tv U.S. Farm Report ABC November 28, 2015 5:00am-6:00am CST
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and baby are doing well... of course that means while tyne is on maternity leave i'll be here doing my best to fill in. to that end, here's what we're working on for you...this thanksgiving weekend. big elections argentinean votes could have a real impact on grains prices here at home. market movement during a holiday week. "this price at 3.60, 3.70 corn is too o eap, i think it's very relative and i think it could be a lot longer at that level barring some sort of ather event." weather in the week ahead and if you're wondering whatathe weather is going to be like over the next 90 days, i'll have your winter forecast coming up snow is filling john's world.. "the first snow, it's a special thing." and celebrate the season. it's our annual harvest of thanks...tribute to america's farmers and ranchers. now for the news that moved the markets this week... the u.s. dollar
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eing volatility this week--continuing to o rce swings in commodities. the currency trading at its highest point in eight months monday before falling back. wall street is watching the fed for direction on interest rates. it's expected to make a decision in the next couple of weeks. cheers from the crowd as argentina voters elect maruricio mackree.%he's expected to devalue the currency and lift export taxes. that could bring a flood of stored grain to market. some estimates say the supply is worth roughly 8 billion dollars. ififhat happens, u.s. markets could feel the increased competition. if we do get the reduction in export taxes like macri has promised then it could really be a major changes down the road. so short term impacts to the corn market, soybean market and wheat market with potentially more supply coming from argentina botshort term and long term here. south korea is reopening its markets to u.s.
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poultry. that's according to politico. the country put up restrictions during the avian influenza outbreak earlier this year. state officials say the ban is coming off--after months of discussions between washington and seoul officials. meanwhile south korea also dealing with an outbreak of it's own. twelve cases of highly path avian flu have been reported there thisiseek alone. ag cretary tom vilsack k ys the chinese government is moving quickly to finish reviews of biotech crops. after meeting in china for bilateral talks, vilsack says the chinese are cuently 'reviewing eleven agricultural bio-tech events pending approval and they're also continuing a dialogue on access for u.s. beef.' the beef market has been closed to the u.s. since 2003. vilsack says he hopes for actiti over the next 30 t t60 days. usda rolling out the october cattle on feed numbers. the number of cattle and caes on feed climbed two percent from a year ago, coming in ten-p-pnt-eight million head. however, placements into
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feedlots last month dropping four percent--as owners either refuse or are unwilling to pay current prices. the sterling profit trackers says last week feed yards were losing an average of 542 dollars per head. and cattle moving out of the yard or marketings in october also off-down 3 percent year over year to lowest point in 19 years. the latest crop progress report indicating most of the major crops are out of the field. cotton harvest remains sluggish with only 70 percent harvested nationwide. and while 96 percent of winter wheat is in the ground some key southern states--north carolina and texas are behind their 5 year averages. 53 percent of the wheat crop is now rated good to excellent. those are the headlines...meteorologist mike hoffman joins us now with weather... and mike we're switching things up this morning-you're starting with our long range outlook? should we expect more storms like last week? crop watch ts week... thanks clinton actually i think we will but the more theikely the ststm track will show farther and farther south as we head into winter, but its kind of an interesting set up as we
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old cut off out west that always causes issues with computer models. it don't like that and its usually somethininthey have trouble with down the road. so as we put this map into motion you'll notice how it slowly as we head through monday and tuesday brinin us cut off a ttle farther east. blends it in with the main jet stream quick shot of cold air later this week in the east and then it back to a ridge with a trough underneath and this is what i think the winter situation is going set up like. a southern jet stream and aorthern jet stream and how those come together make a big difference in the forecast. so lets go througugour 90 day outlook w wll go through the first temperatures month by month. above normal temperatures for the northeast. northern tier of states and the northwest. below normal for the four corner region over towards new orleans and the far western portions of the florida pan handle. by january we'll expend that below normal area just a little bit farther east. still above normal for the northern tier of states and on to february we go we'll
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east coast with above normal only for the northern plaines and the pacific northwest. that's kind of the way this whole winter is setting up. 90 day outlk for precipitationn above normal for most of the central and southern states. below normal for the great lakes back into the rthern rockies. clinton. okay thanksksike. it was a short trading week...but we'll dig into markets with dustin johnson and tommy grisafi--right after the break. stay with us. welcome back
