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Bringing it to the table
THE HARVEST EDITION A special section by The Star Press and The Palladium-Item SUNDAY, SEPT. 25, 2011
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Bringing it to the Table
THE HARVEST EDITION STORIES YOU’LL FIND INSIDE Farmers help needy, at home and overseas | 4 Connersville family puts wind to work | 11 Blackford farmer expands business to Brazil | 12 No-till farm offers conservation success story | 14 Rural couples club creates ties that last | 17 Young farmers find their calling | 20 Ethanol plant makes use of corn grown locally | 22 Cowboys take to verse at Yavapai College gathering | 26 California group seeks to interest black farmers in trade | 27 Harvest Directory 2011: Farmer’s markets, pumpkin patches and more! | 30
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Farmers help needy, at home and overseas Local farmers have created programs to provide food or raise funds to help people in need Continued on Page 6
From left: Barb Frost, Karen Parsons, John Parsons, Ken Frost, Joe Russell and Dave Rawls stand in a five-acre field of beans. John and Karen Parsons are the founders of Seeds of Hope. Twenty-two acres have been planted for the Seeds of Hope charity helping with overseas relief through local churches. The “L.A.C.E.S.” program, which is designed to help teach Liberian youth values and Christian morals through the use of sports leagues, was founded by Muncie citizens. KYLE EVENS / FOR THE STAR PRESS
During October, The Star Press will once again highlight Breast Cancer Awareness October 1-31: Daily profiles of cancer survivors. October 2: Cancer Resource Guide (printed on pink newsprint). October 14: Community In the Pink Day. October 15: Women’s Head-to-Toe Expo at the Muncie Mall.
Get an official In the Pink T-shirt from Outfitter. Only $10 per shirt, Outfitter is donating $5 from each shirt purchase to the In the Pink fund. 1800 N. Wheeling Ave. or call 765) 289-6456
Make an “In the Pink” donation at MutualBank: Donations to the In the Pink fund are being accepted at all 33 MutualBank locations. This year, the money raised will go to the Cancer Boutique at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital. Find a branch: www.bankwithmutual.com.
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By KEN WICKLIFFE |
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s the world’s food providers, many farmers take a special interest in giving a helping hand to people who lack the financial resources to purchase the products they bring to the market. Two different programs operated by local farmers, in some cases with the assistance of churches and other members of the community, are allowing revenues from crops raised here in East Central Indiana to help impoverished people both in the Muncie area and on the other side of the world.
Farmers Helping Neighbors
“Farmers Helping Neighbors is an outreach program, so it is our hope to expand the awareness among farmers, first of the need, and second of how easy it is to donate revenue from a portion of their grain to the Second Harvest.” — DREW CLEVELAND
Working in cooperation with the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana, the Farmers Helping Neighbors program allows farmers to donate a portion of their crops to food banks in their local areas, providing direct assistance to families in Delaware County and seven other nearby counties. “As farmers, we’re in the food business, so we’re sensitive to the needs of those who do not have enough to eat,” said Drew Cleveland, a regional manager of the Indiana Farm Bureau who has long been involved with the Second Harvest Food Bank and the Farmers Helping Neighbors program. “The idea began with the Delaware County Farm Bureau putting an acre of the land they own into crops instead of being mowed,” he explained. “The farmer who farms the adjacent land agreed to donate his time and machinery while the Farm Bureau pays for the inputs, and all the income will be donated to the Second Harvest Food Bank. Out of that little step grew the initiative with Second Harvest called Farmers Helping Neighbors.” Cleveland is also a Randolph County farmer who has been donating a share of the corn, beef and soybeans he produces to Second Harvest for the past several years. “The main issue we’re dealing with right now is an increase in the number of people who need assistance because of the economy being challenged and a high rate of unemployment,” he said. “Many people today are faced with situations they’re uncomfortable with; it’s a hard thing, especially if you have children, when you’re not able to provide the amount of food needed by your family every day. “Farmers Helping Neighbors is an outreach program, so it is our hope to expand the awareness among farmers, first of the need, and second of how easy it is to donate revenue from a portion of their grain to the Second Harvest,” he added. For each dollar raised, Second Harvest can provide six meals for those who are hungry, Cleveland said. “Times are tough now for a lot of people, so we’re hoping that this program will continue to grow so we
For The Star Press
can provide more resources to help more people,” he said.
