Agriculture Story Archives - Page 8 of 14 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Distress Grows For Ohio Valley Farmers As Trade Deals Stall

West Kentucky Farmer Barry Alexander doesn’t have an answer on when the Trump administration will reach a trade deal with China, now a year into tariffs that have hamstrung some Ohio Valley industries.

Alexander is optimistic these continued negotiations will be worth it, but his plan in the meantime lies in massive, silver storage bins on Cundiff Farms, the 13,000-acre operation he manages.

He pulls a lever, and out tumbles a downpour of pale yellow soybeans.

“These beans have been in here since Halloween day,” Alexander said. “The large bin on the right, that’s 350,000 bushels. The next-size bins down, that’s 180,000 bushels. To give reference, a thousand bushels is one semi-truck load.”

He’s been trying to hold onto about half of his soybean and corn bushels, waiting to see if he can sell for a better price before he’s forced to start planting again in early April.

Crop prices have crashed partly because of Chinese tariffs, and the losses have put a strain on some farmers he knows.

Massive, steel storage bins, half-full with grain, on Cundiff Farms in west Kentucky.

“There are farmers that have decided to retire because they didn’t want to work through these things now. We’re to that point,” Alexander said.

Alexander said he’s survived in part because his sprawling farm has resources to work with: eight full-time employees, two new $550,000 combines he traded up for, and the storage bins to help ride out bad crop prices.

“Our large structures are not cheap, but financially for our farming operation, they’re a necessity for us to do what we do,” Alexander said.

Farmers like Alexander are coping with losses from tariffs and a continuing trade war, and it’s not clear when it will end. A March 1 deadline for negotiations with China was delayed indefinitely by President Trump, and an agreement with Mexico and Canada that Trump signed in November has yet to be ratified by Congress. The retaliatory tariffs on U.S. crops and dairy remain, compounding problems caused by overproduction and low crop prices, and small farmers are suffering the most.

Barry Alexander, a lifelong west Kentucky farmer, in his small office.

Size Matters

“If you look at all the large farmers, these guys have the storage facilities to wait out bad prices,” Kent State University-Tuscarawas Agribusiness Professor Sankalp Sharma said. “For a lot of these small guys…they couldn’t actually store their commodity, they still had to deal with those lower prices.”

Sharma and others argue grain prices have been low for five years because farmers are overproducing, and tariffs are only making the situation worse.

“The United States soybean harvest this year in general was just crazy. There was a bumper crop, and prices were down because of that,” Sharma said. “This was just your classic demand and supply situation.”

Both Ohio and Kentucky set records for soybean harvests in 2018: 289 million bushels and 103 million bushels, respectively. This is up significantly compared to two decades ago, when Ohio harvested 162 million bushels and Kentucky harvested a little over 24 million bushels in 1999.

Farmers are also becoming more efficient than ever before — Ohio set records in 2018 for most corn and soybean bushels produced per acre.

Oversupply problems haven’t been limited to grains, though. Small dairy farmers are also dealing with excess supply and tariffs, with hundreds of cases of extra milk being dumped at Ohio Valley food banks.

Farms At Risk

Greg Gibson’s operation is small, but his family has made it work for decades. He milks 80 cows at his dairy farm in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia, and he took over the operation in 2002. The past year of tariffs hasn’t been easy.

“Everything’s down. Historically, if milk price is down you can sell some corn or you could sell some replacement animals are something,” Gibson said. “But nothing has a lot of value to sell right now, so it’s really hard to generate any additional revenue. And a lot of that is because of the trade problems we’re having.”

Like many Ohio Valley farmers, Gibson is receiving payments from the $12 billion in federal relief from the Market Facilitation Program intended to to help those who suffer losses from tariffs.

Small farms are squeezed by the dairy crisis.

Gibson appreciates Trump’s efforts to renegotiate trade deals, and like Alexander, is cautiously hopeful about the prospects of new trade deals.

But he said he’s also disappointed in Trump because the payments are not nearly enough to recoup his losses. He says milk’s price has plummeted nearly a dollar per hundred pounds of milk sold and the payments only reimburse 12 cents of that.

