Two Shows Worth Watching (and Discussing)

It's not often that we get two thought-provoking documentaries on agriculture and farming in the same week, but PBS is serving up a couple of conversation starters, beginning tonight.

"King Corn," a film looking at the corn's central role in American agriculture and food production, makes its television debut in just a few hours on the Emmy award-winning series Independent Lens, PBS's showcase for independent films. Not all PBS stations will be airing the show today, however, and many will be repeating it as well, so be sure to check your local listings for air times. You still might be able to catch it.

Here in the Washington area, Independent Lens will also be re-broadcasting "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" later this week, a 2006 film that follows an Illinois farmer, John Peterson, as he tries to transform his family farm in a way that is at odds with his community. Hopefully, this film too will crop up where you're at in the coming months, so keep checking those local listings.

If PBS lets you down, or you'd just rather watch on your own timetable, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John" is already available on DVD, and "King Corn" will be released later this month.

I haven't seen either film yet, so I'm very interested in seeing what they're about. And, of course, I'd love to hear your take on things. Once you've watched either or both, come back and let us know what you thought. I'm sure our community of readers can get a good discussion going.

Posted by Mary Ann Leonard

Added to Biography and Food and Nutrition and Organic Production and Plants and Crops on April 15, 2008 EST | Permalink

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Duck...Duck...Goose

Next week, mixed in with the last of their holiday cards and the first bills of 2008, farmers and ranchers across the U.S. will be getting their packets for the 2007 Census of Agriculture. The folks at USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service are dropping them in the mail today.

NASS conducts the survey every five years to count the nation’s farms and ranches and the people who operate them. Census questions cover land use and ownership, operator characteristics, production practices, crop yields, livestock count, and machinery used, along with income, expenditures and other topics.

Maybe this is where that old game "Duck, Duck, Goose" got its start -- farmers counting their animals for the annual ag census. Okay, I admit that's not likely, but you do have to report your poultry numbers on the survey, so there actually might be folks mumbling that very phrase to themselves as they walk through barnyards across the country this January.

But lest you think the ag census is equally silly, let me assure you that the reponses provide vital information that factors into a range of decisions, from crafting agricultural policy like the farm bill, to making funds and services available to rural communities. Businesses might use the information to determine the locations of facilities serving agricultural producers, while the farmers and ranchers themselves can use census data to make informed decisions about the future of their own operations. (More ducks, perhaps? Or maybe more geese? Hmmm, let me run around in a circle while I think about it.)

So, when that envelope arrives next week from the government, don't just toss it into recycling. Open it. Look it over. Fill it out. Or grab your Census ID from the mailing and click your way to the online response version.

After all, filling out the ag census is not only a good idea, it's the law (Title 7, U.S. Code), regardless of the size or type of your operation. Fortunately, the same law makes your responses confidential and limits their use to statistical purposes, so no worries that your survey will be passed along to the IRS or your local inspectors.

Instead, think about getting yourself counted so that decision-makers know you're out there. If nothing else, it'll be a great way to spend a cold January evening, right? Right? Um, right?

Census reports are due February 4, 2008.

Posted by Mary Ann Leonard

Added to Animals and Farm Bill and Marketing and Trade and Organic Production and Plants and Crops and Rural Life on December 28, 2007 EST | Permalink

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Starting Right with Turkeys

Turkey raising offers a most interesting project. It will fascinate your friends who visit you. You will be envied by them, especially as Thanksgiving approaches and you have no worries about having a tasty bird for this feast. The project will offer diversions from the anxieties of office work or business. It can be excellent training for a boy or girl, particularly in 4-H Club work, or any kind of a home project.

Thus opined G. T. Klein in his 1947 publication Starting Right with Turkeys, a product of his days working as an Extension Poultry Husbandman at the Massachusetts State College, Amherst.

The book, a no-nonsense manual on raising turkeys, tackles the practical details of a do-it-yourself backyard turkey project from a time when such a thing was more feasible than most city ordinances make it today. (Though urban chickens are gaining ground, so maybe the pendulum will swing back for turkeys as well.)

Klein's work joins over 1,800 other books and journals in Cornell Library's collection of the Core Historical Literature of Agriculture. The materials there track the evolution of farming, agriculture and rural life through the 19th and 20th centuries, providing a deep look into a social, economic and industrial phenomenon.

But more than that, this early literature records information about sustainable agricultural methods that is still relevant today. It is, in large part (pre-1942, that is), farming without pesticides and chemical fertilizers using techniques that, by their nature, are more "organic," more geared toward ecological balance (even if that contemporary principle wasn't in the forefront back then).

The Library's Alternative Farming Systems Information Center has pulled together a similar collection specifically on organic agriculture called Organic Agriculture Information Access (aka Organic Roots). This budding database contains almost 200 historic USDA publications from before 1942, clearly making what was old new again.

So over this holiday weekend, in between the eating, sleeping and shopping, explore the history of the agricultural field of your liking. You might be surprised by what you find -- a new hobby, new methods or just a way to fascinate your friends (even if the tasty bird you're eating didn't grow up in your own backyard).

Posted by Mary Ann Leonard

Added to Animals and History of Agriculture and Organic Production on November 21, 2007 EST | Permalink

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This blog does not represent official communications from the National Agricultural Library, the Agricultural Research Service or the U.S. Department of Agriculture.