Seeds of Hope
John Parsons, who grew up on a farm and now works at Shideler Grain Co. in Eaton, has helped to organize a local program to help the impoverished people in Liberia, a “fourth world” country in Africa that he visited on a mission trip with the Harvest Christian Fellowship Church. The idea for Seeds of Hope arose from an earlier Foods Resource Bank project that John and his wife, Karen, helped start at the Eden Church, which they attend. “All the pictures and all the words in the world can’t begin to tell you what the conditions are like in Liberia right now,” John Parsons said. “In the capital city of Monrovia, there are between 1.2 and 1.3 million people who live with no infrastructure.” Seeds of Hope has secured the use of 22 acres of land, with the proceeds of all crops grown there dedicated to help the people in Liberia. Seeds, fertilizers and other chemicals have been donated by farmers as well as others who participate in the project, and the Seeds of Hope acreage is tended by local farmer Joe Russell, who donates his time and the use of his equipment to the program. “This has been a difficult year for the farming community here around Muncie, but we managed to plant about 5 acres of corn and 17 acres of soybeans,” Parsons said. “Because of the late planting, the profits from these crops will not be as high as we had hoped, but we are raising awareness about Liberia just the same.” Even so, Parsons hopes to have a profitable harvest for the people of Liberia. Proceeds from the sale of crops will be divided between two mission programs: “Hope2Liberia,” a program designed to make safe drinking water available to more people in the West African country, and “L.A.C.E.S.” (Life and Change Experience Through Sports) which is designed to help teach Liberian youth values and Christian morals through the use of sports leagues. Both of these mission programs were founded by Muncie citizens. “Bringing safe drinking water — something we take for granted — to Liberia is crucial to the health of the people there,” Parsons explained. “The L.A.C.E.S. program is targeted toward 11- to 14-year-olds, and truly these children are the future of Liberia. “The idea of hope can have a multitude of meanings to many people,” he added “First, the hope of better life and whatever that means. But there is also the hope of peace and understanding that surpasses fulfilling physical needs to fulfilling spiritual needs.” Information: Check websites hope2liberia.org or lacesport.org, or email John Parsons, john7900@sbcglobal. net.
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Connersville farm family puts wind to work By PAM THARP For The Palladium-Item
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ONNERSVILLE — A breeze is always blowing at Elm Valley Farms, so the Sherck family put it to work. The 65-foot-tall windmill on their Ind. 44 East farm is generating electricity for Dennis and Matt Sherck, a father-and-son team who built the wind-powered structure to save on grain drying costs. “An eight-mile wind will make electricity,” said Matt Sherck, 39. “Growing up in that valley, I was aware of the airflow. It’s a pretty consistent wind.” Sherck is a 1994 graduate of Purdue University with a degree in agronomy and soil management. He’s been farming with his father since he graduated, and is also Fayette County’s environmental specialist. The Shercks farm about 1,100 acres in Fayette and Union counties. All the farm’s buildings, grain bin and electric dryer are connected to the windmill, which is linked to the farm’s electric meter. When more power is made than the farm requires, the meter turns backward, sending the excess kilowatts to Duke Energy. Duke gives the family credit for the excess power, reducing the Shercks’ electric bills. “It’s more advantageous to take it as a credit than to be paid for it,” Matt Sherck said of the electricity the windmill generates. “It doesn’t make enough power to run the dryer by itself. The whole goal is to build up enough credits all year to defray the costs of corn drying in the fall.” The fall of 2011 could be one with expensive grain-drying costs because the corn crop was planted late, so it might not dry in the field as well as last year’s. That, in turn, could make the windmill’s generation capacity even more valuable, Matt said. The farm’s base electric bill is only $9.60 a month in the summer when the farm is making more electricity than it uses. In two separate months, the windmill generated 140 kilowatts and 160 kilowatts of power, Dennis said. The windmill operated for a time during last year’s harvest, but this will be the first full year of its operation, Matt said. Dennis said he was in favor of the wind-
mill when Matt proposed it for the farm where Dennis lives. “We got a book and read up on it and built it ourselves. It went smooth after about two years,” Dennis said with a laugh. Many people asked if the Shercks did a wind study before launching the project, but Dennis said there was no need. “We’ve lived there since December 1969,” Dennis said. “There’s always been a lot of wind in that valley.” Buying a windmill like the Shercks’ would cost about $18,000 to $19,000, Matt said. Tax credits will recover a third of that cost, and it can be depreciated like any other asset, he said. The family saved some money on the project by careful shopping and doing the work themselves. “We built it from scratch, compiled from off-the-shelf components. We used a basic design and modified it,” Matt said. The Shercks’ lone windmill isn’t as imposing as the rows of wind turbines in northern Indiana, but it has attracted a lot of attention, Matt said. “A lot of people stop by to see it. Some take videos of it. There’s one on YouTube,” Matt said. “I like this system because it will fit just about any farm. It’s small enough not to be intrusive and it’s owned by the person who owns the land. It doesn’t require any converters or batteries.” The windmill isn’t the Shercks’ first attempt at equipment engineering. Matt also created a strip till rig with a guidance system that applies fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia all in one pass. He uses yield mapping and variable rate application to save input costs and be sure the materials are applied where they’re needed. Renewable energy isn’t a fad; it’s the future, the Shercks say. A windmill should be attractive to anyone paying high electric bills, Dennis said. “Wind in combination with solar (is) the future,” Matt said. “Solar panels are coming along and are more affordable. The federal government is requiring more renewable energy and is offering tax credits to help with the cost. People should take advantage of those credits.”
