AP Photo

     Here is a perfectly natural chicken. No added salt. No added water. Cut off its head and its feet, tear off its feathers and rip its guts out, then cover its corpse with ice, and it's still considered "natural" although, of course, altered. If you sell or package it from the ice, it's still a natural bird. And if you add salt, water, tenderizers, preservatives and other additives, up to 15 percent of the final weight? Still a natural chicken, according to current USDA standards. Some consumer groups and poultry industry insiders would like to change the rules. Perdue, for example, is part of a group called the Truthful Labeling Coalition, which is calling for chicken with additives to be labeled "chicken with additives." Perdue doesn't use additives. Pilgrim's Pride and Tyson Foods do. They think the current labeling system is just fine. Juliana Barbassa, an AP writer reporting in the San Francisco Chronicle, looked into the matter. You can read her story here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/07/30/financial/f001949D92.DTL

Penn State photo by Maryann Frazier

     Honeybees are in decline. Still. Frustratingly so. Penn State, a world leader in the study of honeybee colony collapse disorder, hosted the first international conference on pollinator biology, health and policy the other week. Bee experts from as far away as Kenya, Israel and Brazil attended the three-day conference in State College, and they were all abuzz about CCD. Problem is, nobody really understands it, and the more scientists look into it, the more puzzles they uncover. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres sat in on the conference and prepared a report for our current edition. You can check it out at our website, LancasterFarming.com.

     And here's some more about bees:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/sweeter-deal-beekeeping-goes-green/xz0t3uw1

     Fish guts, kelp and rotten wood could help put a little more green in Alaskans' diet. While our far North cousins have got plenty of open space, trees, wildlife and - well, you-know-who - one thing they haven't got is good dirt. The kind you can grow broccoli in. Or spinach. Or, preferably, potatoes. 
Why potatoes? "They're the only thing a moose won't eat," Jodie Anderson told Dan Joling, an AP writer who wrote a report published yesterday about a USDA grant program designed to help Alaskans cope with their anemic soils. Realistically, Anderson said, Alaska is never going to be self-sufficient in anything but mooseburgers. The green, leafy stuff has to be flown in and it's brutally expensive. The cold and the short growing season are challenges enough, but the soils are just as much of an issue. Anderson, pictured here in one of her test plots, is a community horticulture director for the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, and is helping to direct the USDA's $48,500 grant money to five experienced rural gardeners who will use locally available resources, like waste from salmon processing, to build up the indigineous soils. You can read about the effort here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100728/ap_on_bi_ge/us_food_and_farm_alaska_soil 

Wayne Newcomb, a cannery regular,
puts up a supply of tomato juice

     Community canneries - as many as 5,000 of them - grew out of America's response to the World War Two Victory Gardens program. But as Swanson's, Campbell's, et al replaced home-grown with store-bought, the canneries closed. But they never went away entirely. The New London Community Cannery in Forest, Virginia, is still thriving, doing a brisk, non-profit business and even upgrading its facilities. Just last year, for example, they installed new cappers. The cannery held an open house the other week, and Lancaster Farming Virginia correspondent Jennifer Merritt stopped in for a tour. She prepared a report which will be in our Saturday edition, or you'll be able to get an advance peek Friday afternoon with a visit to our website at lancasterfarming.com.


They couldn't have planned that, could they? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKlucE-5nIM

