Brownfield

Sweet corn harvest

For nearly everyone on the Brownfield team, our love of agriculture and involvement in it reaches beyond what we do as members of this team.  Take for instance Julie Harker.  It was a typical, hot Saturday in July when her family headed out to Lowell and JoAnn Mohler’s farm to pick sweet corn.  It is an annual event and part of the Grace Episcopal Youth Group fundraiser.  They pick corn donated by Lowell and JoAnn and sell it the next day at church.

Former Brownfielder Lane McConnell who now works at Missouri Department of Agriculture made sure the youth had AgriMissouri bags for proper packaging. 

Lowell Mohler is a former Missouri Department of Ag Director and Missouri Conservation Commissioner.  He is happy with his sweet corn crop and Julie couldn't resist videotaping him as he talked about it. (The youth group picked 8 rows of the regular sweet corn.  They did not pick the Bt corn Lowell talks about in the video.)

Visitors from Germany

We get a lot of visitors to the Brownfield newsroom in Jefferson City, Missouri.  Earlier this week, we were pleased to have the opportunity to visit with Gerd and Uschi Schumeckers from Dusseldorf, Germany.   While in mid-Missouri, the Schumeckers stayed with Learfield News President Stan Koenigsfeld and his wife Julie Koenigsfeld.

Gerd and Uschi Schumeckers visited us along with a group of 55 Germans from the Lank area of Germany.  Their 16-yr old son Simon was also in the group, staying with another family with a son in college who had travelled with the German Heritage Society group from Loose Creek, MO on their last trip to Germany.  They live in the rural area of Meerbusch across the Rhine River from Dusseldorf.  Uschi is on her church council and active in many volunteer activities.  Gerd is a retired CEO of the Spanish bank Santander in Germany and is now on the Board of Directors there, as well as an independant consultant.  Their hobbies include horses, tennis, books and wine.  We had a wonderful visit with them and can't wait to see them again.   
They really enjoyed meeting everyone at Learfield and were very appreciative of your time!
-Julie

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.

Yellow River flooding

Thanks to Charlie McConnell at FCS Financial for sharing some pictures Jim Maag shot of flooding from Yellow Creek at the east edge of Brookfield, Missouri.  These tractors are in the same field.  One got out.  The other did not.

Unfortunately, sites like this one are not uncommon in many areas of the Midwest this year.  We have a whole slew of flood pictures on the Brownfield website Fighting the 2008 Flood page.

 

Straight line winds

More deadly weather moved across the Midwest over the week-end.  Brownfield's Pete Shinn, headquartered in downtown Omaha, Nebraska was smack dab in the middle of a dangerous storm late Friday afternoon.  From Pete:

Here are a handful of pics taken right after Friday's storm in Omaha. It knocked out power to around 130,000 customers, myself included, and killed two teenagers in Council Bluffs when a tree fell on their car. It's the only time in my life I've been scared of a weather event. Straight-line winds of up to 115 mph knocked over lots of trees and snapped power poles like twigs. The whole thing blew up and was over in 10 minutes. Wild! Crews finally got power restored to our building last night at about 8:30 p.m.

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.

Levee terminology

The terminology used by those fighting the Midwestern floods, although quite familiar to someone who lives or grew up near a river, can sound like a different language to those unfamiliar with levee terms and definitions.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers website features some key levee terms and definitions:

Levee: an earthen embankment, floodwall, or structure along a water course whose purpose is flood risk reduction or water conveyance.

Federal responsibility: there is no single agency with responsibility for levee oversight nationwide. The Corps has specific and limited responsibilities for approximately 2,000 levees nationwide.

Local responsibility: the responsibilities of local levee owner or sponsor are broad and may include levee safety; land use planning and development; building codes; and operations, maintenance, repair, rehabilitation and replacement of the levee.

Levee certification: the certification of levees for FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program is the responsibility of the local levee owner or sponsor.

Federally authorized levee: typically designed and built by the Corps in cooperation with a local sponsor then turned over to a local sponsor to operate and maintain.

Non-federal levee: designed, built, and managed by a non-federal entity.

Corps funding eligibility: federally authorized and some non-federal levees may be eligible for Corps rehabilitation assistance funding.

Overtopping: water levels exceed the crest elevation of a levee and flow into protected areas. Levee may be damaged but not compromised. Flooding occurs from overflow/overwash (waves) and other sources. The levee must be inspected.

Overtopping breach: a breach whose cause is known to be a result of overtopping (system exceeded). The levee has been compromised after overtopping and must be repaired to function prior to the next event.

Breach: a rupture, break or gap whose cause has not been determined.

Failure breach: a breach for which a cause of failure is known based on an investigation to determine the cause.

Pork videos

Pork producers are utilizing YouTube to tell the story of modern pork production. 

My favorite is "Caring from Day One."  This video shows why many producers use gestation crates.  The sows and pigs are all very happy and Jackie, the producer, obviously loves being a pork producer.

High water in NW Missouri

On his way to cover the Livestock Marketing Association meeting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Tom Steever ran into some high water in northwestern Missouri. 

This is a tractor we saw on the way to Sioux Falls.  This was along Hwy. 36  between Macon and St. Joe.  We had to divert about 20 miles because of high water along that route.

Tom

Brownfield's Katie Allen talked to the farmer who owns the tractor in the photo.  You can read her story on the Brownfield website.

Little broadcaster

After seeing my team cover so many heart wrenching flood stories, it was a treat when Katie Allen shared this photo of her baby sister with me.  Halle saw Katie's microphone on the kitchen table and decided she'd try out talking into it. 

Maybe Halle Allen will follow in big sister's footsteps!