Sunday, April 30, 2017

The USA has lost it's dignity. The only real respect it receives is due to it's military might. No war is going to bring about the end of the climate crisis.

American agriculture historically has feed the world. An ever growing global population is complicated by a climate crisis that causes shrinking farm lands. The saddest example of this reality is Syria. The stress caused by drought forcing farmers to abandon their land is considered the one single reason for the civil war. Yet, no one is addressing the need to correct Syria's suffering landscape. When war breaks out it is about killing, not about what has gone wrong.

Water is a vital commodity in the year 2017 and getting more and more important was drought robs reservoirs, lakes and streams of water. Realizing agriculture can contribute to waters that are not healthy is important. Agriculture has to address it's use of chemicals and containment of those chemicals from water resources used for animal and human consumption. Economies have to protect from pollutants.

Methane is a more dense GHG when it comes to heating Earth. It is 25 more dense than CO2.  That means for every percent of GHG emitted it is causing 25 times more heating. So, while methane is considered to be ONLY 9 percent at it's lowest estimate of all GHG, it doesn't mean it can be given a pass. 

Of all the GHGs methane is probably one of the most difficult to control when it comes from agriculture. That fact means commercial emissions have to be controlled. The source methods of commercial methane is known and can be controlled. It is just that the petroleum industry has no will to do it. The petroleum industry is one of the most crudest industries on Earth with absolutely no will to contain it's environmental pollution. Methane must be contained. It is dangerous to human life through it's explosive nature as well as it's density in heating Earth.

When it comes to agricultural environmental effects, the water is as much a concern as the air.

Good night.

The USA is 117 times larger than Ireland.

The will of the people of the USA are not reflected by it's government.

September 30, 2014

...In the U.S., (click here) methane emissions come primarily from industry, natural gas and petroleum systems; and from agriculture, respiratory and digestive emissions from livestock and manure management. An important additional source is landfills. However, across the globe it’s the agricultural sector that is more decidedly the primary source of methane emissions.

Between 1990 and 2012, methane emissions in the U.S. decreased by about 11 percent because of decreased exploration of natural gas and petroleum within the country, but emissions from animal agriculture still increased....

The Republicans laugh at "preventing cow farts." Methane is a very powerful GHG. Laugh if you will.

The current thinking is that agriculture emits about 13 percent of GHG. The problem lies in the amount of increasing percentage the future will hold. There is a real drive for terrestrial meat to be included in diets everywhere, but, that means agriculture will have an ever increasing impact. Facing that fact means agricultural GHG have to be addressed.

And, yes, factory farms are a problem. It is really strange to think of the world moving in a different direction than the USA. Perhaps it is being out of touch, but, it seems to me more Americans are looking to vegetables and their products to satisfy a healthy diet. Yet, the world wants to eat meat. The reason so much movement exists in producing meat for a global diet is because the fisheries in many countries are failing. Another negative feed back loop of the climate crisis.

In today’s world (click here) there are a host of serious environmental problems, and factory farming is one of the top causes of pollution. Scientific research has found that factory farming’s method of crowding and confining animals in warehouse-like conditions before killing them and mass-producing both “meat” from cows, pigs and chickens as well as dairy and eggs poses “an unacceptable level of risk to public health and damage to the environment…” Yet, despite factory farming’s severe social and ecological costs, many governments promote this unsustainable industry to supply a growing global “meat” market that is projected to double by 2050....

...Unlike human waste, animal excrement from factory farms is not processed as sewage—making it about 500 times more concentrated than treated human waste while leaving pathogens (like Salmonella and E. coli) and volatile chemicals intact. Even so, farmers typically spray some liquidized manure onto the food being grown for animals using giant sprinkler jets, and store the rest in open-air cesspools that can be as large as several football fields and hold millions of gallons of waste. However, neither of these dispersal techniques is environmentally safe or sustainable.... 

...Various gases from animal waste are all major sources of factory farm air pollution, and particulate matter and bacterial toxins found in high concentrations at and around industrialized animal facilities have caused serious respiratory and cardiac disorders. The ammonia from waste slurry lagoons also breeds bacteria, which creates acid that evaporates and combines with nitrous oxide from fertilizers and industrial pollution to form nitric acid rain—which leaches nutrients from the soil, despoils forest habitats, and kills fish by releasing toxic minerals from the earth that flow into aquatic ecosystems. Even though agricultural fertilizer emissions are the leading cause of nitric acid rain (after motor vehicles and coal plants), they remain virtually unregulated in the U.S.