    You just never know who's going to show up in Times Square. One minute it's a California potato farmer named Brian Kirschenmann, the next minute it's The King himself. Kirschenmann was in New York City to man the Lay's Mobile Farm trailer, a 10'x70' by 14'-high trailer celebrating the farmers who grow potatoes for Lay's potato chips. Kirschenmann is the fifth generation of his family to grow potatoes, and probably the only family member to actually meet Elvis, who looks like he maybe ought to switch to broccoli for awhile. The Lay's trailer is on a six-city coast-to-coast tour that began in New York City on Monday, and ends in Dallas on August 24. Lay's has created a series of commercials featuring Kirschenmann and five other farmers. They are third-, fourth- and fifth-generation potato growers who have been selling potatoes to Lay's for decades. The mobile farm trailer is part of that promotion. The farmers in the spots are the same guys who'll be manning the trailer. They are really nice guys. They tell their stories about growing food to the people who actually eat the food. Who else tells that story these days? Next time you're at the store, pick up a bag of Lay's potato chips. Eat a few. Just not the whole bag. If you want to see Kirschenmann ad, it's here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa7jH6kxLTc You'll find the other guys there, too.


     You can't stop change. Change is inevitable. But you can cope with it. That was the message long-time dairy farm consultant Robert Milligan (left) gave to a group of dairy industry professionals earlier this month at a meeting in Lancaster County. Dairymen in the throes of a losing battle with plummeting milk prices and soaring input costs go through the same kind of grief cycle that accompanies other major life changes, like divorce and death. Stages in the cycle, from outbursts of anger, agonizing heartbreak, and outright denial before acceptance settles in. Milligan told the people who work with farmers that the better they understand the grieving process, the better they'll be able to help their clients get through it, get to acceptance. Lancaster Farming special sections editor Charlene Shupp-Espenshade attended the meeting and prepared a report for our current edition. You can also read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/3082


     Goats are on the El Dorado payroll. Cheaper than lawnmowers tougher on weeds, and they bring their own brand of fertilizer. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/goats-help-nm-town-go-green/1d0jw6x48

     Cultivating bamboo is a little bit like cultivating dandelion. According to David Carter, a bamboo farmer from Brazoria County, Texas, people are afraid to plant bamboo because it can take over your garden, then your neighborhood, then the whole world, to which Carter replies, "So What?" Lisa Gray, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle, visited Carter to find out what makes him tick, and discovered that he loves bamboo in all its species and varieties, its different heights and colors and leaves. And he loves the way it sounds in the wind.  Carter also grows vegetables at the Utility Research Garden - that's what he calls his business - but he mostly grows bamboo. He sells plants to landscapers and homeowners, and sells shoots at farmers markets. He likes bamboo's monocarpic philosophy. It lives. It blooms. It dies. That's a heroic way to live, according to Carter. It's what we should all do. Lisa Gray's story is here: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/arts/gray/7120598.html  The Utility Research Garden website is here: http://utilityresearchgarden.com/

     "Organic No-Till" sounds like an oxymoron, but the folks at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pa., are trying to make it work. Instead of pesticides to control weeds between no-till crops, Rodale's researchers are using winter cover crops, then rolling them as corn, soybeans, wheat or oats are planted. Each organic plot is compared to a no-till plot using conventional herbicides to control weeds. Lancaster Farming staff writer Chris Torres was on hand for the institute's annual field day on July 16. Organic no-till is a tough challenge, and in Rodale's studies, has yet to beat conventional no-till methods. But the folks at Rodale are nothing if not persevering. One of their organic-vs.-conventional trials has been going on for 28 years, and it looks like they'll be testing no-till methods for the long haul. You can read the story here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/3081


     Watch a baboon make a monkey out of a lion cub. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/baboons-outwit-lion-cubs-during-hunt/26kx8216

     How do you make salami? I found this description http://www.meatingplace.com/MembersOnly/technology/details.aspx?item=14454 of the salami manufacturing process totally absorbing. Salami has fat, nitrites, salt and sugar and probably shouldn't be in anybody's daily diet, but I'm a salami lover. The photo used to illustrate this article looks to me like it could be Lebanon bologna. While Lebanon bologna is technically a sausage rather than a salami, it shares a lot of similarities with salami, according to a Wikipedia description http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon_bologna While most people eat Lebanon bologna in a sandwich straight from the fridge, the Wikipedia article says it can also be fried. I knew that. I thought I was the only person who did it.


