Photo courtesy of Tom Campbell, Purdue Agricultural Communication.

During the annual Purdue Ag Alumni Fish Fry at the Indiana State Fairgrounds this past weekend, the Alumni Association recognized eight agriculture leaders with its highest award.  Donya Lester, the association’s executive director says the Purdue’s Ag Alumni is honored to recognize such a distinguished group of professionals. 

The recipients of the 2012 Certificate of Distinction from the Purdue University Agricultural Alumni Association:

• Phillip E. Boring of New Palestine, Ind., president of Boring Farms Inc. and LOI Farms Inc. Boring has been an innovator with his farming operations, his farm becoming one of the earliest family farms in Indiana to incorporate. He has innovated with new and non-traditional crops such as cucumbers and canola, as well as tomatoes and popcorn, which he still grows along with corn, soybeans and wheat. He and his wife, Janice, have hosted senior diplomats from the State Department to learn about agricultural production and policy, and many state and national delegations and international farmers and visitors have toured their farm. Boring has served on numerous national panels and symposia boards on topics including pork production, farm business transition and estate planning. He received a bachelor’s degree in general agriculture from Purdue in 1961.
• Susan A. Hayhurst of Terre Haute, Ind., a freelance writer. Her work appears in agricultural publications including Indiana Prairie Farmer, where she writes her “Hayhurst Haylofts” column and for more than 10 years has been a panelist for the magazine’s Young Farmer Forum. She also has written for Farm World, AAA Hoosier Home & Away, the Indiana Farm Bureau’s My Indiana Home and the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. She speaks to community groups about her farm life and has been a presenter at the Midwest Women in Ag Conference. Hayhurst previously worked in communications in Indianapolis and for the Purdue Alumni Association. In 1989 she joined her husband, Terry, in his family farming operation and continued her career in public relations at St. Mary of the Woods College. She received a bachelor’s degree in child development from Purdue in 1982.
• Hubert R. “Hub” Johnson of Frankfort, Ind., whose 50-year career has included positions with meat processors, service as a U.S. Department of Agriculture staff officer, a member of the Purdue faculty in meat science and many years as a consultant to the meats processing industry. Johnson has played a major role in transforming regulatory policy affecting the meat industry. His expertise earned him the nickname “The Ham Doctor.” Johnson also has served his profession through service on numerous industry committees and boards. A varsity basketball player at Purdue, he received a bachelor’s degree in animal sciences in 1961 and went on to earn a master’s degree, also in animal sciences, and a doctoral degree. After his stint at Purdue, in 1977 he launched his own company, H.B. Ham Inc. in Rossville, Ind.
• George F. Patrick of West Lafayette, Ind., a professor in Purdue’s Department of Agricultural Economics, where he has served since 1973. He earned both his master’s and doctorate in agricultural economics at Purdue in 1966 and 1970, respectively. Following graduation, he spent three years as project specialist for the Ford Foundation’s work in Brazil. Patrick’s career has had three major areas of impact: in his applied research and Extension education program on risk management; as a leader in tax education in Indiana and the nation, directing the Purdue Income Tax School since 1976; and in leadership in Extension at the departmental, regional and national levels. Among his other work in agriculture, Patrick was a founding director of the American Agricultural Economics Association Extension Section and served as its president.
• Rolf O. Peterson of Houghton, Mich., a professor in the School of Forestry and Wood Products at Michigan Technological University, where in 2009 he was named as the Robbins Endowed Chair in Sustainable Management of the Environment. He has spent his entire career at MTU, establishing himself as an authority on wolf biology and the predator-prey relationship of wolves and moose. Peterson for 37 years has been involved in research at Isle Royale National Park in Michigan that began in 1958 and has become the longest continuous predator-prey research ever conducted. It is the baseline for virtually all wolf-moose research in the world and is the template for a study now being conducted on the reintroduced wolf population in Yellowstone National Park. He received a doctorate in wildlife ecology from Purdue in 1974.
• Harold L. Thompson of Danville, Ind. Thompson’s career spanned nearly 40 years with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, formerly the Soil Conservation Service. He provided technical assistance to producers in soil and water conservation systems, mostly in southwest Indiana, and served on the Indiana NRCS Leadership Team in assistant state conservationist positions. He became known for his ability to coordinate NRCS resources with other state and local agencies to complete successful conservation projects in watershed protection and flood prevention and to protect the highly erodible soils of southwest Indiana. Thompson served in leadership roles during his 42-year membership in the Hoosier Chapter of the Soil and Water Conservation Society. He received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Purdue in 1971.
• S. Richard “Rick” Tolman of Ballwin, Mo., chief executive of the National Corn Growers Association. Under Tolman’s leadership, the group has grown in membership, checkoff funds, size and stature of the annual Commodity Classic, and in market opportunities for corn farmers. He led the NCGA Corn Board in its 2006 call for production of 15 billion bushels of corn, a third of which could be used for production of 15 billion gallons of ethanol by 2015. The plan was part of energy legislation that President George W. Bush signed in 2007. Tolman previously was executive director of the U.S. Grains Council, marketing planning manager for the Advanced Harvesting Systems Group at International Harvester Co. and a market research analyst for the farm equipment maker Gehl Co. He earned a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Purdue in 1978.
• J. William “Bill” Uhrig of West Lafayette, Ind., is a retired Purdue professor of agricultural economics. He served in the Air Force Reserves as a pilot and at Iowa State University as an Extension economist before moving in 1967 to Purdue, where he made his mark over a 33-year career as an educator and grain marketing economist. Uhrig was co-developer of Purdue’s Top Farmer Crop Workshop and organized Purdue’s schools for agricultural banking, farm income tax and marketing on Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System TV. He developed a farm marketing video series offered through closed-circuit television, one of the first such offerings by an agricultural economics department in the United States. He also developed AGEC 420, the undergraduate grain marketing course, which he taught for 20 years.