“It doesn’t make enough power to run the dryer by itself. The whole goal is to build up enough credits all year to defray the costs of corn drying in the fall.” — Matt Sherck
Matt Sherck. PHOTOS COURTESY OF SHERCKS FARMS
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Blackford farmer expands business to Brazil
Co-owner of a farming operation in South America, Jim Kline cites such international branching out as ‘good experience’ By KEN WICKLIFFE For The Star Press
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ARTFORD CITY — Farmers often still see their main competition as “the guy on the other side of the fence,” but many are finding it profitable to take more of a global view of their industry, says Jim KIine of Hartford City. A corn, soybean and wheat producer, Kline farms more than 7,500 acres in three counties of East Central Indiana, and he is also a co-owner of a farming operation in Brazil. Awarded the title of Top Producer earlier this year by Top Producer magazine, a specialty publication for operators of large-scale farms, KIine was recognized for his entrepreneurship, the growth in the size of his business and his level of community involvement and contributions. The award was conferred earlier this year during a three-day seminar in Chicago attended by more than 650 largescale farmers whose facilities include a total of more than three million acres across the United States and Canada. “Kline Family Farms was one of the first in our geographic region to employ the use of no-till farming practices, yield mapping and the use of site-specific farming,” Kline said. “During the past year we have implemented the use of twin-row planting technology to cost effectively enhance corn and soybean production.” In conferring the award, Jeanne Bernick, editor of Top Producer magazine, praised Kline for his productivity and environmental consciousness. “He’s very sustainable in his agronomic practice,” she said. Kline believes that the future success and growth of American agriculture will depend in part on the willingness of farmers here to branch out into emerging world economies. In addition to his farming operations here, he cooperates with other American and Brazilian farmers as an operator of a 1,600-acre farm in the state of Mato Grosso Do Sul in Brazil. Along with a large workforce and an excellent climate well-suited to many types of agriculture, Brazil offers something that’s no longer available nearly anywhere in the United States: abundant and affordable land.
Jim Kline recently won the title of Top Producer by Top Producer Magazine. KYLE EVENS / FOR THE STAR PRESS “Aside from the fact that there’s just no more land to farm here in the United States, expanding beyond our shores is just good experience for us,” Kline said. “It keeps us from getting complacent and allows us to see what’s going on somewhere else. “We were very fortunate to find two individuals in Brazil who were already working together and had a very successful business applying agricultural spray,” he added. “One of their goals was to start a farm operation, but they lacked some of the production and marketing skills that our group from the United States had to offer.” The Brazilian climate allows for two to two and a half crops to be grown each year. In the past, soybeans were always the first crop, followed by corn, sorghum or milo for the second crop.
“In 2007, we changed from a typical soybean/corn rotation to planting all eucalyptus trees,” Kline said. Eucalyptus trees are used as a renewable energy source and for the production of charcoal. The majority of the grain drying facilities use wood as a heat energy source. “The Brazilians are very proud people who want to be dependent on renewable energy sources from their own country,” Kline said. “Labor is very cheap, so that lends itself to the use of firewood for energy purposes. Back home in Indiana, an unusually hot and dry summer has had an effect on Kline’s farming operations in this area, but farmers in and around Blackford County were luckier than their counterparts in some in other areas of the state, he said.
“I think the heat was more of a factor this summer than the lack of water,” he explained. “Fortunately we fared a little better with total rainfall in our area than some of the rest of the state. If we receive adequate rain in early and mid-September, I would project our soybeans to be 2 to 5 percent above average and our corn to be 5 to 7 percent below average.” Along with expanding around the world, farmers need to help the public better understand the work they do and the challenges they face, Kline added. “I think we as producers need to be advocates for agriculture,” he said. “Unfortunately, it seems that the negative news seems to catch the spotlight in the local and national media. “We care about our surroundings and the safety of our environment or we would not be involved in production agriculture.”