In addition, animal agriculture is responsible for more than half of humanity’s total greenhouse gas emissions (largely created by using arable land to grow food for animals, animal belching and flatulence, and chemical emanations from manure). This includes 37 percent of anthropogenic (i.e., human-made) methane, and methane gas is 23 times more potent a climate change agent than carbon dioxide. Yet, despite factory farming’s leading role in the climate change crisis, the EPA does not currently have the authority to regulate the U.S. livestock industry’s greenhouse gas emission...

Farmer organizations in Ireland seek to act responsibly.

13 April 2017
By

...Farmer reaction (click here) 

Reacting to the EPA projections, the IFA said the climate report highlights the need for urgent action on farm-scale renewables.

James Murphy, IFA renewables project chair called on Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten to urgently progress plans to introduce supports for farm-scale and community renewable projects, as emissions from transport and energy continue to spiral out of control.

“Climate gases from agriculture have reduced by 5.5% since 1990, with emissions from transport increasing by 130% over the same time period,” said Murphy. “This is not a reason for inaction in agriculture; farming can do more particularly in bioenergy and farm scale and community based renewables.”

“To achieve this, Minister Naughten must immediately put in place the long-awaited National Energy Forum to develop a coherent policy framework.

“More importantly, this must be supported with meaningful tariff supports for farm-scale and community-based energy production,” he added....

Hero to modern day organic farming.

The conservationist (click here) agricultural practices developed by George Washington Carver at the beginning of the twentieth century increased agricultural sustainability for poor African-American farmers in the U.S. Deep South. An expert in revitalizing soil, Carver worked through the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to publicize composting techniques and the importance of crop rotation , which helped combat soil depletion and pest infestation in the region's overcultivated cotton and tobacco fields.

...Formal education of blacks was not widespread, and only through his own tenacity did Carver become Iowa State's first African-American college graduate, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1894 and a master of science degree in 1896....

... In 1896, Carver took a job at the Tuskegee Institute, where he discovered how rotating alternative crops such as sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, and especially peanuts restored nitrogen to depleted soil. Carver also experimented with hybridization to increase plant resistance to common pests. To popularize his methods, Carver wrote instructional manuals, and in 1906 he founded the "moveable school" to give hands-on demonstrations to illiterate farmers. This school on wheels taught approximately 2,000 farmers per month during its first summer, and served as a model for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's extension program...

Family farms are known to be most productive with least environmental impact.

April 28, 2017
By Orlan Love

Family farms, (click here) the wellspring of many Iowans’ values, have shrunk in number and gotten larger and more complex, but, with few exceptions, they are still run by families.
'
“Yes, farms have changed. The farms are bigger and more specialized. The machinery is nicer. The yields have doubled. But they are still operated by families who want to take care of soil and water,” said Iowa Corn Promotion Board President Larry Klever, who raises corn and soybeans near Audubon.

Klever said family farmers, who operate more than 97 percent of the state’s farms, are tired of hearing that food today is produced mainly by soulless corporations and industrialized agriculture.
Family farmers reject the “Big Ag stigma” often associated with large-scale grain and livestock production, he said.

Family farmers reject the “Big Ag stigma” often associated with large-scale grain and livestock production, he said.

But modern farms “do tend to mirror the corporate model more than the old image of the family farm,” said Neil Harl, a retired Iowa State University agriculture and economics professor and longtime observer of the Iowa farm scene....

Agricultural chemical run off into bodies of water is called eutrophication.

Eutrophication (click here)

Bacteria metabolism uses the available oxygen in the water.

Agricultural chemicals as of 2012 was a $62 billion business.

Of that, it is estimated $11 billion are in genetically modified seeds. I'd be cautious of seeds classified as an agricultural chemical product.

Global fertilizer use was merely 27 million tons in 1959 and 1960; it increased five times to 141 million metric tons over the forty-year period ending in 2000. The projected fertilizer demand for the year 2020 is 220 million metric tons. Intensive fertilizer use on input-responsive cultivars grown on prime irrigated land was the basis of the green revolution in South Asia and elsewhere that saved millions from hunger and malnutrition. As the world population increases and cropland becomes more valuable, total cropland acreage is beginning to diminish, increasing the reliance on fertilizer.