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i of advanced trading and dustin johnson of ehedgeer. thank you both for being here. let's start by taking a look at the macro economy, the world as we know it. and, boy, things seem to be changing even this week. >> absolutely. so the world's a different place since we were last on the show. there's definitely more risk in the world. i'm not exactly surhow that's affected grain markets yet. i know it's affected the
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almost becoming aligned with russia to go fight the bad powers of the world. it's affecting markets. it's affecting currencies. i guess maybe it's a good thing for grains that maybe there's, you know, you're not always just going to be able to import grain from a country and think your popos are safe, but the world's changed. it has an influence on crude oil, and it's play by play. it's changing by the second. >> how could that crude oil impact start to bleed over into our o oer commodities? i mean if we see that raray early in the week we saw it up $1.50 in trade. if that keeps to come up is that going to change some of our commodity outlook? >> you know, i don't necessarily think so. the commodity bust has already happened and is underway, so to build up that demand again is going to take a while, and i also think that the relationship between crude oil and let's say corn is much less now than it was back when there was a question of discretionary
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amount of gas we're going to use in this country, that's not going to impact the ethanol use too much, i wouldn't think. >> yeah, what about the dollar, tommy, with all this stuff happening in the world? how is the dollar impacting us? >> everyone's fear is that the dollars keep rallying and, i don't know who puts in someone's mind that every day that the dollar rallies that commodities have to go down. they don't have to, and we saw some action like that earlier in the week where the dollar rallied, went to 100, and actually by the end of the day a lot of the commodities were higher. so we're possibly looking at moving interest rates in december. we've had a strong dollar. to dustin's point, that's a lot different than the big bull market we deaea with when we were trying to get out of the low stock market. w our country wanted a low dollar. i don't know that we necessarily want a high dollar, but that's what's happening, so it's affecting the markets. i don't think it's a scary there's bigger fundamental reasons for why corn and wheat and beans are going lower just besides the dollar. >> yeah, what about trade? are we seeing
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take corn sales, for example. we are running way behind what we should be at this time of year, and our window will eventually start t close as we start t t get more competition from other areas of the world again, but right now we're about 450 million bushels behind where we should be, and i think that's going to make it an impact on our carryout, which, agaga, is a supply side issue that's not good for price. >> yeah, one of those impacts we could see in the world markets is happening in argentina as they transition to a new president, tommy. >> right, big week k argentina. a lot of rumors flying around that the taxes were going to be taken away. we'll see. as people now in the states, politicians will say anything to get elected. i guarantee there will be some changes, and there is going to be some grain flowing out of argentina that the world may have known it's there but it hasn't been able to hit the market. so it will be interesting. i think it's played out into that dollar trade also where we had just a
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election and soybeans traded up. it's interesting. >> it is interesting. and what you think about the argentina situation? >> well, a lot still to be known about it. like tommy was saying we get to december 10th and that's when macri is going to take over the country again, and at that point he'll get a better idea of what the country's finances are in and what kind of incentives he needs to place to get producers to sell their grain. so it's been rumored that maybe a 90 they'll completely eliminate the export tax for soybeans. they're holding onto a massive amount of beans on farm, and close to 500 million bushels to get town to what brazil's carryout level currently is. so if that size was to hit the market in a short time span, let's say that 90 window, that's going to be, i would say, very detrimental for u.s. sales and just for prices in general because it's what the market probably wouldn't be able to handle on its own. >> you agree, tommy? >> a little bit,
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rail and the truck and the road structure to grain, we know that, i agree. can they get it out to the market in a timely manner. >> can they ramp back up as we get through this? real quick, interest rates both of you, you think that's'soing to happen or not happen and does s matter? >> it matters, but i was so confident they were going to do something a few months ago, and i think the feds caught in a terrible conundrum where they just going to raise rates the stock market goes down, and the feds should not care what the stock market does. and every time they open their mouth again they make the dollar stronger, which makes the commodities go down, which makes momo people watching thihi show sad. so you could blame the fed, but, you know, they'll figure it out. i hope we haven't become japan. >> all right. well, we'll ke an eye on it. wewel have more to talk k out in
