Am I Sustainable Yet?

January 2007
©John Phipps 2007

The best I can discover, my mother’s family began their connection with our farm in 1854. So, we’re talking 150+ years and counting. Another way of putting this is: Abraham Smith, Shepherd B. Smith, William Monroe Smith, Hallie Smith Jennings, Mary Louise Jennings Phipps, and ta-dah – John Phipps. I tend to favor this dating method.

Now add in the fact, that according to every objective measure I can afford, the soil – the physical dirt on which I stand – is in better shape than when I began my career. Phosphorus and potassium levels are higher, organic matter has almost doubled, and the few erosion problems I had (water drains toward our farm, not away) are at least partially mitigated. Yield charts are pointed in the right direction, our wells test clean, and the tilth of the soil (admittedly hard to measure) is better with the drainage we continually add.

I think I’m sustainable. Really.  I think we can keep this act going for a few more decades at a minimum. But since I have already freely confessed to being an industrial farmer, it turns out I am disqualified from claiming sustainability.

So what are the criteria?  Funny you should ask, because like “natural” and “organic” this definition is illusive. One source offers this standard: “Sustainability rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Note the use of the words “rests on” rather than “is”.  One way to insure that sustainability is reserved for the right people is to embed as many subjective qualities as possible in the definition. “Sustainable agriculture integrates three main goals--environmental health, economic profitability, and social and economic equity.” Guess who will judge the “social equity” part of the competition.

Factoring in external costs (pollution, erosion, etc.) should be the function of the market, and if adopted, would further many goals for sustainable ag proponents. An oil tax would be an example. However, my prediction is even with such constraints, industrial agriculture would find a solution, since change is what we do best.

Sustainability often is code for “self-contained”. Sustainable ag proponents are drawn to the idea of minimal non-local inputs. Using fertilizer from vast deposits in Morocco, for example violates this concept of the closed circle of production, even though employing such assets when they otherwise would yield zero return seems to be a win-win decision.

Sustainable agriculture relies upon animals to complete many of the “closed-circuits” of nutrient cycles. Strangely, this is not seen as technology, even though it is arguably unnatural: man alters animal lives to his purpose, i.e. domestication. Similarly the use of lime for pH control is countenanced likely because it is ubiquitous and hence “local”. I wonder if a farm with a potash deposit could apply it and still be sustainable.

In fact, sustainability is another maxim by which agrarian thought closes itself to the world. However, if I define my community as the globe, I am not using any “outside” inputs. Given the increased linkage of the global economy, is this an unreasonable enlargement of “community”? Perhaps, but when viewed from this perspective, industrial agriculture not only is sustainable, it is expandable.

Local sustainability also requires a stable economy and political structure to allow it to flourish. The infrastructure built in part by industrial agriculture allows pockets of sustainable agriculture to thrive undisturbed. You don’t see many Amish communities in Afghanistan, for instance. In fairness, a world of only sustainable agriculture would likely have less need for courts and roads and banks.

Sustainable agriculture also seems content, even obsessed with limiting production.  The underlying theme is of land being fragile and easily overburdened by modern technological methods, again with little data to verify this assertion. As yields climb, it is fair to ask, “Where are the signs of exhaustion?”

Sustainable agriculture also employs much more labor. Farmers who see a future of computers and machines are drawn to the job security of this alternative. Sustainability refers then to their lifestyle, not their farm.

Sustainable agriculture is not, in my view, about sustainability or agriculture. It is about trying to recover some perceived lost status for people who think lives are devalued by participating in an enormous economy. By drawing a tight circle around me and mine, and adopting pharisaical rules of correct practice, sustainable agriculture proponents try to ensure the moral spotlight shines only on them. 

March 2015

It’s time for better endings

No effort has been spared as ag media worked to educate farmers about estate planning. However, this worthwhile effort glosses over the key event in the “transition” process: somebody dies.

Like most Americans, farmers don’t talk much about dying. So while our affairs may be in calculated readiness, the actual process we face is studiously ignored until thrust upon us. One result, as noted in my book review in this issue, is we often lose control of important aspects of our lives during the final days. In short, we have too many bad endings.

The issues raised by Dr. Gawande are often intensified for farm families. Distance is the greatest difficulty. Caregivers are often far and few. Their duties and authority, if not well understood, can frustrate the best-intentioned efforts. Newer services, such as modern hospice programs will be harder to obtain and more expensive. Far from support services, the cost of dying can escalate rapidly. Time in transit consumes the waning time of the patient and taxes the caregiver.

As rural communities depopulate and age, the social network that has added so much to final times is incomplete or missing altogether – church families, fraternal organizations, recreational groups, etc. Support ministries like funeral dinners are quietly switched to professionals, unavoidably altering the traditions of passing.

Our willful ignorance of the art of dying, as it was called for centuries, leaves us with little guidance and unrealistic expectations. But we can do more to make final days the best they can be.

