Tell me about Nebraskans (Omaha, Lincoln: home, neighborhood, swimming)

[SCGranny]

Yup, I 've seen a lot of the brain drain here already, and it makes me very sad. The problem is that the schools that I've seen in NE really DO educate children. Coming from a state who's unofficial motto was "Thank God for Mississippi!" because those two states consistently vied for last place in education in the 50 states, I can see the vast difference in knowledge between the graduates of NE and graduates of many other states. One of my new friends here just sent her son off to Nebraska U; his mom wants him to be a lawyer but his dad wants him to be a rancher. So one night he and I were talking and I told him he could be both - there is nothing wrong with owning a ranch and a law practice, and he'd have a far more intimate understanding of land use and other rural legal problems, and he could help his neighbors while doing what he loved.

The thing is that a lot of folks in NE don't realize that 'bringing in business' isn't as easy as it used to be; most manufacturing jobs are overseas, and service industry jobs only go so far. Encouraging kids to use their inclinations other than ranching to open their own businesses to take advantage of a changing economy is key, IMHO. Meanwhile, we have to keep the Angus and corn and hay ranches flourishing - because we have the best 'breadbasket' in the world here, and overunning it with developments and Wal Marts and 'retirement leisure facilities' will not only cheapen the lifestyle, but could actually, seriously harm the country and the world's food production. Washington DC may not realize it, but the sooner our kids do, the better off they will be - and the better chance they will have of benefiting from the economy on a permanent basis.

IMHO. Off my soapbox now.

[stan in san diego]

I saw on "20-20" last nite that generous subsidies to farmers are what is keeping many small NE towns alive. That's sad. It's welfare, pure and simple. I've always wondered why the Scottsbluff area doesn't grow more. It's beautiful out there. I also think the Omaha/Lincoln metro area is terrific but it's competing with the Twin Cities/Chicago/KC and Denver...tough sledding.

[tpabes]

SCGranny, you brought up another aspect of the "brain drain." It is really really hard for someone to get into farming and ranching unless they have an in. The cost is just too much to get land, cattle, machinery, seed, etc. So for a youth that may be tetering between ag and another career, it is probably a much easier path to go for the other career.

[SCGranny]

Stan; you can call it welfare if you want, but the American government insists that Americans pay less for food - no matter how much the cost of producing that food goes up. Other places in the world pay 55%-65% of their total monthly income for their food bill; Americans, not so much. This is why the "Roundup ready" seeds have been so popular - higher yield with less weeds; or even the bio-engineered seed that makes crops resistant to bugs and fungal infestations, as well as makes the produce last longer. As tpabes says, the cost of tractors, land, fuel, cattle, etc, keeps going up - but the food prices in NO way compensate for those rises. So is it any wonder so many places have started up those 'chicken farms' where chickens are packed in wing to wing, losing the use of their feet and being fed tons of hormones for growth and antibiotics against diseases - all of which we ingest later? Or feedlots where they do the same thing; hog farms, etc? We are eating more than any other country - but the quality of the food is dropping because of government subsidies to keep your prices at the supermarket low. If anyoe is getting Welfare, it is the folks at the supermarket - because they don't want to know what or how much went into that nice cut of beef or that plastic wrapped chicken or brightly shining fruits and vegies on a tray - they want it to be cheap. Couple that with all of the imported foods (over which the FDA, stressed and understaffed to begin with) has NO control over, and it is a recipe ripe for disaster - much bigger than past e coli, mad cow, bird flu, or any other potentially widespread effects on our food supply. For a small farmer to try to keep up with all of the requirements is impossible; for a large rancher or farmer, a little easier - but not much. I'm not yelling, I just don't think from your comments that you understand all of what happens in our food supply.

tpabes, you are right - and keeping those that are already in is hard enough without struggling to attract more. But since we have lost most of the industry in this country to overseas concerns, providing the world's food is going to have to become a priority... call it Welfare or subsidies or whatever you want, but if we don't do something soon, we will not only see the collapse of the fiscal stablity of the midwest and west, but the collapse of our food supply as well. I think NE, IA, ID, MN, and even IL and IN need to start realizing that small-employment service industry jobs will NOT save us nor our children - but providing the food for the world, IF it is not heavily altered, poisoned, and overprocessed, WILL.

