According to Yahoo News the top best growing companies are in the following fields;
Agriculture and blog writers didn't even make the grade- which also means nothing has changed!
Have a great day!
Nearly everyone is concerned about something, the stock market is in the tank, several banks and institutions are in trouble or taking bankruptcy. The political arena is alive with stuff I don't even want to talk about or repeat. We still have several issues that never seem to come to light.
A couple days ago I seen a show on how they get food to our super-markets in such a hurry for us consumers to snap-up. They showed huge ships, trucks, vans and large distribution centers. I sat through the entire program wondering if anything ever went wrong. Of course they do.
Years ago the American farmer raised enough grain and livestock to feed the US and other countries to. Today they can still do the same. Less than 1% of our countries population are farmers, making this industry one of the most efficient in the world. This figure doesn't include the new hobby farms but if you did count them it would still surprise us.
Yes the day of the local farmer/rancher/butcher are nearing the end, in favor of corporate conglomerations that have little to do with farming and a-lot to do with making money. The show I watched not only showed me how fast and efficient things worked, it also showed me how fast things could get out of hand!
In the old days if you needed milk, the milkman would bring it, if you wanted a steak or some ground round the local butcher was usually happy to help. Corn and wheat flour was usually done with a commercial company but different rules and attitudes seemed to exist then. Yes times have changed ... but are they better? How can we be sure several of those big containers don't carry something we really don't want? What's to say someone with a grudge won't sabotage the food chain somewhere down the line?
Some incidents are simply beyond anyones control and we may have isolated incidents at anytime, but are we doing enough to keep our food safe? It would be my guess that we are not. With so much freight moving here and abroad I don't see how this mass of food could ever be kept 100% safe!
Politicians need to say no to countries that still use pesticides and insecticides that have been baned in this country for decades and a system needs to be in place to trace a food product back to it's origin, and be able to act quickly in-case of incident.
With all the traveling we and our food does- how do we keep everyone and every container safe?
So what do these four things have in common? Nothing, except for a-lot of ups and downs. This is not the time to get the giggles.
Several times in my ventures I have come across articles I have to comment on. In one of my blogs I told how ethanol was made. It is a very simple process where by you nearly boil corn mixed with water, the alcohol rises, is collected and the corn slurry is fed to animals. If you would like to read it just search for the word ethanol and look under acres of green.
In the same blog I also stated that using one energy source to produce another energy source didn't seem like the best way. Using natural gas for instance to produce ethanol, because the fuel U get isn't much better than what you had, if any.
Years ago an attempt was made to introduce ethanol as an alternate fuel. Back then cars had carburetors instead of fuel injection and they would run on this product. Well oil prices dropped, ethanol plants shut down and politicians went their separate ways and might I add, buried there heads very quickly! I believe this occurred in late 70ies early 80ies.
Today the same thing is happening again. Government mentions ethanol and millions of dollars pour into plants. Farmers think their going to make money and then??? Today we have other means of making this product. Everyone jumped into producing alcohol out of corn, now we can use other products to do this, including crop residue and several different kinds of grasses.
I read a story the other day that by doing this we would put much more pollutants in the air because all this land would have to be harvested. Well MOST of this land will be harvested anyway. It doesn't really matter for what. Modern machines are fast, fuel efficient and very productive. The end product would be ethanol and more animal feed.
Now a final word. I have studied the futures market for several years. I don't trade much but I do watch the markets for aid in selling my corn. Grain markets were recently trading at levels never before seen in the industry. Of course speculators did the bidding and commercials were doing the selling, many sold to soon and were really hurting with margin calls. Now here comes my last word.
From what I see in the charts, if gas and crude oil ever take off again we could see prices that are so high, many of us could no longer afford them. In-other-words much higher than we have already seen. Is this possible? I don't know, but I would like another option to power my vehicle!
I was just on one of the better ranked websites I have seen with a Eco-environmental blog section. I was surprised to go through the first three pages of blogs just to find no one bothered to comment. Of course this is not a readers duty but it is a way to express yourself. With so many different things happening in the world today and an election coming due it's time to grab the keyboard and start leaving some comments. OK?
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I have read and listened to more ethanol stories than any other and most are very disturbing. I cannot believe politicians or those running for office don't do there homework before saying something that is only partially true. Now I want to add and subtract from this mass of input and give my readers a slightly different aspect.
First of all let me say I never have agreed with using one energy source to produce another, but you and I are so dependent on electricity and the power company, we don't have any other choice. When my dad was young and getting started there were no electric power lines overhead. Electricity was produce for the house and barn by a low voltage wind-charger and three car size batteries that held the charge and powered the lights when the wind didn't blow. Of course power outages were common with the old system!