     "Where the nose goes, so goes the steer." Ron Gill, a seasoned and well-travelled cattle handler delivered that simple truth to a group of Pennsylvanians during the Pennsylvania Cattlemen Field Day earlier this month at the Masonic Village beef farm in Elizabethtown, Lancaster County. Dr. Ron Gill is a professor and extension livestock specialist at Texas A&M, and has visited 38 states to demonstrate his techniques. Lancaster Farming correspondent Sue Bowman was one of the 100 or so onlookers who watched as Gill, in 90-degree heat and wearing a microhone, gently moved a group of 10 American Shorthorn and Maine Anjou cattle to where he wanted them to move. The field day story is in our current edition, or you can check it out online here http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/3080 And for a 10 minute video of Gill in action, check this out on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gycWs6q1GBw


     A story about a car thief. I could bearly believe it. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/big-bear-steals-teens-parked-car/6fayfr0

     So now we're going to fight about bactrian and dromedary, instead of Jerseys, Guernseys, Holsteins, et al. That is, if a couple of Californians have their camel milk dreams fulfilled. Gil and Nancy Riegler own the nation's largest camel dairy near San Diego, and they'd love to sell you a gallon of their favorite drink, except that it's illegal. And they'd have to charge you $40 to $60 a liter, which is right around $200 a gallon. Sue Manning, an Associated Press reporter writing in the Los Angeles Times, tells us that the FDA may eventually develop a test to establish the safety of camel's milk - which, if it weren't safe, would there be any baby camels running around? - but until that day they'll have to be content with selling camel's milk soap. The Rieglers say that drinking camel's milk will give you everything but a 48-inch vertical leap, it's that nutritious, but the producers of milk from cows, goats, and even water buffalo (which got the FDA's nod in 2003) have nothing to worry about. A lactating camel produces only about a gallon of milk a day and it comes in 90-second spurts so you've got to be quick about it. And anyway, how many lactating camels do you know? And would you want to try hooking a milking machine up to a camel? If you're undecided, you might want to check out the LATimes report here: http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-us-food-and-farm-camel-dairy,0,2970136.story

     Lavender rescued George and Patti Lyons from a year-'round hectic lifestyle that had them growing vegtables and herbs, with the help of 20 employees, for sale to nearby restaurants. They had a nice business, but it was draining them. Ten years ago they switched to growing lavender on one of their five acres. Now they work hard at tending their 3,000 plants and making soaps, lotions, bath products and other lavender goodies. They also sell live plants, dried plants and parts of plants. But they have only three part-time employees, and count January and February as downtime. Anne Harnish, Lancaster Farming food and family features editor, visited the Lyonses at their Bucks County farm/home/business and prepared a report for our current edition. Or you can read it here http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/3072



     Can't ever get enough watermelon! Been there. Haven't exactly done that.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZPcJ15Z6pY&NR=1

     The city of Maywood, California, fired everyone last month. The police. The crossing guards. Everybody at city hall. The street guys. The city planners. Everybody. Gone. Wiped out the payroll. On July 1, just a few hours after Maywood's paid employees hit the bricks, the husband of Mayor Ana Rosa Rizo got a parking ticket. Ms Rizo was delighted. It meant that law enforcement in the neighboring city of Bell was doing the work it had been contracted to do by the city before the layoffs went into effect. By outsourcing municipal services to neighboring jurisdictions and private contractors - many of whom had been on the Maywood payroll - the mayor and other elected officials figure they'll save millions every year. Consternation among the citizenry seems to have given way to mostly positive reactions, according to a story in yesterday's New York Times. The move was a tough sell in Maywood, but Maywood seems to be rolling in tough. Four years ago, a deputy city clerk tried to hire a hit man to kill a city councilman. The clerk was sentenced to a year in jail and six months of anger management counseling. Could your local government amputate its payroll, save tons of cash and still keep everybody happy? Probably not. But it's something to think about. The story from the Times is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/business/20maywood.html?ref=business