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right now? >> that's a very good question. i think the biggest answer to that would be, what price are we going to get to reduce acres in the u.s. next year? >> okay. >> is it $9, nov 16 soybean fututes? is it $4 dec corn? i don't thinknko. that's the sole answer to that. without a weather event somewhere around the world we're probably at a fair price, maybe even at risk of going lower since how poor demand has been. we talked about the poor corn export sales. so my whole point to that is this huge injection that argentina's getting. you're going to see an increase in acreage next year, especially on the corn side depending on how that tax implication is. that's one more comtitor we're going to have again for r r corn exports around the world. so we're so longer the low cost producer around the world, and i think that to say that, okay, well, this price of 360, 370 corn is too cheap. i think it's relative, and d think it could be a lot longer at that t vel barring some other weather event. >> all right, you agree,
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weather world events, but take something that's not grain related like silver. silver's been trading under the cost of production for several years. often time on ag like this you hear whehegrain gets to yoyo cost production start marketing it. i think what dustin and i agree upon is, what if we don't get there? the american farmer needs to learn how to m mket grain under the cost production. i i not happy to say those words. this is just a reality. and, yes, the farmer's holding a lot of '15 crop. they're buying seed right now and prepaying for it so they can go produce the '16 crop. they are becomomg and getting readadto become long corn again and so are our friends in south america. >> to that point i was just going to say that one big thing that's not being talked about right now, i ithat the farmer's holding onto the largest spec positions in the world right now. storing grain, waiting for the price to go higher, you know, whether or not that's the right answer is to bf seen, but so far a laissez
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have to start thinking that maybe these are the prices that are here to stay, and what are we going to do about it? are we going to continue to pay storage cost to get that increase in price? or are we going to think about what's the right answer for my business going forward? >> switching gears just a little bit, tommy, there are good sides to low other side of the coin, which would be our livestock folks. >> sure. one of my friends in livestock always said, if you want to help your friends who grow row crops become better at marketetg, have them call aalivestock guy once a week because we don't have the federal crop insurance. we can't store our hogs and cattle. we just can't say, hey, we're going to wait and cattle are going to go up. let's throw them in this bin. a livestock guy has a different approach to marketing. of course they enjoy the loweprice grain, but even with grains being lower, the numbers still aren't working in livestock. so a lot of time in our business, in our industry you hear the world, profit. i'm not sure who's profiting in
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happy. i know plenty of row crop people, they're our customers. i work with somemeivestock people, ananthey all seem to bee complaining. i don't think as a group they're all liars. i think it's truly we are in that challenging of a time. so the word profit is definitely not something that should be just said casually as if it's happpping. >> as we move through the rest of this year and into 2016, what surprises are out there that could take these markets? >> well, you know, we've got yet to be seen what argentina does, how quick those bushels come to the market. we also have the funds that in building a short position, and there's still 50,000 plus contracts away from getting to that short of a posision as they were in may. so producers, you know, continue to hold onto it. if the investment community continues to sell, that might be the surprise that the e rket's not aware of is that there's still more shorts to becoming. >> yeah. really quick, tommy, what do you think? >> to add to that when you have a bear market i think we agree we are in a bear market, is that short
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coveringngallies are vicious. . we could have a dadawhere we see corn limit up, and someone, maybe the producer thinks it's the new bull market, but when you get that many shorts all the same way and something changes, something sparked in the world. we can have limit up days in commodities. it doesn't mean we're out of t t bear market. it just means we have a vicious shortcoming rally. the number one thing that can surprise you is how fast we can go up in a bear market. >> all right. we'll have more and get your closing thoughts here in just a minute in markets now. we'll be back right after these messages. this is machinery pete, inviting you to check out my new website, machinerypete.com. offering farms are tens of thousands of used equipment listings to search. let machinery pete help you find and valal your next piece of used equipment. welcome back. it's time for markets now. dustin, your
