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