Beyond the Margin

By Joe Spear

Ruminating on and hedge fund

For being 1.3% of the labor force, farmers sure have a lot of influence. And branding power, too.

While politicians generally try to avoid debating each other, they come out in droves at Farmfest to do so. There may not be a lot of votes to get as much as there is good will. If you do well in front of farmers, everyone else thinks it’s good. The hard-working, stoic farmers have been iconic American images for decades.

But it’s not so much the population of farmers that matters, it’s the population of the animals they produce and the amount of food they harvest. Blue Earth County has nine hogs for every person. It has five acres of crops for every person, evenly divided between corn and soybeans.

Farmers power your vehicle with ethanol and make sure that steak you’re eating has plenty of protein. They know when to feed cows and when to give politicians feedback.

I came to understand the influence of farmers while working for an internationally circulated agriculture publication called Feedstuffs. It was my job to know everything that went into livestock feed, how the price of it played out and how the Fibonacci (an Italian mathematician) curve might affect corn and soybean prices.

I know more about meat and bone meal than anyone would ever want to know. It sells for $360 a ton in Minneapolis, according to the USDA, and it was basically a very efficient byproduct of livestock slaughtering. Whatever was left from slaughter — fat, meat parts and bone — was ground up and mixed with a protein to make meat and bone meal.

So my job was to track 20 ingredients for Feedstuffs including beef tallow (a kind of fat that gave that special flavor to McDonald’s french fries you might remember from the 1970s).

The company switched to healthier soybean oil sometime in the late 1980s because of a single man’s lawsuit and publicity about what beef tallow actually was and could do to you.

From atlasobscura.com: “McDonald’s original french fries were cooked in beef tallow. For that fact, they were bullied out of production by a well-funded, well-intentioned businessman and self-proclaimed health advocate named Phil Sokolof, who unknowingly dethroned what many fans claim was the greatest french fry to ever meet mass production.”

Sokolof took out full-page ads in major newspapers calling out McDonald’s for its fatty hamburgers and fries.

But beef tallow fries will forever have a place in my heart, though they weren’t very good for it.

I had become an expert on livestock feed ingredients in six months or so, and all manner of financial analysts, hedge fund managers and others who could not find honest work would be calling me to find out what direction the market might take. I wrote a column every week with mostly anonymous sources who would give their predictions for prices.

Commodity traders would set their positions after the news was published in print on Mondays.

These folks were a colorful group of characters. Some were from small commodity trading firms and others were from giants like Land O’ Lakes. They had all kinds of descriptive clichés and catchphrases. “Rain makes grain” was a phrase to suggest the prices were going to tank because rain would boost harvests and supply.

on farmers, cows fund managers

Of course, traders knew the mantra. “Buy the rumor, sell the fact.”

So, it became a skill to know what was a rumor and what was a fact. Unlike today’s political environment.

And then there was the precise analysis of the eating habits of cows and the weather.

Many a farmer and feed seller would tell me that when the weather got cold, cows got hungrier and therefore would eat more, mostly corn and soybeans or their processed byproducts.

I was never quite sure if this was an “old farmer’s tale,” but it sounded halfway reasonable. And for what it’s worth, purinamills. com, a company that profits from selling animal feed, advises farmers to up their feed rations 20% when it gets cold.

This obviously would affect demand and prices should rise. One man from a very fine financial firm called me up and asked if it was true that cows ate more when it was cold.

I said, of course, it was true. Have you ever asked a cow if it was more hungry when it was cold? You just get that look. Cow eyes.

So I told the man from the fancy financial firm Drexel Burnham Lambert (pronounced Lam Bear silent “t”) that of course the cows ate more when it’s cold.

He apparently bet the life of his firm on this as it soon went bankrupt.

Of course, it may not have been the predictability of cows eating in winter as much as the infamous junk bond entrepreneur Michael Milken who put Drexel on the line for billions in debt and broken promises. But one can never be too sure.

Drexel and Milken pleaded to felony fraud and agreed to pay $650 million. Milken was indicted on 98 counts of securities fraud and racketeering among other crimes. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison but got out in two after agreeing to assist authorities.

There was nothing in the indictment or SEC filings saying one of the company’s traders relied on unreliable information from an anonymous journalist who claimed he knew about the eating habits of cows. Such public disclosures could be helpful in the future.

But farmers did quite well that year. Soybean prices hit $11 a bushel in June of 1988, a record high, because farmers knew, definitively, that cows eat more when it’s cold.

Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at jspear@mankatofreepress.com or 344-6382. Follow on Twitter @jfspear.

Greetings from

DAY TRIP DESTINATIONS

The Ale Works Restaurant is a cozy spot in Amery. Photos courtsey of Amery Chamber

Amery, Wisconsin

‘The best of what small towns have to offer’

By Renee Berg

Asmall hamlet in northwest Wisconsin, Amery is “the best of what small towns have to offer,” said Katie Johnson, a longtime resident.

“We have outdoor recreation for all ages in all seasons, shopping, a wide variety of restaurants and visual and performing arts, all in a beautiful setting nestled in between five lakes and the Apple River,” Johnson says. “It truly has something for everyone.”

April Ziemer, editor of the Amery Free Press and president-elect of the Amery Community Club, describes Amery as a small town with big offerings.

“A combination of multi-generation-owned family

businesses and new entrepreneurs provide Amery with a unique blend of staple and specialty shopping,” she says. “Amery is filled to the brim with community events. Once you visit Amery, you are bound to schedule a return trip.”

Sitting on the banks of the Apple River, Amery began as a lumberjack town. The community grew around a sawmill and, in its early days, it was known as “Big Dam.”

In 1887, the Soo Line Railroad depot was built as well as a hotel. Small stores and homes followed. The city was named Amery after William Amery, who was born in England in 1831. Amery learned the carpentry trade in London and ventured to the U.S. in 1861.

He died in 1887, after which the town was renamed Amery. The town boomed from 1888-1893, adding implement and furniture stores as well as a doctor’s office, hardware store and post office. Those years also saw many saloons opening their doors in Amery.

The town isn’t as rowdy as it once was, but there is still plenty of fun to be had, Ziemer says. In the early years since the lumber mills, canning and cheese factories established the roots of a city where people could work, live and play. Products may have changed, Ziemer says, but the industry itself has remained a constant.

When it’s time to eat, Johnson said it best: There are plenty of options. There’s the TAC Two Bar & Grill, The Village Pizzeria, Garibaldi’s, Birch Street Bar, Amery Ale Works and the Amery Family Restaurant. You can also check out Club 53 Bar & Bowling Center, which is a tavern and bowling alley all in one. Farm Table Foundation is a favorite of locals, much like The Mix Up.

For outdoor recreation, you are in the right spot. There are 14 local parks in Amery and plenty of opportunities for fishing or, if you’re visiting in the colder months, ice fishing on the lakes and on the St. Croix and Apple rivers. Wapogasset Lake has three access points and is just outside the city limits. The Apple River is a 70-mile tributary of the St. Croix running through town.

For those coming in the winter, don’t miss the St. Joseph Catholic Church-sponsored ice-fishing contest the last weekend in Farm Table Food makes great burgers.

January. And there’s always the option of cross-country skiing at Balsam Branch Ski Trails and the Stower Seven Lakes State Trail. Or you can downhill or crosscountry ski at Trollhaugen Outdoor Recreation Area, which is nearby.

Amery is in Wisconsin’s Polk County, which has more than 350 miles of groomed snowmobile trails. These range from remote trails to the Gandy Dancer Trail and Cattail State Trail. Snowshoeing and hiking are other popular winter pursuits in the area.

Amery is among just a few northern communities designated as a “bird city,” with a rich habitat for both migrating and nesting birds. Birding fans should check out York Park, as well as the Stower Seven Lakes Trail with its abundance of birds and other wildlife.

For lodging, Johnson recommends the Forrest Inn and area resorts, including Apple River Resort, Ginger-Rogers Resort and the Hunky Dory Farms-Resort. If you prefer an Airbnb, Amery has plenty of scenic options available right on area lakes.

When it’s time to shop, Amery’s downtown is a hub for commerce. A notable shop to check out is Northern Style & Gift Co, which is a salon that doubles as a boutique.

Stems From the Heart has floral and gifts, Proverbs 31 Boutique LLC features women’s fashion and ArtZ Gallery is a gallery with art on display by local budding artists.

Once you’ve worked up an appetite for dessert, drop into Ellie’s Ice Cream & Coffee, where you can enjoy gourmet coffee and ice cream treats.

“We have so much to do for a small town,” Johnson said. “We have recreation, dining, shopping and the arts.”

Renee Berg is a general assignment reporter for The Free Press. A graduate of Minnesota State University, she is mom to two teenagers and two cats.