LESSON FROM AG COMM EVENT

Last week I was given the opportunity to attend the Agricultural Communications Symposium in Champaign, IL.  It was a great opportunity for a college student such as myself, because I got to hear numerous professionals speak about ag communications and what they have learned in their years of experience. While I learned a lot at the event, there was one statement that I thought was a great take-home message from the day. During the last panel, Kristina Boone from Kansas State University made a great point:

“We all know our beliefs, but we need to know our facts.”

What a short but noteworthy point! How many times have I tried to make the point that everyone is entitled to their opinion or beliefs, but before forming said beliefs people need to do some research? Her statement really hit home for me and I thought it was worth sharing.

No matter how opinionated people are… you can’t argue the facts. Even when researching information on a topic, people often disregard facts that disagree with their current opinion. The fact of the matter is that there are facts out there that can support almost any argument, but we must take ALL of the facts into consideration in order to be making an informed judgment. Especially when it comes to the food we are choosing to buy, it is incredibly important to be an informed consumer!

So I encourage you to form your own opinions and stick to your beliefs… but know your facts first.

For more on this event, check out Holly Spangler’s blog, Is Agriculture Waiting to Talk?

Rosie Sanderson
Illinois State University Student
http://unpolishedboots.blogspot.com/

HOG FARMING HAS COME A LONG WAY!

Thanks to the Ohio Pork Producers Council for this great look at hog farming today vs a few years ago.

Did you know that corn farmers rely on vibrant livestock markets too?  Nationally, livestock is still the number one market for corn so when hog farmers do well, corn farmers do well.

Illinois Corn is then very interested in helping consumers learn more about where there food comes from – not only their corn meal, but also their beef, pork, poultry, and even veggies!  Agriculture is an entwined industry and its hard to separate one segment from the other.

Still have more questions on where your food comes from and how the farmers in IL grow it?  Check out www.watchusgrow.org!

REVOLUTIONING WORLDWIDE TRADE

The Panama Canal Authority exists to produce maximum sustained benefit from (their) geographic position. It’s a geographic position that nations, traders, and explorers have hoped to maximize through the ages.

The U.S. transferred their authority of the Panama Canal back to the Panamanian government in 1997. At that time, studies indicated that the Canal would be at its maximum capacity for transit traffic by the year 2011. The Panamanian Government decided at that time that they weren’t interested in the canal infrastructure losing the potential for added use.

Interestingly enough, the need to expand the canal was known decades ago. The U.S. Government actually started working on the third shipping lane back in 1939, stopping work in 1942 because of WWII. So the Panama Canal Authority used those plans from the 1930s to start the work that has become the current Canal Project.

(In fact, the Panama Canal was designed to handle US Navy ships, like the Texas and New Jersey. They were the “Panamax”class ships of the time.)

The expansion will be complete by 2014, the 100 year anniversary of the opening of the Canal. The project is funded by both public and private investments. The project cost is expected to cost $5.25 Billion, funded roughly in half by a tax in Panama approved by the voters. The other half is provided through an international investment package.

Unheard of in the U.S., the entire project will be completed in a decade. Ten years, start to finish, from design and planning to full opening. It’s been joked (although there’s much truth in this joke) that this entire project will be finished in the time it takes the U.S. to finish a feasibility study.

What does this mean to the average person? Well, it means absolutely nothing in a direct sense. But it’s this kind of incredible engineering and planning that allows us to have our iPads and other widgets, it allows US commodities to access worldwide markets; it means less fuel consumed promising a lower environmental impact. It means jobs. Period. It’s hard to imagine, but it’s a pretty simple formula of a worldwide system that does reach into the home of the average U.S. system.

It’s a bit disturbing, too, that such a phenomenal piece of work can be completed so quickly and efficiently in a third world nation. We have the capacity in the U.S., too, but we just can’t get it done. How frustrating is that?

Tricia Braid
ICGA/ICMB Communications Director

ILDG PROMOTES LIVESTOCK IN CALIFORNIA

The Illinois Livestock Development Group is in Tulare, California this week exhibiting at the World Ag Expo.  Here, Nic Anderson talks to some Illinois farmers about the benefit of expanding operations in Illinois.