“I would have rather him said ‘I got to do this. You’re going to take the hit. Sorry.’ Don’t promise me you’re going to take care of me and then don’t,” Gibson said.

Some commodity associations including the National Corn Growers Association and the National Milk Producers Federation have called on the Trump administration in past months to bolster what they call lackluster relief payments.

Gibson’s squeezed budget has had him extend paying off his farm loans and put off paying several repair bills. He’s also had to put up his 150-year-old family farm as collateral for his loans.

Farm lenders say Gibson’s situation isn’t unique right now. Senior Vice President of Agricultural Lending Mark Barker helps oversee lending for Farm Credit Mid-America, which serves most of Ohio and Kentucky.

“Are we doing things differently? Well, sure,” Barker said. “Because we have customers coming in now and telling us ‘I’m struggling at this point. I’m challenged.’”

Barker said while most people are making their loan payments right now, the rapidly increasing amount of debt farmers are taking on to deal with depressed prices is concerning, especially for smaller operations.

“It seems like the larger producers, you think about their equipment and everything else, they’ve got some added advantages,” Barker said. “It doesn’t mean the smaller producer is necessarily ‘out,’ but I do think they got more challenges in this current environment.”

U.S. Department of Agriculture economists predict nationwide farm debt will reach $263.7 billion in 2019, levels of debt not seen since the 1980s farm crisis, when thousands of farm families defaulted on their loans amidst a trade embargo with the Soviet Union and high loan interest rates.

New Farmers

Tom McConnell leads the Small Farm Center at West Virginia University’s Extension Service and tries to help small farms succeed, in a state that has the highest proportion of small farms in the nation. He’s lived through the 1980s farm crisis and saw many dairy and beef farmers lose their farms.

He said one solution for small farmers to withstand these depressed prices is to switch to crops that bring a higher value, like vegetables. But those can be more labor-intensive, and the transition can be difficult.

“If you’ve been in a family that has milked cows or grown row crops for three generations, and I suggest you grow three acres of sweet corn and five acres of snap beans, there will be some resistance to that,” McConnell said.

McConnell said it might take a new generation to redefine what a successful small farmer business model can look like.

One of those younger small farmers is Joseph Monroe, who moved from Indiana to central Kentucky to raise beef cattle and grow tomatoes and greens. Monroe believes a way forward for smaller farms is to find ways to work together to sell products and have a greater market impact.

“I think there needs to be some pioneers and some examples out there of how to draw up a contract to work together,” Monroe said. “I think we need to throw all the darts and see what hits.”

Ohio Valley Farmers, Electric Cooperatives Push Back On Trump’s Budget Cut Proposals

West Kentucky Soybean Farmer Jed Clark, like many Ohio Valley farmers, is in a tighter financial situation because tariffs from the trade war and market forces have depressed crop prices.

“We’ve had a collapse in our grain markets,” Clark said. “We’re seeing some of the lowest commodity prices for wheat we’ve seen in a long time.”

The Trump administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2020 would cut U.S. Department of Agriculture funding by 15 percent. That includes a proposal to reduce the amount of subsidies farmers receive to afford crop insurance, which can cost thousands of dollars depending on the crop. Farmers would have to pay for 52 percent of their crop insurance instead of 38 percent.

“Taking that subsidy away and having a ten percent increase [in insurance cost] over quite a few acres has to be quite a bit of money,” Clark said. “Anytime we start increasing and putting more burden on the family farms to do this, it hurts the family farms.”

USDA data show farmers in Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia in 2018 received more than $240 million dollars total in crop insurance subsidies.

University of Kentucky Department of Agricultural Economics Dean Barry Barnett said the cut in crop insurance subsidies is surprising to him given Trump’s vocal support for farmers, but it isn’t anything new.

“This really isn’t a partisan thing,” Barnett said. “It’s really been more of a situation where administrations have been proposing these budget cuts for several years now, and Congressional appropriators have refused to go along with those proposed cuts.”