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there's no shohoage of those guysysut there. if that's s at your goal is looking for it, you can find them, but to my -- you know, keeping to t same point i've been making throughout the show is that it's still a lot more risk than i think people realize. we're still 50 cents away from hitting multyear contract lows, and i would say just be prepared for that possibility. >> all right. tommy, what do you think? >> well, look at my notes. it's been 560 days since fronmonth corn's traded $5, and it could be another 560 days. it could ju be 60 days. markets can surprise you, but the facts are we're no longer coming on n e show talking about that prices can go down. and the time to worry about prices to go down was when we were $7.50 corn. now that we're $3.50 i think there's still downside risk. i agree with my friend here, but we also have a ton of upside risk, and you need to manage those risks both upside and downside and understand that. you talk to people in the cattle industry and you say, how do you make money in the cattle industry??and they say, you got to buy
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them right. my advice for the american farmer is to buy those inputs right, work out those land rents and let the market do its own on going back to higher prices. >> all right. good advice, both of f u. thank you both for being here. john phipps joins us right after the break with john's world. where can
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you talk tomorrow's markets today? join chip flory five days a week for market rally radio. all markets, all the time. the phrase winter is coming...made popular by the hbo tv show--game of thrones--can't be true forever. and as john ppps tellus, at some point winter is here. .ah the first snow of the season. if you are done in the fields and reasonably caught up in n e office, the first snow, especially if it's kind of a surprise can catch you unaware with it's seemingly benign beauty. noyet are the howling blizzards with bone-chilling temperatures. just a soft, sisint invasion of crystalline fragility applying a base coat to the winter landscape.
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sufficient unto the day arthe long dark days ahead and road hazards and school closings and snow shovels. right now you might as well regress to an eight-year old who cares nothing about the downside of snow. for me the first snow has been a white full-screen warning: winter comes. but usually like today, it is whispered softly, not a cry of alarm. your home suddenly seems more inviting and looking out at the falling flakes can trigger a memory avalanche of snowfalls past. if your circumstances permit, i hope you can enjoy your first snow this year. maybe its natural sound suppression can dampen the nagging voices of worry for a few hours. mbe the falling curtain of flakes can help you focus on what is close and worthwhile. maybe an overexcited child will burst into your moment of reflection and instead of spoiling its
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untainted joy. maybe this will be a time for forgetting, just as the snow quietly conceals lawns and forgotten garden tools, unraked leaves, and scarred sod. maybe you will find respite in just watching and letting go all but this moment. and above all, maybe you'll only get 4 inches or so. so true--thanks john. well stay with us, our annual harvest of thanks holiday special...is coming up next. john returns with an inspiring message plus, we travel to plymouth rock ---along the east coast and through in the panhandle of texas...celebrating the hard work and bounty of america's farmers and ranchers. stay with us, harvest of thanks begins right after the break. thanksgivingoan american tradition celebrating the gifts of harvest. a time when familili
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f their labor. i'm clinton griffiths -and i'm tyne morgan. today we celebrate a harvest of thanks. america's farmers and ranchers dedicate their lives to feeding and clclhing our country and millions of otherscross the globe. that work-while not and millions of others across the globe. that work-while not
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of work and effortoas farm families scratch an existetee from the landocreating an agricultural system envied by the world and beyond the dreams of our forefathers. now hundreds of years later we still celebrate and d ve thanks for a year's harvest. andrew mccrea takes us back to where it all began. in the fall of 1620, the mayflower left england with 102 passengers that we today called pilgrims. their ship eventuauay landed, here, in what is today plymouth, massachusetts. they spend this winter of 1620-1621 building houses and unfortunately digging graves. they lost about half the members of the members planting company over the course of that first winter. in early april of 1861, the mayflower headed back to england, that spring the pilgrims were introduced to a native named, squanto. he had been captured from the area in 1614 and taken to europe. after five years in england, he found an opportunity to come home. he then manages to get back to new england, he comes back over makekehis way back to, m mes his
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way back to his home town of pawtuxet, only to find that by 1619, everyone was either dead or has fled to other villages. it was the cleared ground from that prior native american village that the pilgrims began to cultivate. in the fall of 1621, native americans and pilgrims celebrated their first harvest together. while significant, there's little evidence of f at took place of the event we call thanksgiving. we really only have one record of what happened on that first thanksgiving and it is from the time period, it is from someone who present and the letetr begins, "the govovnor sent four or five meant out following so... they rejoiced together in a special manner, the natives having come amongst them." there's not a lot. there's a couple of sentences describing that famous first thanksgiving. the event took place sometime in the fall of 1621, but the exact date is not known. none the less, it is the mealalhat we trace back to the holiday we