One pervasive fear is leaving our homes, but we do little to prepare for our decline, often to avoid acknowledging the inevitable. Downstairs bedrooms and easy-access facilities can’t be added at the last second. Accommodations for live-in caregivers should be a consideration.

Simple efforts to embrace alternative connections can minimize anger at seeming abandonment. Master simple Facebook skills, switch to a Kindle for a fingertip library, and start e-mailing friends for important social contact. Smartphones allow grandchildren to text and send photos.  Avoiding non-stop TV seems to be an important step to prevent unhappiness.

Difficult discussions about your hopes and fears are imperative. Unworkable expectations of support can add resentment and guilt to an already troubled time. Caregivers must take time to ask the right questions, such as “What do you fear most?” and “What tradeoffs are you prepared to make?” in order to manage an inherently aggressive medical system. Most of all, we must listen patiently to the dying to learn what they think is important, which is often not safety or added lifespan.

Farm families have another struggle, as amid grief and worry, oncoming generations may be anxious about the farm business. Many estate plans crumble during a lengthy final illness like Alzheimer’s. Those who have created a plan for the cost of such an outcome need to understand the underlying assumptions. For example, Medicaid currently pays nearly 2/3 of US long-term care costs. Gaming Medicaid, now common to protect farm assets, won’t help much if the program is a casualty of ideological warfare.

Avoid a managerial limbo during a protracted decline toward death. Inability to deal with unexpected business possibilities can mean lost opportunities or aggravated problems while the management is “on hold”. Tensions between financial custodians, health caregivers and distant family can add suspicion to grief – a bitter mixture. An unhelpful effort to unreasonably prolong life can transfer too much authority from loved ones to physicians, attorneys, and accountants, while neglecting the possibilities for a more positive ending.

As Baby Boomers die in larger numbers, our support system will be taxed across the nation. In rural America, as we have learned on so many issues, unless we take responsibility to build a better response to dying, most helpful programs will be diluted or unfeasible. Absent better end-of-life education and realistic planning, the default will be too often an unhappy, exhausting descent into a medical establishment that struggles to say when.

The Reports That Time Forgot

Top Producer February 2004

© 2004 John Phipps

There are no stupid questions. There are, however, several clueless people asking questions – who pretty much generate a similar product. One of them would be I.
Sample Clueless Question: Why do crop reports come out on the 10th of the month? It seems like they have been stuck on this time frame for ages. The truth is that they have – ever since Adam first asked Cain how the wheat crop was doing, presumably. In fact, I was told by a senior NASS (National Agricultural Statistics Services) official that reports were required to be out between the 8th and the 12th, but some research showed later that the former date was not binding.
Hence the answer to why crop reports come out on the 10th (approximately) is: Because They Always Have.
Crop reports are time-sensitive material. The sooner the report comes out the more accurate and hence valuable it is. Traders and producers already “fade” crop reports for crucial months based on weather between the 1st and the 10th, for example. So I asked two NASS statisticians if it was possible to process the crop reports faster. The answer, unsurprisingly, was an unequivocal “No”.
Poised on the brink of some vigorous bureaucrat-bashing, I can’t find it in my heart to jump in. First of all, the question is unfair. If your landowner asks if you could pay more cash rent, would you say yes? Any answer other than no is trouble. The reason is equally clear: not changing is better for me. Besides, crop report customers have essentially given up hope.
Brokers that I spoke to were surprised at the idea, even while agreeing that more timely reports would be terrific. The concept of any improvement in the reports seemed startlingly novel.
Regardless, the sincere NASS professionals I spoke with were convinced that their operation was at maximum output. Eerie, isn’t it, that prescient legislators were able to foretell decades ago that a 2003 crop report would take 10 days to produce?

To be fair, I reasoned, maybe the reports are not getting faster, but better – more accurate. Except they haven’t. University of Illinois researchers couldn’t find much evidence on that score. 
The sadly unavoidable conclusion is that NASS is as good as it can be. More inconceivably, it has always been. Somehow their output has gotten no better after several decades (or worse, to be sure). By definition, therefore, NASS has zero productivity growth. Strangely, the budget has expanded, however. Net effect: same product, higher price.
Measuring productivity in government is a radical idea. Recently the Illinois state auditors announced plans to measure the productivity of university professors. Academia was aghast. For good reason, I suspect.
Come on, improving a government service is not impossible. Consider the FSA. Farmers, profoundly concerned about how fast government funds get squirted into their accounts, call their Congressperson to share these anxieties. Not coincidentally, despite concerns about staffing and budget, the FSA continues to improve productivity.
Mostly I take exception to the attitude that government has some note from Mom excusing them from the march of progress. All over the world information system (IS) managers just as industrious as those at NASS explain to clients that current deadlines and quality are as good as they can be. And every day they are told to make it better and faster or “we’ll find someone who can”. Unsurprisingly, deadlines move up and quality increases.
Perhaps an analysis by a top-tier IS consultant like Bearing Point or IBM would illuminate ways NASS could improve at least their speed. In fact, they might just leave an outsourcing proposal on the desk. NASS is not the only number-cruncher in town. Information security concerns have been solved by the Department of Defense. If our nuclear weapons can be built by contractors, why not a crop report?
An outside review might also point out that the 1st of the month isn’t on the back of the Ten Commandments either. Timing crop reports to match crop development – like an Aug 15th bean report would be a step forward in accuracy.