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Mike Craig, of Economy, has been honored for his river friendly farm.
STEVE KOGER / THE PALLADIUM-ITEM
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Bringing it to the Table: The Harvest Edition
No-till farm offers conservation success story By PAM THARP For The Palladium-Item
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CONOMY — Harvest usually brings field work to an end, but Mike Craig and his sons will plant another crop when their time in the combine is finished. Craig and sons Dustin and David expect to plant cover crops on about 100 acres of farmland this fall, a practice they began seven years ago to save soil on their rugged Wayne County farm. The family farms about 900 acres in eastern Indiana in a three-year rotation of corn, soybeans and wheat. Their rolling farmland with two creeks and a beef cattle herd could be a prescription for soil erosion and water pollution, but the acreage owned by Mike and Eileen Craig is instead a conservation success story. The Craigs’ conservation efforts have earned them local and state awards. Mike Craig was named a River Friendly Farmer in 2009 by the Indiana MORE ABOUT Department of Agriculture, and NO-TILL FARMING a 2008 Conservation Farmer » Wayne County has been a leader of the Year, one of five in the in no-tilling, with 55 percent of the state. He was Wayne County’s corn and 89 percent of the soybeans Conservation Farmer of the planted in the county using that Year in 2007 and received the method this year. 2008 Wayne County Goodyear » Only 14 percent of the Conservation Award. county’s corn crop was planted “You have to protect the conventionally, with the rest mulchsoil,” Mike Craig said. “I didn’t tilled or planted with reduced want to send all of it down the tillage. Mississippi River.” » The county ranked ninth in the Craig, 54, started no-tilling state for the 29,000 acres of corn his Dalton Township farm 22 that were no-tilled in 2009, the most years ago, when the planting recent year for which statewide method had more critics than statistics are available. supporters. » As the result of reduced-tillage Influenced by Wayne practices on Wayne County’s corn County’s pioneer no-tiller Dale and soybean acres, an estimated Kirtley, a self-described “no-till 4 tons of soil per acre are saved nut,” Craig said he first used thanks to the small number of a no-till planter owned by the conventionally-tilled acres. Wayne County Soil and Water » Because fewer trips across fields Conservation District. are required by no- or reduced“It was kind of an interesting tillage, Wayne County farmers are transition,” Craig said. “Dale estimated to save 272,600 gallons of was the first to try it, then diesel fuel this year. more did it. Things progressed Source: Wayne County Soil and Water and the equipment got better. It Conservation District. really knocked the inputs’ costs down and it’s made the soil more fertile. The organic matter has gone up and it helps hold moisture. The soil is just a better place to grow a crop.” The family’s commitment to conservation is significant, especially because much of the work required was labor-intensive, Wayne County Soil and Water Conservation District technician Raquel Baker said. Craig has enrolled more than 13 acres of productive farmland in the Conservation Reserve Program filter strip program and has a classified forest on his farm, Baker said. Those projects required a lot of fence building to keep cattle out of the creeks and woods. “While federal programs have provided some financial and technical assistance with a portion of this work, it is the Craigs’ vision and desire to make their farm environment productive and healthy that has truly inspired their conservation efforts,” Baker said. “Countless hours have been spent building fence to implement their intensive grazing management plan. Undesirable shrubs and trees have been cleared and areas overseeded to improve pasture quality.” The farm now is very different than it was when he was growing up there, said Craig, who bought the property from his parents. The land has been in his family about 60 years, he said. “I was taught the woods was just wastelands,” Craig said. “We have 58 acres that are a classified forest, which helps as a tax break. We have a lot of little trees. I won’t see the benefits as much as my kids and grandkids will, but the woods is coming back to life.” The Craigs use a paddock grazing system, moving their cattle from one paddock to another so the land isn’t overgrazed. To keep the cattle out of the creeks, Craig received federal Environmental Quality Incentives Program funding to develop a spring for livestock watering and to help with fencing costs. Cover crops also protect the soil, a idea that university agronomists are now promoting as ECO farming, in which land always has a continuous living cover. “We plant it in the fall so we have protection from wind erosion,” Craig said of the cover crop. “The soil stays there. We don’t have brown snow everywhere. We also don’t have gullies and washouts.” The Craigs plant triticale, a hybrid of wheat and rye, a crop they cut for hay for their 110 beef cattle. While valuable, cover crops aren’t free to plant and the cost to sow them is rising, Craig said. Even so, Craig said he knows his conservation efforts have made a difference now and will in the future. “As I grew older I wanted to leave the land in better shape for the kids and grandkids,” Craig said. “You have to look at the big picture. It was the right thing to do. It’s what we had to do for the land.”
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