Robins and other signs

A friend said she saw a tree full of robins last weekend.  These hardy harbingers of spring have been spotted on the NCR all winter, but they are arriving in larger numbers as the days lengthen.  My local flock of turkeys were out strutting their stuff on Monday and even took to the air when my hound growled at them.  The weather is definitely springlike today with blustery winds and temps in the 50s expected.  A warm rain and a week of 50-60 degree temps is expected next week, so the farmer within is awakening.  Time to get the straw off the garlic beds and clean up the asparagus.  Cutting the raspberry canes is also on the agenda, and the list will get longer as March procedes.  Meanwhile, the veg markets are still stuck in reverse for the most part as growers and shippers try to work through what will surely go down as one of the worst winter seasons ever.  The usual suspects will be blamed, too much acreage, a slack economy, chain store policies which focus on contracts instead of open market buying, etc.  The truth is probably a combination of these factors, along with the fact of America's latest generation being unwilling to spend the time to cook the bounty available to them.  Time will tell, but while I wait for the verdict, I'm going back to the garden.

The numbers game

Beyond This Horizon is the Heinlein novel I was channeling yesterday.  A mean and humbling vision of humanity which probably sounded like an interesting place to a teenage boy in the 60s, but not so much to a man in his 60s in the teens.  Speaking of numbers, today is 3/6/12, so something is bound to happen.  Hopefully the markets will wake up today.  Tuesday is traditionally the day to start loading for weekend delivery to eastern markets.  If there is any kind of demand, I look for increasing prices.  The CV is this thing won't change until the deals shift from the desert to Huron and Salinas, but the same thought process led shippers to plant way too many acres after the run up in prices last winter, so who is to say the oracles are right about this either.  The Republicans may have some clarity regarding their nominee after the numbers are in today, but I think a majority will be looking with distaste at Mittens as he begins to put some distance between himself and the rest of the clown car.  Numbers are also relevant to chief Republican entertainer Rush Limbaugh.  It seems 13 of his advertisers have bailed on his daily hatefest.  Even the stations which carry his misogynist spiel are starting to cancel, especially if their rating numbers are low.  Perhaps this marks a turning point in our national dialogue.

Deja vu all over again

If Yogi Berra is reading the headlines during the past couple of weeks, I'm sure he feels that way again.  The current outbreak of tornadoes in the heartland with increasing levels of devastation remind me of "Damnation Alley", a novel of an apocolyptic future where middle America is a wasteland dominated by killer storms.  The latest ruling from a court in Colorado allowing students who qualify to carry concealed handguns on the grounds of the state university puts me in mind of a novel by Robert Heinlein set in the not too distant future.  The premise is a "survival of the fittest" scenario where everyone who wants full citizenship must carry a weapon and be prepared to use it if provoked.  The provocation can be something as simple as an accidental contact.  If an apology is not forthcoming, the two settle up in true wild west fashion with the loser unable to contribute his genes to the next generation.  Those unwilling or unable to play this game are relegated to secondary status and must wear a badge of shame which entitles the citizens to mock them.  Sounds like we may be heading down that rabbit hole as I write this.

farm bills and veg business

It looks like a congressional hearing on the new federal farm bill is coming to Saranac Lake, NY in the next few weeks.  This is significant for a couple of reasons.  First, this area of the world is generally neglected in the distribution of federal pork, because the Northeast does not have the clout in the process that midwestern states do.  Farm state senators from N. Dakota to Texas focus like lasers on the legislation, since it is a priority for many of their voters and also the big contributors to their electoral success such as Cargill and ADM.  New York and the rest of the Northeast have many more concerns and farmers are just one in the cacophony of competing voices and are far from the loudest.  The other problem is the farmers here generally are small players in the big commodity crops like corn and soybeans which may not be glamorous, but command attention by their sheer number of acres.  Declining industries like dairy farms , representing small family farms struggle to be heard.  The veg industry in the Northeast is also mostly a small family enterprise, so there is little lobbying clout there.  Hopefully the exposure generated by this congressional appearance will spark some needed debate on the federal government's role in agriculture.

The long goodbye to GMO

According to NYT food blogger Marc Bittman, France has called for a ban on Monsanto's GMO corn.  For the uninitiated, GMO  stands for Genentically Modified Organism.   I think if proponents of said technology had to repeat the full moniker for these frankensteinian genetic splices there would be even less public support than there is now.  Most people intuitively realize that food scientists are playing with something more dangerous than fire as they dice and splice various genetic components in ways that nature never intended.  The European ag community has at least turned a sceptical eye on this hubris, but the American university system is a hostage of the Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont axis, as are the farm state senators. 

like a scrawny lion

was the beginning of March.  The winter storm turned into a couple of slushy inches here on the NCR.   We can only hope the month goes out as a chubby lamb.  Meanwhile, the skiing should be good for weekend warriors, even with a little rain predicted for Sat. morning.  Of course, other areas of the country are not faring nearly so well.  Tornadoes are in the offing throughout the midwest, and several communities have already had devastating visitations.  I have a feeling these outbreaks will become more frequent as climate change continues.  People will become inured to the constant barrage of photos of survivors combing the wreckage of their towns looking for personal effects.   The sci-fi author, Roger Zelazny wrote about an apocolyptic future America in which the heartland has been reduced to a howling no-man's land where gigantic storms have decimated the population and mutated people and animals fight for scraps, while the east and west coasts remain fairly normal.  It seemed pretty fantastic 40 years ago, but now...

Thursday White sale

Looks like a winter storm fizzle on the NCR.  We picked up about an inch of snow last night and it is trying to change to rain as I write this.  As per usual, the more a storm is hyped by the weather channel, the less likely it is to actually appear.  Instead, deadly tornadoes that were barely anticipated roared through flyover country leaving a trail of devastation.  It seems the tornado season starts a little earlier each year and the heavy duty twisters appear further and further from the traditional "tornado alley" area of Oklahoma and Texas.  Something to look forward to in the future.  In the produce world, Wednesday continued the lackluster performance of the last few weeks.  Prices for desert veg in the Southwest are off around 60% from last winter, and I think that does not include February figures which will probably push that to 70%.  There will be more than a few Salinas shippers returning to the valley with their tails between their legs.  If they modify their plantings for the summer and fall it would go a long way to restoring some sanity in the market.  Since growers and shippers can no longer count on wholesalers and chainstores to help move product at reasonable prices, self discipline is the only way to keep supply and demand in balance.  The insidious creep of extra acreage planted to honor cost plus contracts with processors and chains will be the death of growers in the long run.