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know it was attended by at least 100 native people. there were only 51 or 52 english people in the town, so remember the natives are outnumbering them two to one. it was not an annual event however, more columns arrived soon after and there were now more mouths to feed. today's plymouth plantation recounts the struggle of those men, women and children. the ground is far much as it was nearly 400 years ago. the key to plymouth's success is not the fishing that they did, but they were a maritime community and that was an essential part of their daily life and survival, but they were also an agricultural community and that i think is the part that kind of gets forgotten. we think of them as being here for their church, but in order to support their church's survival here, those who were members and those who were not, they had to eat. the story of plymouth is truly one about agriculture. it was farming thatatustained that fifit colony and broughththe bounty for thanksgiving. a celebration we still have 400 years later, traveling the countryside in plymouth
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midwest stands as the pinnacle of production-the east coast remains an important hub of agrarian output. while the farms may not stretch across miles of prairie, farming in the shadow of the nation's capital is both rewarding and challenging. national corn growers president chip bowling farms near newburg, maryland, whwhh is tucked away nene the chesapeake bay.y.or him harvest is always the first step in preserving a family legacy into another year. at the southern tip of maryla, adjacent of a tributary of the chesapeake bay, you'll find national corn grower association president, chip bowling and his family, farming the landndown below. "when i get done combining soybeans, you guys come with the wheat and put the cover crop down and run the turbo till. uh oh, here comes momo" harvest is a stillll family affair. "that includes ice tea, watermelon. it didn't matter. whatever. that was the
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most important thing, the ice tea." their story, like the area, is steeped in u.s history. "our family came here in the early 1700s. they were established virginia, across the potomac river,r,cross from where weweere standing. in the mid-1700s, my great great great grandfather bought some land over here." the bowling's developed to developed to grain and d ttle producers. but t r decades, tobacco was always king. "we would still probably still be growing it if there was a good market for it and if the state of maryland didn't have a buy-out in the late 1990s." after the buy-out, came environmental mandates. soon even cattle didn't pencil out to have so close to theheay. that's when row crops took a front-seat. his crop year is now full of corn, soybeans, and double-crop wheat. "i tease with my buddies that are on the corn-board with on national corn growers that i stata planting the end of april and i don't stop until july. they joke unhook the planter and put that tractor onto something else."
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one of his best corn crops ever. hurricane joaquin didn't do much damage to his location. "we were actually so dry, we needed, the rain. whqle weather is out of his control, traveling more than half of the year and living so close to an urban environment has its own challenges. "when we move the combine, sometimes i can have 40 or 50 cars behind me. if it's a holiday weekend, we don't move equipmpmt." but bowling isn't just an industry leader and farmer. "we're about three miles from where the crow flies from the potomac river." he's an active sportsman for the bay that he grew up on. "i h he spent so many y ys down here as a kid, walking around barefoot in shorts, swimming, crabbing and fishing. so this river means as much to me as any environmentalist in this country. that's for sure." it's a balance between two passions: farming for maximum yields while protecting the water he enjoys. but he sees every harvest as a celebration. it's a reminder of why farmers do the job year
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same thing that your ancestors did." reporting in newburg, maryland, i'm betsy jibben. thanks, betsy. when we come e ck we'll meet another east coast farmer representing america's soybean growers. he too is thankful for a bountiful harvest and the opportunity to do the work he loves. and later, we're off f the texas panhandle where sorghum farmrms are thankful for plentiful rains in 2015. but first, harvest is one of the most important events in the fall. afteral, a hard year's work comes d dn to those final days. but it's during those long, stressful hours that agriculture's true character really shines, especially when adversity creates barriers in getting the crop out of the fielel so throughout the show, we'll share some of those heart-felt stories of farmers helping farmers. we'll start off in galva, illinois for the most amazing harvest. car bates has cancer. but thanks to family, friendndanda day's labor, thth were able to get carl's golden grain out of the field.
