Brownfield

Traveling with CSIF

I've been quite busy with the Coalition to Support Iowa's Farmers "Doing it Right Farm Tour."  Instead of blogging here, I've been focusing my energies on that project.  Check it out! 

Message from Pike County, Illinois

Our good friend Blake Roderick, Executive Director of Pike and Scott County Farm Bureaus and Two Rivers Farm Bureau Foundation sent an update that we were all very pleased to receive.  The news was good this time for the region Blake represents in fighting the 2008 floods.  Julie Harker and Tom Steever spent some time a couple of weeks ago with Blake - on the levees - in west central Illinois.  Blake continued to keep us abreast of the situation as river levels fell. 

Update from Pike County
Wednesday, July 2, 2008:

Monitoring the 54-miles of main-stem Mississippi River levees in the Sny Island Drainage District of Pike County will continue for several more days. River levels crested three times at near record levels during the 2008 flood.

The Mississippi River will be under major flood stage in the next couple of days—points south of US 54 are at or below major flood stage today. All the points along the Sny will be at or below flood stage within a week.

Mexico, Missouri affiliates

Brownfield affiliate radio stations KWWR -FM and KXEO-AM, Mexico, Missouri, are surrounded by some of Missouri's best farm land.  You can listen to Brownfield Ag News programs throughout the day on both stations.

Brownfield Affiliate Relations Manager Mike Cady was in the KWWR and KXEO studios last week.

Indiana Ag Youth Awards Program kicked off in Wayne County

The Indiana Ag Youth Awards program kicked off Friday as Brownfield Ag News teamed up with affiliate radio station WKBV to recognize and honor four 4-Hers at the Wayne County Fair.  This is a summer-long program that has become a tradition at county fairs across the Hoosier state. 

Categories of recognition include outstanding showmanship, champion animal, and oustanding 4-H member. Recipients are awarded a beautiful engraved 4-H buckle.  We are excited to continue this tradition in partnership with affiliate radio stations and county 4-H programs.  Listen to interviews with the youth and check the calendar for presentations on the Ag Youth Page of the Brownfield website. 

Dave Russell traveled to Wayne County Fair Friday to assist Chris Nolte, WKBV, in making the presentations to Wayne County 4-Hers Josh Wampler, Joey Carr, Tyler Klein, and Kaitlyn Culy.

Goodnight, Daybreak

The Badger of Brownfield Ag News, Bob Meyer, has been hosting the hour-long Daybreak program aired on several Wisconsin radio stations for many years.

Les Leonard and Bill Hoefts started the program at WLVE in Baraboo in the early 70's.  Les and the show moved to Marshfield in 1976.  Bob joined in August of 1986.

Bob Meyer and  Daybreak were around long before they both hitched up with Brownfield and as we say “so long” to that program, I want Bob to know that we all recognize the work he put into making that program successful for so many years.  The final Daybreak program, hosted by Bob Meyer, aired this morning.

We appreciate you, Bob!

Farm Bill cheat sheet

Whew. Who has time to read AND comprehend more than 1700 pages of information included in the Food and Energy Security Act of 2008?  So I asked Pete Shinn to put together a "cheat sheet" for me, featuring highlights and talking points.  It is too good not to share with you.  Still, Pete wants to make sure everyone understands this is a brief overview:

"It's a measure of the new farm bill's complexity that the above discussion represents "highlights," and is very, very far from being a comprehensive run-down of the spending, programs and legislative changes that are actually contained within the document, which runs more than 1,700 pages."

Not all river bottoms are flooded

The Brownfield team has done a stellar job of telling the stories of flooding and the impact of adverse weather conditions throughout the Midwest.  Although many acres of cropland have been flooded, there are areas where the crops do NOT have their legs in water and actually look quite good.  Rain does make grain -- unless of course there's just too much of it.

Cornfields in the Missouri River bottoms just outside of Lexington, Missouri were looking pretty good when I drove past them last Sunday afternoon.

Special webpage on Flood Coverage

For weeks now, Brownfield Ag News team members have been telling the stories of torrential rains, severe windstorms, tornadoes, and flooding, wreaking havoc across the Heartland of our country.  Promotions Coordinator Kari McKinney thought we should create a page where visitors to our website can access all of our on-line flood coverage so she went to work on it.

You'll find stories, audio, video and links to important information.

Check it out:  Fighting the 2008 Flood

Reporting on the floods

From Wisconsin to Iowa, Indiana to Illinois, Missouri to Nebraska and beyond, weather and flooding have been front and center in agricultural news, markets and weather programming on Brownfield Ag News for weeks now.  Having grown up near the Illinois River where my family has farmed for generations, so much of this year is reminiscent for me, personally, of 1993. 

Each morning and throughout the day, the Brownfield Ag News Team works together to cover all aspects of the "Fighting the Floods of 2008." 

Julie Harker and Tom Steever are in either Missouri or Illinois today, covering the fight on both sides of the Mississippi River.  Julie sent back some pictures of efforts underway in Adams County, Illinois and across the river in Hannibal, Missouri.  They arrived in Quincy, Illinois yesterday and will spend the rest of the week with farmers and community members working hard to hold back the mighty Mississippi River from Quincy, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri.

We all know someone who has been personally impacted by these floods.  So many farm kids from the Midwest went off to college and took jobs in other places, but the ties they have to the soil of the home farm remains strong. 

Courtney Yuskis grew up on a farm near Warsaw, Illinois.  She is now Director of the Country Living Association.  Upon learning about the levee break in that area, I emailed her, letting her know she and her family are in my thoughts.  I was saddened to receive her reply:

Unfortunately, about 95% of my family's land will be underwater by tonight. I have been here since Saturday, fighting what was eventually a losing battle. We just took a final drive through the bottoms (about 30,000 acres will be flooded by this break); it's surreal to think that all of those crops will be lost.

This is a personal message and one I would not typically share, but I know there are many others of us who have experienced the same thing - either in 1993 or today.  The amazing thing about farmers and agricultural communities is their ability to pick themselves up and put the pieces back together again. 

Julie Harker sent back some pictures taken Wednesday on the levee in Adams County, Illinois.  In addition to telling their stories through Brownfield Ag News, Julie took shovel in hand to assist in filling sandbags. 

This is what Julie had to say about that experience:

I asked if I could shovel a few bags of sand because I did not do that during the 1993 & ‘95 floods in my home state of Missouri. At that time, I worked behind the scenes at Missourinet, Brownfield’s sister network in Jefferson City. I conducted interviews by telephone, attended Corps briefings, and produced newscasts as those historic floods unfolded.  But I did not get away to help sandbag then.   Not by any stretch did the folks at the Quincy, IL command center NEED me to help shovel last week. They LET me shovel because I asked.  I thank them for letting me help in that small way – three or four bags I believe it was. The sandbagging effort in Quincy (and Pleasant Hill) was amazing - so many, working so hard. I applaud their efforts. 

KHAS ramps up ag coverage

Brownfield affiliate radio station KHAS 1230AM Hastings, Nebraska is revamping the morning program to better serve the local ag community.  The 6am hour now provides information from 9 Brownfield programs covering news, markets and features. KHAS also carries several reports in the noon hour.

You can learn more on their website.