Trump proposed crop insurance subsidy cuts in his 2019 budget proposal, and President Barack Obama proposed similar cuts in 2016.

Also earmarked for elimination is the Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant Program, also known as REDLG. The program gives up to $300,000 grants to local utility companies that then use the funding to give loans to rural businesses and communities to help them expand.

Loan recipients then pay back the low-interest loans to the utility, which the utility can then use to give out more loans, what’s known as a “revolving loan fund.”

Midwest Electric Cooperative CEO Matt Berry in northwest Ohio said they’ve received three grants from REDLG over the past 20 years worth $750,000 dollars.

He said the money has helped jump-start businesses including a local brewery, an ice cream shop and a company that makes standing desks. He estimates more than 300 jobs have been created from funded projects and that the program is a “no-brainer.”

“I hope it’s just a lack of understanding on the administration’s part because they may be just looking at the initial cost and not the full impact of the program,” Berry said. “It’s a huge benefit.”

Berry said because this is just a proposal, he hopes Congress will reject the elimination later this year.

Trump Doubles Down On Trade War As Farmers Feel Pain From Tariffs

As President Donald Trump addressed farmers at a national conference Monday Ohio Valley agriculture leaders said they are standing by his effort to renegotiate trade deals. But some leaders cautioned that costly tariffs on farm products need to end soon.

President Trump doubled down on his fight for better trade deals during his speech to American Farm Bureau Federation members at their convention in New Orleans.

“We’re turning all of that around with fair trade deals that put American farmers, ranchers and in fact put America first,” Trump said.

Farm Bureau leaders said the organization is behind the president but expressed concern that continued tariffs on American farmers are taking a toll.

“If we had our way, we’d get a great resolution, and we’d have it tomorrow,” Ohio Farm Bureau spokesman Joe Cornely said. “So we’re reminding the administration that we need these problems resolved as quickly as possible.”

U.S. soybean exports to China normally bring in $14 billion a year but have plunged because of the tariffs. Trump administration officials plan to continue negotiations with China in early February.

Soybean farmer Jacob Goodman watches prices for his crop drop.

American Soybean Association President Davie Stephens, a Kentucky farmer, said soybean farmers also want a quick resolution to the trade dispute. But Stephens says the situation has also helped Ohio Valley farmers realize they were too invested in China.

“It’s opened up soybean farmers’ eyes and farmers’ eyes in general,” he said. “We put all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak.”

Stephens said he hopes for a trade agreement before the Trump administration’s deadline in March when tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods increase from 10 percent to 25 percent.

W.Va. National Guard Invests More than $5 Million to Grow Apple Trees on a Mine Site

Can apples grow on an abandoned mine site? That’s a question the West Virginia National Guard is spending more than $5 million to find out.

West Virginia was given $30 million in 2016 to invest in economic development projects across the state. The money came from the 2015 omnibus federal spending bill passed by Congress. There was a catch, though—groups would have to build their projects on former Abandoned Mine Land sites.

The idea was partly to spur new jobs in coal country, but also to speed up reclamation of mine sites. Some of the funding went to develop industrial parks, and $5.3 million went to agricultural projects, includuing an apple orchard project in Nicholas County.

Apples on Abandoned Mine Sites

Sergeant Major Darrel Sears, with the West Virginia National Guard (WVNG), manages the project on an abandoned mine site in Muddlety, in Nicholas County.

Behind an electric fence, rows of young apple trees are growing over a hillside.

Young apple trees that were planted several years ago on the West Virginia National Guard’s apple orchard in Nicholas County

“Some of it needs a little bit of help in lime and fertilizer and balance for the pH, but honestly almost every soil in West Virginia does,” he said.

Sears said the majority of this property can be used to grow fruit trees. These 3,000 trees are expected to live about 30 years. They aren’t producing many apples yet, they’re only two years old. They’re also tiny, a type of dwarf apple tree that will need to be trellised.

The project is growing different varieties of apples, most of which are Golden Delicious, a variety of apple that was developed in West Virginia. They’re sweet, and Sears said that makes them great for more than just eating—the project has also attracted a major private investor, a producer of apple juice and apple cider vinegar.