Again, MHO. "I seen the elephant", and he ain't pretty - he is dangerous and huge and hungry, and will crush us all if we let him.

PS I'm saying this today as I am making green-tomato pickle relish from what my neighbor salvaged from her garden before the frost!

[stan in san diego]

The story said that rich farmers are getting most of the money rather than smaller farmers. And that most crops don't get subsidies. They mentioned that corn and rice do. I don't know about wheat and soybeans, etc. They also said that many are still getting paid not to grow crops. I thought the show seemed a little one sided but don't have time to dig up any more facts.

[SCGranny]

Well, sure, stan, it is lopsided and makes no sense - it's the Federal Government!

The farm I used to work on in OH was part of a co-op that put their harvests together, took them to the East Coast, put them on a ship, and took them out into international waters - then turned around. This qualified their products (then, mainly soybeans and corn) as "imported grain" and they could sell them for more profit.

Want to know how the FedGov is lying to you now? Companies 'going green' and producing more jobs in the 'green' sector? Say I'm a NE corn and cattle rancher and you're a company that produces a lot of filth in the environment - fuel consumption, whatever. Say, oh, tpabes is a private go-between, a brokerage of green credits. You pay money to tpabes to increase your 'green credits'. Tpabes sends someone out to my ranch, and sees how many acres I have where I do things that protect my environment - like crop rotation, or no-till farming. He gives me your money for being ecologically responsible - and you get 'green credits' so that you can appear on the books as ecologically responsible! Practically impossible for a small farmer to get in on all of that; but that is an example of how the large ranches stay in business; buy more calves, more feed, more seed, more equipment. From my point of view, it is beneficial, from Tpabes (and his employees') point of view, it is profitable, and from your point of view, you have those desperately needed green credits that you paid for. But does it actually DO anything to pay me to do something that I am already doing because it is practical and preserves my land for future crops and cattle? These are the 'green jobs' you have been promised in election year rhetoric... but all they do is pass money around, and don't really accomplish anything.

My point is that Nebraska (and all other) large ranchers take advantage of this - because they have to take advantage of every subsidy from fences to farming, or they would go under at the prices they get for their production. Do you know those Angus steaks at the high end grocery stores - the ones that sell for $8 and $9 a pound? Do you know how much you can buy an Angus steer for, fresh off the ranch, before it is loaded into a truck, shipped off to a feed lot, then butchered and loaded again onto trucks to be shipped all over the country? It is all of the middlemen getting the money, not the "rich" ranchers. Big ranchers have to sell for quantity to make any profit at all. Not all ranchers are Ted Turner, (cough hack ptui) 'gentlemen farmers' ripping off the government with their unsold and subsidized from birth beefalo cattle. What no one notices is that there are small ranchers getting subsidies too; especially if they grow organically according to their purchasing corporations like Whole Foods, etc. If you don't brand or tag your cattle, or if you have chickens that aren't crammed into those long metal canyon-buildings of production and fed those hormones and antibiotics, buyers will pay you to keep your animals stress-free, so that they can advertise them like that on the shelves in their markets (and charge far more than you would pay at WalMart's meat counter). The prices that you pay at Whole Foods more accurately reflect what prices for food should be, all across the board. But since large ranchers and farmers produce for bulk sales, not taste and health, they have to adjust their production accordingly.