Similar to fertilizer use, there has also been a rapid increase in global pesticide use. In fact, much of the success of the green revolution depended on the use of pesticides. Global pesticide use was four million tons in 1970, five million tons in 1985, and six million tons in 2001. As much as 85 percent of all pesticides are used in agriculture. The misuse of pesticides can cause severe environmental problems, especially in developing countries. It is estimated that chemical pollution in agriculture costs about $100 billion in diverse public health and environmental damage each year worldwide. The health risks are due to a lack of or inadequate occupational and other safety standards, insufficient enforcement, poor labeling, illiteracy, and insufficient knowledge about the hazards of pesticides and fertilizers.

I guarantee there were no organic or local organizations present.

April 27, 2017
By Christina Herrick

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue (click here) joined President Trump for a “Farmers Roundtable” at the White House to address issues facing the American agriculture community, as the president signed an Executive Order establishing an Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity.

The Farmers Roundtable featured more than a dozen farmers and representatives of the agriculture community who discussed with Trump and Perdue a variety of topics, including agricultural trade, regulatory reform, rural investment and infrastructure, labor issues, and the Farm Bill.

Former Chairman of the United Fresh Produce Association Board and 2013 American Vegetable Grower® magazine’s Grower Achievement Award WinnerSM Maureen Torrey with Torrey Farms of Elba, NY, participated in a roundtable discussion at the White House with President Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue regarding the policy needs of rural America and the agriculture industry....

Part of the problem with Trump Tax Reform, regardless its vagueness, is its focus on Wall Street. In the case of agriculture that is not the best idea. The American Family Farm has been the backbone of USA production for a long time and now that Americans are demanding healthier foods it is making a modest comeback. Of all people to bring back the American Family Farm are military veterans.
  
Current United Fresh Produce Association Board (click here)

Susan Reimer-Sifford 
Chairman

She is from "Darden." Darden is an enormous Wall Street organization.

Plant nutrients for soil fertility.

N (itrogen)
P (hosphorus)
K (potassium)
Ca (lcium)
Mg (magnesium)
Zn (zinc)
Cu (copper)
Mo (lybdenum)

Although it is toxic (click here) in anything other than small quantities, molybdenum is an essential element for animals and plants.
There are about 50 different enzymes used by plants and animals that contain molybdenum. One of these is nitrogenase, found in nitrogen-fixing bacteria that make nitrogen from the air available to plants. Leguminous plants have root nodules that contain these nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
 
S (ulfur)
B (oron)

I don't want to dwell on prices and who gets the money, but, agricultural products are commodities on the financial exchanges.

April 17, 2017
By Marcus Ludtke

...Technical Momentum: (click here)

When November soybean futures broke to and held the calendar year day low of $8.68 per bushel on March 2nd, there was almost an immediate momentum shift in prices. Prior to that for an extended period of time (from approximately 12/28/2015 through 3/3/2016) November soybeans had traded in a very narrow range of 25-cents per bushel ($8.89 to $8.64). This resulted in the 35, 50, and 100-day moving averages in SX6 all converging on top of each other. This in turn created the possibility for November soybean futures to close over all 3 key moving averages in one trading session if SX6 could muster just one sharply higher close. That’s exactly what happened on March 4th when November soybean futures closed up 13-cents per bushel at $8.91, triggering the soybean rally. Just 4 full trading sessions later November soybeans would add the 200-day moving average to that list of key resistance levels now penetrated. The end result was a major technical momentum shift in futures values to the upside.....
Agriculture, the deliberate raising of plants and animals to enhance and secure food production, evolved in the Near East about 10,000 years ago. It was this transition from hunting-gathering to settled agriculture that created civilization as we know it and led to a rapid increase in the human population from about five to six million at that time to six billion in 2000. Although the term agriculture literally means field cultivation, in a broader context it implies the conversion of natural to managed ecosystems in order to produce adequate and continual food supply.

The evolution of agriculture over the decades has brought with it incredible production numbers. The bushels per acre today were unheard of 100 years ago and only hoped for in the wildest of dreams 50 years ago.