Ethanol is produced when water is added to corn and heated in a vat, (a kettle is for distillers and is usually copper), the vat is heated to 174 degrees and the alcohol steams it's way up and through a pipe into a cooling tower. Again most ethanol plants use natural gas to heat the vat! Once the alcohol has been removed the slurry is dumped and the process is repeated.
Now here comes the tricky part, with questions right? What happens to the slurry you ask? Well it is fed to cattle. The slurry is high in protein, mixed with dry ground hay and/or green chop, placed in a mixer truck and fed in concrete bunks. The cows love it and there is NO waste. However hog and chicken barns are not equipped to handle this product. All their feed needs to be dry. Yes you can dry the slurry for feeding hogs and chickens but this costs extra. Barns could be modified to handle this product but again your looking at additional labor.
Don't let anyone tell you using corn for fuel is making the world starve. True it has increased the value of corn but most of this was done by speculators, yes the same ones that ran gasoline and crude oil to new highs, and put a crimp on my wallet. All grains used in the manufacture of fuel have a byproduct left when the process is done. Most would be used for animal feed, but I doubt we run out of flakes for breakfast, corn chips or corn-bread anytime soon!
Here is a quick fact for you to ponder. A bushel of corn weighs 58 lbs, say after cleaning the processor has 50 lbs left, say you buy a one pound bag of corn chips for $2 bucks. Say corn is selling for $5 bucks a bushel at my elevator when delivered. For anyone able to do math this isn't looking good. I just sold my grain for a whopping ten cents a pound based on 50 usable pounds instead of 58 lbs, and when you buy your paying a whopping $100 bucks a bushel, 50 lbs X 2 bucks a bag. I hope your starting to get the message and don't be fooled! Even if corn went to $10 bucks a bushel it would only make a dimes difference.
However, weather patterns are not stable, here and elsewhere on Acres of Green website are examples of this. Eastern states including the corn belt are experiencing either extreme flooding or extreme drought and that is in the same state. Other sources say 17 percent of Iowa and Illinois corn acres were never planted because of these severe patterns. Many acres were planted late and these plants are subject to frost. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Is global warming the problem? Or is our planet just getting tired?
You can be sure I'll have more on the ethanol debate at a later date.
A couple days ago I read an article on meats vs vegetable diets. This wasn't on the health benefits, but on the cost and materials needed to produce one over the other. Let me just say it would be hard to replace one diet with another. We don't have the labor force and property to grow enough vegetables to replace beef.
Since I do raise beef, corn, wheat and sometimes a big garden I can tell you now raising beef takes little time compared to raising grain and several times less labor than raising vegetables. I quit growing gardens because the weeds and insects usually took over, and the labor required was a back killer. Field production would be easier because many crops can be sprayed or cultivated. However cultivated rows still require spray or hoe work in-between the plants. For anyone who has done extensive work with a hoe you know what I mean. Spreading vine crops like watermelon still need personal attention.
The article I read said that producing vegetables uses less fossil fuels than raising beef. I don't know where this kind of information comes from, but I do know a cow/calf pair roams the country-side without any mechanical (fossil burning), aid what-so-ever. The time spent in a feed-lot is very short, normally ninety days or less at which time grinders and feed trucks do operate. I won't have time here to lay-out how much fuel this uses but it would not be that much per animal. Just figure a grinder would use 10gal. diesel per hour and a feed truck would use about the same. A truck would carry twenty ton and a cow would eat up-to twenty-five pounds per daily serving. A truck should be able to feed two pens per hour, or from fifty to two hundred cows per hour. I let you do the math.
Don't let anyone fool you. Replacing beef with a different diet is going to be tough! And when You stop and think about it, cattle eating this ration usually grow faster and reach a heavier weight than those who eat dry hay and dry corn rations. Yes there are problems with feeding to much wet grain but a good manager can figure it out. May I say we could have more to eat instead of less, so grab a burger and a six-pack, and enjoy!
Welcome to my blog page, which of course is on my website www.acresofgreen.com.
Let me say I am amazed by the number of blog pages I have seen. Some have been very interesting. I started this one because I am at the front of some amazing and interesting activity. I don't want to overshadow the people who are living along our countries coasts where massive rain, wind and damage is occuring during the many hurricanes that seem to be coming faster and more often than in the past. At last count there were three storms on the seas, most likely heading for our coasts.
Having said the above I would like to thank my helper Pam, you can read her blog at www.acresofgreen.com/blog it's entitled Pam's Perils and gives some insite into our daily lives. Now on to business.
Yes I am a Farmer, not a large farmer but it keeps me busy. I also do Ranching this keeps me busy to. I have a need for fertilizer. Fertilizer is more costly today than any time in history and I am told it is not going to drop in price. I want everyone to read my story on www.acresofgreen.com and give me your thoughts here on this page. If you read all of the website you will understand what I am talking about and what gave me the idea to start Acres Of Green.