Did you know that Illinois Corn invests funds in helping to grow the Illinois livestock industry?

GROWING MINDS FOR IL’S #1 INDUSTRY

If you didn’t know, this week plays host to a major event in the educational scene.  The American Association of School Administrators will hold its annual National Conference on Education in Houston, Texas on February 16^th through 19^th.  In celebration of this event, I would like to highlight recent strides in agricultural education at a Chicago high school and how agricultural literacy can be incorporated into a variety of core subject classrooms.

Last week Illinois Governor Pat Quinn paid a visit to Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences where he announced legislation which would boost enrollment at the school by 120 students (there’s a link to that article here).   Yes, you read that last sentence right; there is a high school in the middle of Chicago that centers its entire curriculum on agriculture. Not only do students study the basic core subjects (English, Science, and Math), but they also learn how to apply those concepts to agriculture.  Governor Quinn sees the promise in the school and he is pushing for more education in Illinois’s #1 industry: Agriculture.  In fact, the industry accounts for nearly a quarter of all jobs  in the state.

The campus may have the only working farm left within the  Chicago city limits; however, that doesn’t mean these students are learning to become farmers. The students choose from five pathways (animal science, agricultural mechanics, food science, horticulture/landscape design, and agricultural finance) that allow them to personalize their education to something they are interested in.   Some students become doctors, engineers, accountants, and even chefs (you can find a link to a story about a one student’s story here).

To learn about business, the students run a farm stand at the Navy Pier Flower and Garden Show with the fruits and vegetables they grow on-site. These same fruits and vegetables are used in the school’s commercial kitchen to learn about the chemistry of food.  In biology class the students give a dog a workout in order to track its heart rate.  All of these instances are incorporating general education topics, but they are giving context to the task.

With this hands-on approach to education, it’s no surprise that students are enjoying what they are learning and it shows long-term.  Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences boasts a 92% graduation rate with 83% of those kids going on to college. That number is well above that of other Chicago Public Schools and schools statewide.  The students are not only being prepared to graduate, but to eventually have the skills necessary to successfully join the workforce too.

If this method of teaching is successful at this school, shouldn’t other schools be investigating ways to incorporate agriculture into their curriculum?  Through programs like Agriculture in the Classroom, elementary students are learning about Illinois’s #1 industry one classroom at a time, but shouldn’t these students have the opportunity to put context to their core education? The incorporation of agricultural literacy on a daily basis provides a not only a hands-on method to enrich the students’ learning, but also prepares the students for a future career that as many as a quarter of them will be engaged in someday.

Liz Harfst
Joliet Junior College student

CONFUSED ABOUT CORN AS FOOD AND FUEL?

Are you curious about corn as food and corn as fuel? Confused on how it can be both? Worried that there’s not enough to go around?

You might enjoy this video:

If you are a city-dweller with questions about how your food is grown and produced, you might checkout the www.watchusgrow.org website where Chicago Mom’s are taken on Illinois farm tours and are asking hard questions about how their food is produced.

GOVT INEFFICIENCY PLAGUES LOCK AND DAM UPGRADES

Illinois has a unique position on the Illinois, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers that gives it a comparative advantage when it comes to exporting goods.  In fact, while the largest market for corn nationally is livestock feed, followed very closely by ethanol, the largest market for Illinois corn is export markets.

But that competitive advantage is soon to mean nothing unless improvements, repairs, and upgrades to the locks and dams on the river are completed.

Lock and dam upgrades are mostly unfunded.  But continuing in the tradition of huge governmental efficiency lags, when lock and dam improvements are funded, the time and money needed to complete just one project seem to get larger and larger.

Consider the Olmstead Lock and Dam near Metropolis, IL on the Ohio River.  Initially funded in the 80s, this lock and dam STILL isn’t finished.  And in the President’s budget released on Monday, an additional 800,000 million dollars was appropriated to finish this project.  This project, by the way, is so plagued by governmental inefficiency that there are portions of the lock completed, having never been used, that already need repair.  WHAT?

Check out the statement released on this by Illinois Corn Growers Association immediate past president, Jim Reed.