     What makes a small farm successful? Nobody knows for sure, but a survey of small farmers in New York hopes to come up with some answers. Erica Frenay who, with Craig Modisher, is a small farmer herself, is the coordinator of New York's Beginning Farmer's Project. There's a definite lack of training and mentoring, according to Frenay. She and Modisher discovered that when, with little practical experience, they decided to start a pastured poultry business in Caroline, New York. The six-page survey she's overseeing has gone out to farmers in 11 Northeastern states. So far, just 110 of the surveys have been filled out and returned, but she hopes to have 400 by the fall. Lancaster Farming reporter Chris Torres did a story about the survey for our current issue. You can read it here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/node/3067


     Love watermelon! Been there! Haven't exactly done that!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZPcJ15Z6pY&NR=1

     When I read that Al Gore had invented biochar - it was in a recent edition of USA Today - I had a deja-vu-all-over-again flashback to the January 18, 1975, edition of Lancaster Farming. In the USA Today piece, a West Virginia chicken farmer is interviewed about his new practice of turning his birds' manure into biochar in an oxygen-limited incinerator. The process produces the carbon-rich, odorless biochar which is an excellent soil amendment. Josh Frye, the farmer, said he has sold $1,000 worth of biochar to farmers as far away as New Jersey, and commented that the chicken poop could someday be worth more than the chickens.  That's when the deja-vu-slap-on-the-head thing kicked in. In that 35-year-old Lancaster Farming piece (I was the editor then) I wrote a front page article about a couple of dairying brothers from Berks County, Pa. They had bought a franchise from a guy in Tennessee giving them the Pennsylvania rights to the sale of deodorized liquid cow manure. They, along with farmers in 40 other states were selling the stuff for $2.89 a gallon at a time when their milk checks were based on milk at $9 a hundredweight. Part of their long-range plan was to buy manure from neighboring farmers, put it into tanker ships and send it to the arid Middle East to make the desert bloom. One brother predicted that their cows' manure would soon be worth more than their milk. I assume that venture never took off. You can read the 1975 story here:  http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/Default/Skins/lancasterfarming/Client.asp?skin=lancasterfarming&AW=1279567758726&AppName=2
and the USA Today piece is here: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2010-02-10-cheap-carbon_N.htm  And, hey, isn't it nice to know that Al Gore - unless I misread that newspaper piece - is still on the job?

     Ag colleges are selling their cows, but hoping to continue dairy science research. It's the economy. The University of Vermont, for example, plans to sell its entire 255-cow herd, but will continue its research projects on farms with an even greater number of cows and often more modern equipment. The farmers would benefit from annual payments of $20,000 per farm, according to an AP story in the current edition of Lancaster Farming. You can read the story on our website, which is here: http://www.lancasterfarming.com/ 


     Maybe we can all learn something from city folks. How tape can solve your problems with left-over champagne, traveling jewelry and those brutal high heels.  http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/fix-anything-with-tape/61nklke

     No beaches have been closed because of an ethanol spill, is one of the ethanol industry's newest talking points. Even before the BP disaster, Growth Energy, an ethanol lobbying group, had launched a TV campaign touting "America's Sensible Fuel," a fuel that promotes peace, is economical, home-produced and renewable. It sounds, and is, too good to be true. Less efficient than gasoline, more corrosive to today's engines, a significant factor in higher food prices, and a production and distribution infrastructure that depends on government subsidies, all  make ethanol less than a miracle fuel. Washington's policymakers agree that biofuels will be part of our country's energy future, but they generally agree that we will have to move away from corn ethanol, according to a recent story in The Economist. You can read that report here http://www.economist.com/node/16492491?story_id=16492491

     Here's a fish that can belch and walk on land. Five fraternities have asked him to pledge. http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/belching-african-lungfish/pqobdyc