona, Kev and Una and Bill and Audrey. Your hospitality has been greatly appreciated and hopefully one day I can repay the favour back in oz.

Northern Ireland

We headed up to Northern Ireland later in the week and visited Hillsborough and Greenmount research farms. At Hillsborough they have just installed a 600 tonne biodigester that runs off dairy effluent.We were also fortunate enough to stay with some previous Nuffield scholars and see their businesses. This is 'ladder farming' on the hill slopes.

This is a pellet mill that uses by-poducts such as straw, turns them into a pellet and uses the pellets for heating. An automatic dispenser ticks over all day feeds the fire. Not a bad system I thought.

Ireland

Have spent the last week with Kiwi scholar Paul MaGill touring Ireland. We headed south first and caught up with 3 of the Irish scholars we met earlier in the year in Washington. Kevin Nolan and the two Bill O'Keefes were able to show us around and teach us a bit of the Irish culture.

The season has been great, lots of grass and crops look good. This is some of Kevs wheat. Yields over 12t/ha are not out of the question.

We also visited Moore Park and Oak Park research centres looking at some of the trials they are conducting. This is a ryegrass trial that was recently harvested for dry matter evaluation.

These are some AI bred heifers. This farmer was using Charolais and Limo genetics and getting fantastic results. These were going for slaughter later in the week. It goes to show that good breeding pays off.

These sheep are part of a grazing trail at Oak Park looking at clover persistence. Not a lot of clover is used in grass mixes here but as nitrogen prices increase and the regulations of the nitrate directive it will have a big role to play.