The question is are we actually seeing increased incomes with farmers with increased production? 

It's Sunday Night
  
From USDA Land Values 2015 Summary, (click here) published August 2015

The United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,020 per acre for 2015, up 2.4 percent from 2014 values. Regional changes in the average value of farm real estate ranged from a 6.1 percent increase in the Southern Plains region to 0.3 percent decrease in the Corn Belt region. The highest farm real estate values were in the Corn Belt region at $6,350 per acre. The Mountain region had the lowest farm real estate value at $1,100 per acre.

One Acre = 43,560 square feet

There are 4840 square yards in an acre and 9 square feet in a square yard (4840 x 9 = 43,560).

An acre is an ancient measurement used in agriculture - it was 4 poles wide and 40 poles long. A pole is equivalent to sixteen and a half feet. So historically an acre was a strip of land 660 feet long (220 yards or one eighth of a mile) and 66 feet wide (22 yards or one eightieth of a mile).
The Farmer by "Wicked Tinkers" (click here for official website - thank you)

There was an old farmer who lived by a rock,
He sat in the meadow a waving his
fists at some boys who were down by the creek
their feet in the water, their hands on their
marbles and playthings and at half past four
there came a young lady who looked like a
lovely young maiden, she sat on the grass
she lifted her skirts and showed us her
ruffles and laces and a neat little tuck
she told us she was learning a new way to
raise up her children and teach them to knit
while the boys in the barnyard were shoveling
straw from the stables and they worked day and night
If you think this is vulgar then bless you your right

It looks like a huge water vapor whale came out of the Pacific to swallow Hawaii.

April 30, 2017
0930.18z
UNISYS water vapor GOES West satellite (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)

Hawaii is getting rain, by the way.


April 30, 2017
0930.18z
UNISYS west and north water vapor satellite (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you) 

It is a street of water vapor vortices.

April 30, 2017
By AP

Severe storms (click here) including tornadoes have swept through several small towns in East Texas, leaving a trail of overturned vehicles, mangled trees and damaged homes.

Authorities believe as many as five people were killed and dozens injured, though they were still assessing the damage from the storms that swept through an area about 50 miles east of Dallas on Saturday evening....

Sunday morning, people are busy with friends and family and no one is expecting the worst to happen.

This as while they were asleep.

April 30, 2017
0330.19z
UNISYS Water Vapor Satellite of north and east hemisphere (modified).

How many modern religions are matriarchal?

The Shi'ite faith allows a woman's lineage to it's holy scholars, Imams and other holy persons.

Hasan Minhaj unplugged. He forgot a lapel pin.