“So, we already have a potential partner to develop further but it hasn’t been anything official,” he said. “If they don’t come somebody else will.”

If that type of private investment pans out, this orchard could eventually provide about 400 jobs, and $1.5 million in tax revenue for the state, according to an economic impact study West Virginia University conducted.

Sears and nine other employees work at this orchard now. By the end of next year, he said they’ll have planted 250,000 trees on this site.

Questions Abound

Not everyone is convinced this plan is the best scenario. West Virginia Department of Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt said he’d love to see the National Guard’s project succeed, but he has questions about their approach.

“Why did they choose juicing apples, when juicing apples are the lowest value of an apple that there is out there?” he said. “Why aren’t we going after table apples, and a processing plant to where we can cut them up to the sizes that our youth need in our schools?”

Newly planted apple rootstock at the orchard site in Muddlety, W.Va.

Using some of the apples for eating is still part of the WVNG’s plan, but they’re hoping that by bringing in a larger company, the project will have more long-term investment beyond the current grant cycle, which ends next year.

Another question Commissioner Leonhardt has is why is the National Guard investing in agriculture? Major General James A Hoyer, the man in charge of the WVNG, said their job is not only to deal with natural disasters, but also to help find ways to solve economic and environmental challenges.

He said that includes looking beyond coal for ways to use the land that’s been left behind by years of mining.

“I think our role, from a guard perspective, is to take that property and turn it into something for West Virginia’s future,” he said.

If the Soil Fits

But is a mine site really a suitable place to grow an apple orchard?

“It all depends on the kind of soil you’ve got and its productivity potential,” said Jeff Skousen, a professor of soil science at West Virginia University, and an expert in reclamation of mine sites. He estimates that there are about 500,000 to 600,000 acres of abandoned mine land sites in West Virginia.

Some have been reclaimed. Others have not.

“And I would guess that probably a fourth of that area might be suitable for farming,” said Skousen.

Most of this abandoned mine land is still owned by mine companies or private landowners, but it could be developed into a post mining industry, like growing apples, if the soil is free of contaminants, and if there are enough nutrients to support farming. Skousen helped the WVNG select the site for their Nicholas County orchard, and he tested the soil.

“These soils aren’t toxic; there’s nothing wrong with them,” he said. “They’re just fairly course … they don’t hold as much water and hold as many nutrients.”

Skousen advised the WVNG to add some potting soil to the dirt to give more nutrients and to help break up the tough clay. He said he’s hopeful the trees will continue to thrive and produce, but it will be a few more years till they’ll know for sure if they were successful.

Clay County Failure

An earlier apple tree project the WVNG was involved in was not successful. That site is located in Clay County, right along the Nicholas County line. Most, if not all, of the thousands of apple trees there have died. The ground appears dry, and there are pieces of coal shale in the dirt, nestled up against the dead trees.

Previous site of apple tree project in Clay County

This project was headed up by a non-profit called the Central Appalachia Empowerment Zone, and the West Virginia National Guard helped plant all the trees in 2015.

Hoyer with the WVNG said in the case of the Clay County project, the soil soil quality was adequate, rather the project lacked resources to manage the orchard after the trees were planted.

“The follow up on those trees is not like the follow up in the orchard that we have at Muddlety,” he said.

According to the state Department of Environmental Protection, the site where these apples were planted was mined by Greendale Coal, which had its permits revoked in the late ’80s. The DEP said reclamation was later done on the soil, but there is an issue with acid mine drainage.

It’s not exactly clear if any of these environmental issues had anything to do with why the apple trees died. Connie Lupartus, executive director the Central Appalachia Empowerment Zone, said she was told by the DEP that the site would be appropriate to grow apples, and they did grow initially. Lupartus said they only received a little more than $20,000 for this pilot project, and if she had to do it over again, she would make sure she has workers in place to care for the trees once they were growing.

Jeff Skousen, the WVU soil scientist, said that, generally speaking, if the reclamation on a mine site wasn’t completed, then it’s probably not the ideal location to grow apple trees.