So what does all of that say about Nebraska ranchers and farmers? That they are not dirt farmers just digging in the dirt hoping for a payday, or cowboys whoopin and hollerin on the prairie on branding day. They have to be educated in production levels, in cost effectiveness, in projection levels, in breed quality, in feed vs weight gain, in soil management and production - they HAVE to be intelligent, educated, and resourceful, and know their math, agriculture, and biology to the nth degree. They have to stay on top of and be aware of the constantly changing rules and markets. They have to watch the weather - not just locally, but globally - to be aware of changing climates and what other countries are producing or are able to produce and when. The production of mass quantities of anything is never simple - the production of foodstuffs based on the capriciousness of Mother Nature is intricate and involved. They even have to be aware of predators like coyotes, land destroyers such as gophers, and invasive and inedible growths like leafy spurge, and be able to eliminate these destructive elements without dancing across environmental geeks' demands and insinuations or damaging their own crops and animals.

Thus I have a lot of respect for the Nebraska ranchers and farmers. I've seen their 16-hour-a-day work weeks. I've listened to them talk about things that 'city folk' have no concepton of - the difficulties of producing mass quantities of foodstuffs, living animals and plants, that can be killed too early or ruined just at harvest by things as remote as a Gulf Coast hurricane that sweeps into the continent and slams into a cold front coming thru from Colorado. It is a life in a constant state of adjustment, of balance, of perspective; something that folks who spend their working lives in a cubicle, or their evenings on the streets of a city trying to decide how to spend their entertainment budget, simply cannot understand.

[stan in san diego]

SCGranny,
You're argument isn't with me, it's with 20-20 and John Stossel. I am FOR Nebraska's farmers and ranchers. Remember, I grew up in NE. I love especially the Sandhills. When I needed to go back in August, I wanted to drive so I could take Hwy 2 from Lincoln, eventually ending up in Scottsbluff. I have fond memories from my youth of places like Hyannis, etc.

I AGREE that it's lopsided. There are some, who shouldn't be getting anything and others, who desperately need some and more.

[SCGranny]

Ah, stan, I wasn't arguing, but explaining, and not just to you but to other folks who might not understand... But it did come across like that, and for that I am sorry.

[aerahrtlu]

SCGranny,
Wow, being a "city" girl, I never knew. There have been times that I wish I would have grown up on a farm so I could understand everything that goes on.
I just had NO idea.
Thanks for explaining all that. It really makes someone think.

[SCGranny]

No prob, aerahrtlu!

I have always been, wherever I've lived, what they call a 'hobby farmer', growing my own vegies, even chickens and eggs, mostly for myself but sometimes with extra to sell, or even to give away when I have too much too fast! I am in no way close to the big ranchers and farmers with thousands of acres of mass production. Some new to the business think of land as somethng to be used up, and don't understand or want to learn about the constant renewal and building of the soil to keep it fertile and productive. Others think that they would like to own the property and 'have cows' or 'grow stuff'. I have a three year plan for the development of my small acreage that involves a greenhouse, large produce garden, large chicken yard and coop, and finally, miniature Dexter cows - for their high butterfat (I have made my own cheese and butter in the past) and their ability to forage on less. Also because it is just DH and me, Dexters are easier to handle than the Charolais or other large cattle. But all of that planning can be wiped out by a late freeze that kills my fresh plants and my calf or calves, or an infestation of grasshoppers. Imagine what it does to those who have thousands of acres in production.

As individuals with other resources, we can work a job or go off the land - a rancher with a thousand acres or more in production can only recover as best he can by cutting back or selling off cattle or his working horses, or pieces of his land at bargain-basement prices, sell out completely and quit, or have his property sold out from under him in a bank sale. It is a delicate balance for them. The fact that they still have a great sense of humor, still show off their skills at rodeos (all of the 'fun' things you see at rodeo have practical applications, man-against-the-elements-or-animals), and are kind and helpful to each other, is simply amazing. Most folks I've known, faced with daily physical labor, sudden downturns in their profits, and constant educational requirements, get tense or angry or resentful, fearful of their future. Or they simply quit. There is no quit in these folks. I hope that you admire them as much as I!