“I would say it is an honor to be here, (click here) but that would be an alternative fact. It is not. No one wanted to do this. So of course it lands in the hands of an immigrant.”
— “Don Rickles died just so you wouldn’t ask him to do this gig, alright? RIP to Don Rickles, the only Donald with skin thick enough to take a joke like that.”
— “A lot of people in the media say that Donald Trump goes golfing too much. . . which raises a very important question: Why do you care? Do you want to know what he’s not doing when he’s golfing? Being president. Let the man putt-putt!. . . The longer you keep him distracted, the longer we’re not at war with North Korea.”
— “We gotta address the elephant that’s not in the room. The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow, it is a very long flight. It’d be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can’t just make it on a Saturday! As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”
— “There was also another elephant in the room, but Donald Trump Jr. shot it and cut off its tail.”
— “Jeff Sessions couldn’t be here tonight, he was busy doing a pre-Civil War re-enactment. On his RSVP, he just wrote ‘NO.’ Just ‘no,’ which happens to be his second favorite n-word.”
— “Is Steve Bannon here? I do not see Steve Bannon. I do NOT see Steve Bannon. Not see Steve Bannon. Not-see Steve Bannon.”
— “Betsy DeVos couldn’t be here, she’s busy curating her collection of children’s tears.”
— “Fredrick Douglass isn’t here, and that’s because he’s dead. Someone please tell the president.”
— “Mike Pence wanted to be here tonight, but his wife would not let him because apparently one of you ladies is ovulating. So good job, ladies. Because of you we couldn’t hang out with Mike Pence.”
— “Even Hillary Clinton couldn’t be here tonight. I mean, she could have been here, but I think someone told her the event was in Wisconsin and Michigan.”
— “[Sean Spicer] has been doing PR since 1999. He has been doing this job for 18 years. And somehow, after 18 years, his go-to move when you ask him a tough question is denying the Holocaust. That is insane! How many people do you know that can turn a press briefing into a full-on Mel Gibson traffic stop?”
— “Donald Trump is liar-in-chief. Remember, you guys are public enemy number one. You are his biggest enemy. Journalists, ISIS, normal-length ties.”
— “It is amazing to be among the greatest journalists in the world, and yet, when we all checked into the Hilton on Friday we all got a USA Today. Every time a USA Today slides underneath my door, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Hey, you’re not that smart, right?’ USA Today is what happens when the coupon section takes over the newspaper. Is this an article about global warming or 50 cents off Tide? Either way, the pictures are so pretty!”
— “The news coming out of the White House is so stressful, I’ve been watching ‘House of Cards’ just to relax. Oh man, a congressman pushed a journalist in front of a moving train? That’s quaint!”
— “Even if you guys groan, I’ve already hired Kellyanne Conway, she’s gonna go on TV on Monday and tell everybody I killed, so it really doesn’t matter.”
— (To the press) “Remember election night? That was your Steve Harvey/Miss Universe moment.”
— “It was all fun and games with Obama, right? You were covering an adult who could speak English. And now you’re covering President Trump, so you gotta take your game to a whole new level. It’s like if a bunch of stripper cops had to solve a real-life murder.”
— “Tonight is about defending the First Amendment and the free press, and I am truly honored to be here, even though all of Hollywood pulled out now that King Joffrey is president and it feels like the Red Wedding in here.”
— “We all know this administration likes deleting history faster than Anthony Weiner when he hears footsteps.”
— “[Donald Trump] tweets at 3 a.m. sober. Who is tweeting at 3 a.m. sober? Donald Trump, because it’s 10 a.m. in Russia. Those are business hours.”
— “This has been one of the strangest events I’ve ever done in my life. I’m being honest with you. I feel like I’m a tribute in ‘The Hunger Games.’ If this goes poorly, Steve Bannon gets to eat me.”
— “Fox News is here. I’m amazed you guys even showed up. How are you here in public? It’s hard to trust you guys when you backed a man like Bill O’Reilly for years. But it finally happened. Bill O’Reilly has been fired. But then, you gave him a 25 million dollar severance package. Making it the only package he won’t force a woman to touch.”
— “I know some of you are wondering, Hasan, how do you know so much about Fox News? Well as a Muslim, I like to watch Fox News for the same reason I like to play Call of Duty. Sometimes, I like to turn my brain off and watch strangers insult my family and heritage.”
— “MSNBC is here tonight. And I’m glad you guys are here. That way if I’m bombing, Brian Williams will describe it as stunning.”
— “MSNBC. It’s hard to trust you guys when you send so many mixed messages. On the one hand you tell us the prison industrial complex is the problem, and then you air five straight hours of ‘Lockup.’ You can’t be mad at corporations profiting off of minorities in prison when you’re a corporation profiting off of minorities in prison.”
— “I had a lot more MSNBC jokes, but I don’t want to just ramble on, otherwise I might get a show on MSNBC.”
— “CNN is here, baby. You guys got some really weird trust issues with the public. I’m not going to call you fake news, but everything isn’t breaking news. You can’t go to DEFCON-1 just because Sanjay Gupta found a new moisturizer.”
— “All you guys do is stoke up conflict. Don, every time I watch your show it feels like I’m watching a reality TV show. ‘CNN Tonight’ should just be called ‘Wait a Second Now Hold On Stop Yelling At Each Other with Don Lemon.'”
— “You guys have to be more perfect now more than ever. Because you are how the president gets his news. Not from advisers, not from experts, not from intelligence agencies. You guys. So that’s why you gotta be on your A game. You gotta be twice as good. You can’t make any mistakes. Because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.”
— (Later, addressed again to the media.) “By the way, you guys aren’t really minorities, you’re super white.”
— “It’s 11 p.m. In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how badly Nikki Minaj did at this dinner. And he’ll be doing it completely sober. And that’s his right. And I’m proud that all of us are here to defend that right, even if the man in the White House never would.”