NASS does an obviously acceptable job. The question is: can somebody else do better? I believe that the individuals I spoke to and their colleagues are diligent professionals. I am nonetheless concerned that the entire agency has lost contact with real world standards of IS – mainly that the output should get better, faster, and deliver more value to the customer.
Of course, it would be helpful if these customers (the grain industry) cared enough to ask clueless questions, too. 

The Proximity Premium

Top Producer 2006

Looking at the list of influences shaping the grain farming industry it is hard to find a common thread: rising costs, increasing yields, cheaper technology, labor shortages, expensive [large] machinery, diminishing crop choices, “flatter” grain origination (fewer steps between grower and user), investor ownership of increasingly costly land, and transparent competition. Individual producers, nonetheless, are discovering one workable strategy to handle these disparate challenges.
That strategy is proximity – farming close. While the evidence of this game plan is anecdotal, as all early indicators are, it is widespread and resonates with our instinctive impulses.
The proximity premise is “duh!” obvious – farming close yields a profit boost. (I told you it was a no-brainer). But what has not been precisely measured is how much of a boost, especially compared to far-flung operations. When operating profits were wider, there was less point in the careful allocation of costs to document this seemingly slim difference, but the Brave New World of extremely low margins has exposed some vulnerabilities in widespread farming.
Most of us can identify the factors, but few of us anticipated the value of the synergy between them:
• Higher on-station time: A 6-row combine sitting at the end of the field is as productive as a 12-row machine sitting at the end of the field. The same principle applies to a combine in transit. Or a planter. Proximity makes intensive operation of undersized equipment possible, especially with autosteer and enhanced machine lifetimes. (Hint: compare your engine/separator hour-ratio with your buddies) Running with fewer people works too. The proximity premium is real money, not just convenience.
• Cash rent adjustments: Often large operators could lease ground simply because management skills such as the politics of different rents for different landowners stymied local operators. Survivors have learned. One result I have seen recently and Mike Walsten in Landowner Newsletter has noted is nearby operators are often setting the rental market.
• Elbow room: Putting a 24-row planter in 42 acre field is an exercise in end-rows and unfolding. Large mobile operators are eyeing smaller or isolated fields more critically after a few years of data. Tack that 42 A. onto the next-door neighbor and it looks like part of a 200 acre high- efficiency tract. That proximity premium may have an actual value of $15- 20/A in my experience. As locals switch to cash rent, pull out fencelines, and experience some big-field benefits, they are more prepared to bid for the field next door.
• Home-town heroes (a.k.a. the devils you know): Sufficient examples have accumulated with out-of-the-community operators that some landowners at least are reconsidering priorities. While the rents still must be

competitive, we many have learned the sad way it makes church potluck

dinners more amiable when you rent locally.

• Harvest pressure: As local elevators close, farmers are building bins just
  to keep the harvest going. While the “romance of the road” seemed like a glamorous profit center when the semi craze began 15 years ago, we’ve discovered that you can’t own enough trucks to keep an AFX or 9760 running full blast unless you are hauling locally – preferably about 3⁄4 mile. This means building bins, and we soon discover: 1) Big – really big – bins are better, unless your hauler loves to move the 13” auger twice a day. 2) Paying for one 800-amp entrance is bad enough, but it’s better than 4 sites with 200 amp entrances 3) Centralized storage encourages well- built, for-the-long-run layouts with high efficiencies rather than whatever works for a day. All this implies centralized acres.
  
• Now add in a sharply up-trending yield curve thanks to biotech. If getting 200 bu/A. away from a combine is challenge, what about 240? 300? Where ya gonna haul?
  
• The best neighbor in the world: yourself. Need to fix the tile, avoid spray overlap, or hate other semis blocking the road? The common answer is to rent/own the land next to you. While we have always known this, we are starting to monetize these headaches and fold them into our bids.
  Proximity has always been an obvious, idealistic situation that took generations to accomplish – a long time for American attention spans. Behold the upside of cash rent. After despising it for years, those who master its management are discovering a tool that can help them speed nearby growth.
  

Moreover, I believe that such operations are the “seed crystals” from which will grow America’s answer to the cerrados of Brazil and steppes of Ukraine.