“We would like to see the whole thing just completely be removed because it’s going to prohibit our ability to train the next generation to come back home and take over the family farm.”

While there were indications that the parental exemption would be removed from the proposed rule – Chinn tells Brownfield they’ve seen nothing in writing from the Labor Department and that’s what’s making the ag industry nervous.

“Even if they take the parental exemption out it still leaves the question, can grandkids still go work on grandma and grandpa’s farm – or, can kids go work on their aunt and uncle’s farm,” says Chinn, “And that was some questions we brought up during the hearing last week but we never did get an answer on those questions.”

Chinn says the proposed rule runs the risk of keeping her kids from working on a relative’s farm, “Our son collects eggs from grandma’s hens and she pays him for that. He helps her clean up the hen house,” Chinn says, “Our daughter helps grandma breed sows up in the hog barn. She also does some power washing of alley ways and stuff for grandma, as well, for payment. So, these are all things under the new proposed regulations our children would no longer be allowed to do.”

Chinn says the rule would also prevent the use of hand or foot-powered machinery by children under 16 to include garden hoses, flash lights and similar things used on the farm. She says children need safety on the farm but they also need hands-on experience in order to learn.

AUDIO: Chris Chinn (4:00 mp3)

The average projection for 2011/12 corn ending stocks, via Dow Jones Newswires, is 797 million bushels, compared to the 846 million in December’s report thanks to good export demand. Soybeans are pegged at 269 million bushels, compared to 275 million a month ago, and wheat is seen at 868 million bushels, compared to 868 million last month. A year ago at this time, 2010/11 corn ending stocks were 1.128 billion bushels, soybeans totaled 215 million, and wheat ending stocks were 862 million bushels.

Also on Thursday, USDA will be updating the global balance sheet with South American production numbers hotly anticipated following extremely warm and dry weather during critical growth periods. Argentina’s corn crop is estimated at 22.5 million tons and soybeans are placed at 48.5 million tons, while Brazil’s corn is pegged at 59.8 million tons and soybeans are seen at 71.7 million tons. Last month, USDA put Argentina’s corn crop at 26.0 million tons and soybeans at 50.5 million, while Brazil’s corn crop was estimated at 61.0 million and soybeans were projected at 74.0 million tons.

The numbers are out Thursday, February 9 at 7:30 AM Central.

The proposed rule requires all cattle operations meeting the regulatory definition of a CAFO to report a long list of information about their operations to EPA, including the exact location of the production area.

NCBA deputy environmental counsel Ashley Lyon says the rule is not only a serious overreach of EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act, it could also put the nation’s food system at risk.

“This information will be uploaded to EPA’s web site on an easily-searchable database—and that is accessible across the globe,” Lyon says.

Which raises numerous concerns, Lyon says. “One of which is harassment by environmentalist extremist groups here in the states—as well as terrorist  attacks from foreign and domestic entities.”

A representative of EPA who attended NCBA’s annual meeting in Nashville last week—Ellen Gilinksy—told the group that the agency understands the industry’s biosecurity and privacy concerns, and is open to ideas on how to improve the proposal. 