“So we do have to be careful about sites like that,” he added.

For multiple reasons, Skousen said, the second orchard location in Muddlety is probably better suited for growing apples. That site was last mined in 1969, and though there is still some reclamation needed on the property, he’s hopeful that the soil and water quality will be able to support an orchard.

Bringing in Outside Perspective

The challenges in the first pilot project in Clay County did help the WVNG realize they needed some help.

They consulted with some fruit researchers at the Appalachia Fruit Research station in Kerneysville, West Virginia.

The reserachers are working with the WVNG to help find the apple varieties that grow the best on the Muddlety site. They’re also helping them grow some other fruit on this site.

“In our stone fruits we have a trait we call super sweet nectarines and peaches that have tremendous flavor profiles,” said Chris Dardirck, a molecular biologist with the Appalachia Fruit Research Station.

They’re also working on finding a way to help the WVNG grow pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, and even a kiwi variety that was developed specifically for West Virginia.

Time Will Tell

Back up at the Muddlety site, Sergeant Sears said, in a generation from now, apples and other fruit trees could be one of the things covering these hillsides. He added he does think this project will be more successful than the Clay County project.

“And as far as them doing better here there than over there, it’s just a matter of testing to see,” Sears said. “I mean, you don’t know until you get them going, but they appear at this point [to be] doing quite well here.”

He said in about four years, we’ll know for sure. That’s when the 250,000 trees they are planting for this pilot project are expected to start producing apples.

Reining In Abuse: Lax Laws On Animal Welfare Affect Pets And People

Suzanna Johnson is an education officer with the Heart of Phoenix Equine Rescue in Camner, Kentucky. Johnson is looking after a pregnant horse she rescued recently.

“Be good,” she instructs the mare, named CC, and pats her belly.

CC is an elderly horse that has been pregnant for 18 of her 21 years. Now she is chowing down on grass, recovering from what Johnson described as her previous owner’s negligent care. Before CC was rescued her teeth were in such poor condition she could not chew and digest her food, leaving her in state of starvation.

“You know some counties define good horse care as, the horse has food and water,” Johnson explained. “West Virginia defines it as the horse has what it needs to stay healthy.”

Johnson said that was an important distinction for CC.

“In CC’s case, yes she had food and water, but it wasn’t food that she could make use of because her teeth were in too bad of shape and the food was not appropriate for her age.”

Each year the Animal Legal Defense Fund ranks states on the quality of animal welfare legislation. Ohio is in the middle of the pack, ranking 27th, and West Virginia is among the nation’s best, ranking 7th. For the last 11 years Kentucky has ranked last.

“Kentucky animal welfare laws are horrible,” Johnson said, adding that what she’s seen during her work with the Heart of Phoenix in the Ohio Valley fits with the fund’s rankings.

“The difference between West Virginia and Kentucky and Ohio is that West Virginia animal control officers and legal authorities have a lot more control over their cases than they do in Kentucky and Ohio,” she said.

CC the horse before and after her rescue. The top image shows the horse’s malnourished condition.

According to the National Link Coalition, which brings together experts in domestic violence and abuse prevention, animal abuse issues can have broader implications. The Coalition reports that families under investigation for child abuse are highly likely to also have an incidence of animal abuse in the household.

Animal rights advocates say that the Ohio Valley’s varying laws on the treatment of animals can make it more difficult to identify those who abuse them, putting both pets and people at risk.

“Unintended Consequences”

Veterinarians say Kentucky is the only state that prohibits them from reporting animal abuse to law enforcement. Kentucky Veterinary Medical Association’s Jim Weber said that ban came about as an accident.

Often veterinarians will have sensitive information about people in their records along with information about animals. For instance, Weber said, if a client has a health condition that could affect the animal’s treatment or mode of therapy, that may be recorded in the veterinary file.

“In domestic cases of course we have the client’s address, name and phone number listed and there have been instances where ex-spouses would try and find out where they were living through veterinarian records,” Weber said.

Reported domestic abuse cases sparked the group to seek the stronger privacy protections.