Lyon said she was encouraged by the comments made by Gilinsky.  But she says the way the reporting rule was developed by EPA—through a consent decree or settlement agreement with environmental groups—is also a big concern.

“We call those sweetheart agreements that require the agency then to promulgate rules that they may not even have the authority to do under the law,” she says.

“That’s obviously extremely concerning and we only see the agency engaging in more of those agreements and promulgating more rules—where the industry is not at the table—and that are going to be economically devastating to the cattle industry and agriculture as a whole.”

According to the EPA, the final CAFO reporting rule will be released in mid-July.

AUDIO: Ashley Lyon (3:21 MP3)

Corn was mixed in consolidation trade. There’s no fresh news, the outside markets were bearish, and commercial demand has slowed down. South America’s corn crop has been damaged but most of that seems to be factored in. Ethanol was firm. Brazilian crop consultancy Celeres, via Dow Jones Newswires, projects that nation’s summer corn crop at 35.45 million tons, down nearly 4% from its January estimate but still up more than 7% from the previous year thanks to increased acreage. Celeres adds 8% of the summer corn crop is harvested and the firm estimates winter corn production at 25.14 million tons.

The wheat complex was mostly higher with Chicago and Kansas City up short covering and commercial buying. There are the continued concerns about winterkill in Eastern Europe and Western Europe also had damaging cold over the weekend. Also, Ukraine is set to slow down exports by halting railroad exports of grain. European wheat made a new eight month high thanks to weather worries and the lower Euro.

AUDIO: Matt Deppe (6:04 MP3)

Boxed beef cutout values were higher on moderate demand and light to moderate offerings. Choice beef was up 1.54 at 184.66, and select was up .99 at 179.07.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange live cattle contracts settled 37 higher to 15 lower. The front months held early gains following light to moderate boxed beef market support in the noon report. The trade remained generally sluggish with the far deferred contracts in the red while the nearby’s showed moderate gains. February settled .12 higher at 123.75, and April was up .10 at 127.50.

Feeder cattle settled 10 to 50 points lower despite the ability for the live cattle contracts to hold slight gains through much of the session. Traders remain concerned about the longer term trend in the in the cash cattle markets as well as a lack of renewed support as the outlook of lower overall cattle numbers and potentially tighter feeder supplies fade into the background.  March settled .32 lower at 154.12, and April was down .47 at 156.55.

Feeder cattle receipts at the Oklahoma National Stockyards on Monday totaled 6200 head. Compared to last week feeder steers and heifers at midsession were steady. Steer calves traded 4.00 to 8.00 higher; heifer calves were steady to 2.00 higher. Demand was moderate to good. Feeder steers medium and large 1 weighing 500 to 550 pounds traded from 184.00 to 196.50. 550 to 600 pound heifers brought 150.50 to 163.50.

Lean hogs settled 37 higher to 40 lower with only the summer month contracts in the black. The tone of the market firmed through much of the complex with the front month February contract lagging behind the remainder of the market. Liquidation developed in the front months with little direction coming from the cash or wholesale markets. February settled .40 lower at 87.12, and April was down .37 at 88.55.

There was slow market activity in the hogs with light demand on Monday. Barrows and gilts in the Iowa/Minnesota direct trade closed .62 lower and the West was down .50 with both at 85.43, weighted average on a carcass basis. The Eastern markets were 1.15 lower at 91.18. Missouri direct base carcass meat price closed steady from 80.00 to 81.00. Terminal barrows and gilts were steady to 1.00 higher from 57.50 to 61.00.

Pork trading was slow with mostly light demand and light to moderate offerings. Pork carcass cutout value was down .35 at 84.75.

Monday’s hog kill was estimated at 419,000 head, 19,000 more than last week, and 5,000 greater than a year ago. Cash hog markets have yet to show a clear seasonal surge in demand. Some production areas in the Midwest have had problems with getting hogs to market due to the heavy snow over the weekend. The cash market is expected to be weak to lower through midweek.

International travel, Tatman says provides students with an eye-opening experience that helps to make students better professionals.  He adds it helps them understand that the world of agriculture is much bigger than the United States and helps them develop flexibility skills and work through different professional situations.

This year’s group is headed to Southeast Asia. 

Upon completion of the program, students are required to make three presentations to college groups or community organizations about the value they received from the program. 

The deadline for applications is February 15, 2012.  More information can be found HERE

The forum is February 14^th at Pfendler Hall Deans Auditorium in West Lafayette and is free of charge.  

A link for more information can be found HERE.