“We sponsored legislation that would make the records confidential,” Weber said. “Unfortunately, it was a case of unintended consequences, where we failed to have an exemption being able to report animal abuse.”

Weber said his group has tried for almost 10 years to change the statute to allow for reporting of animal abuse.

“The only two ways that a veterinarian can provide information about a patient or a client is by a court order or by consent of the owner of the animal,” he said.

Weber said groups like the Kentucky Farm Bureau have prevented the legislation from making it to the floor for a vote.

Kentucky Farm Bureau First Vice President Eddie Melton said in an email that “no segment of society has more concern for the well-being of livestock than the producer.”

Melton did not explain why the Farm Bureau would oppose efforts to remove the statute that prohibits veterinarians from reporting animal abuse.

In a March, 2017, report the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting found that in the Farm Bureau’s legislative report from 2016 the bureau stated that it had “worked with members of the General Assembly” to fight repeal of the provision.

Abuse Connections

Animal welfare officials said the inability to report criminal abuse on animals could have more far reaching effects.

“Animal abuse and domestic violence and child abuse go hand in hand,” according to Ozzie Gibson, President of the Kentucky Animal Control Advisory Board. He said the connection between the offenses is strong.

“They’ll start on the animal then they work their way to the kid, then the wife, or vice versa,” he said.

That’s why the FBI began tracking animal abuse cases in 2016. But Kentucky’s ban hinders the FBI’s ability to track those incidents.

“Increased participation in the collection of animal cruelty offenses will allow the FBI UCR [Uniform Crime Reporting] Program to provide additional information and trends on a national level,” FBI Spokesperson Steve Fischer said in an emailed statement. He said the FBI crime reporting system requires, at a minimum, five years of data until trends can be established.

Ozzie Gibson said it’s an area that needs attention.

“There’s going to be a class taught with Louisville Metro police officers next year in conjunction with our animal control officers on what to look for,” Gibson said.

Horse Sense

A lack of funding and absence of state regulation leave many animal control offices without resources to train officers on important indicators of neglect or abuse. Gibson said free online training videos should be available later this year for the first time for Kentucky officers through the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

This is where nonprofit groups such as Heart of Phoenix would also like to help by offering free horse care training to officers throughout the Ohio Valley.

“Just over a year ago I was thrown into becoming the humane officer for my county as well as the director of animal control,” Elizabeth Keough said. She is now Director of Animal Control in Harrison County, West Virginia. “I had never learned anything about horses or livestock because we didn’t deal with them as animal control.”

Keough was first introduced to the animal rescue when she was tasked with finding new homes for 30 abused horses. She said one of the most beneficial skills offered through her training with Heart of Phoenix was being taught how to recognize abuse.

“Horses are a little different because there are more factors that go into why a horse is skinny,” she said. “You know mostly with a dog, it is because they aren’t being fed or they have parasites.”

But with horses, neglect or abuse could take other forms, such as moldy hay, inappropriate feeding, or bad teeth.

“So understanding all of those factors has really helped me perform my job better,” she said.

CC and her foal, both healthy in their new home.

CC’s Recovery

Suzanna Johnson said if Kentucky and Ohio would support training accreditation like West Virginia has then animals like CC would have a better chance at recovery.

Johnson said that she remembered that when the veterinarian first saw CC in her neglected condition, she said it would “be a miracle if she and this baby live through the birth.”

Since our interview with Johnson, she was happy to report that CC gave birth to a healthy foal, named Suzy Q. Both have been adopted and found news homes.

West Virginia Gets Grant to Train Veterans in Agriculture

West Virginia has been awarded a $400,000 federal grant to provide agriculture training for military veterans.

The state Department of Agriculture says in a news release the grant from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs aims to improve veterans’ health.

The statement says the Hershel “Woody” Williams VA Medical Center in Huntington will train participants to pursue agricultural vocations while addressing their behavioral and mental health needs.

Department of Agriculture staff will provide production, business and market planning for the program.

West Virginia Veterans and Warriors to Agriculture program coordinator James McCormick says he wants the state to take the lead on agricultural initiatives for veterans.