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growers are on pace to harvest the largest crop in history--even as many key growing areas saw their fair share of weather challenges. asa president richard wilkins farms in greenville, deleware. and while he's had a good year, like chip, he says living and farming in the chesapeake and deleware bays comes with its own set of unique challenges. "you can see the height of the soybeans they were stressed and stunted for so long." harvest is always richard wilkins favorite time of year... by the time the moisture came it was too late to set anymore blossoms. but this year the american soybean association incoming president knows yields are going to be down. for at least one crop... at his greenwood delaware opepetion. "so our corn crop was about 80 bueshels an acre higher than our
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shels per acre lower than what their aph yield history has been." despite the challenges this growing season, wilkins is living his dream. "it's my dream profession. always has been since i was a yound child." the wilkins family has worked the soil along the east coast since immigrating here from europe decades ago. "until it hit me when my father i was sixteen years old and he sat me down and he said if your ambition is to be a farmer...i would want you to do something else but if your ambition is to be a farmer you have to figure out a way to do it on your own." and that's what he didid"the first 3 acres i rented as an ffa project soybeans was the crop i grew there." renting ground, growing and diversifying the operation. "i had other career choices i could have taken that mostly likely would have given me the same or more income working fewer hours and in a cleaner environment but this was my passion and this was my love and fortunately i met a young lady that shared that p psion and vision andnde became husband and
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wife." throughout whole marriage i have done pretty much everything on the farm. a partnership that goes beyond the beans, the pair run a retail seed and feed farm store most days i would probably be in the store waiting on customers. they grow multiple crops including vegetables and lima beans. we had dryness hit us in august and september so we had a lot of blossoso pods drop off the lima beans but they still made respectable yeilds. 750 pounds to the acre. beans that don't make the grade end up back at the farm as feed for their herd of cows and calves. "i'm thankful everyday for my family and for the opportunities that we have to be able to live the life that we have. and farming is a great life. it's a great family life." a great life-- when you're going through the field that's how you can really analyize what worked and what didn't work. with challenges and rewards... --regardless of yields---this delawarian farm family rolls through another harvest season#... thankful for e opportunity to participate in this greaeaamerican industry e more year. when we come back we're off to the texas panhandleowhere farmers are thankful for more than just good crops. c cnton, they're thankfkf for the rain. after multiple years of historically dry weather, the skies let loose in 2015. we'll meet a sorghum grower counting his blessings as the bushels roll in. and later a great reminder from john phipps about how a little thanks can go
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e worry for 2015 is s t finding enoughghushels, but discovering enough space to store the abundant yields. for texas panhandle farmer james born, it's not about raising the biggest crop every year. "keep your head up, evan." it's about teaching the next generation lessons that aren't found in any textbook. "i'm thankful for my family, ing on the farm that we can run and manage and operate thth farm as a family." hand-in-hand, james and his wife dana, take great pride in making everything they do, a family affair. born a former ag teacher, is now the chairman of national sorghum producers. a job he doesn't take lightly. he farms in perryton, texas. that's known as the wheat heart of the nation. "i like to say that if wheat is in the heart, sorghum isishe soul of this operation." it has a hearty soul, withstanding multiple years of heartbreaking drought. "this is just programmed to be tough."
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many blessings. that includes rain. "we received our annual average perceiptation in the month of may and part of june. while the weather shut off in august, born says scorching temperatures took 15 to 20 bushels off the yield. "still this crop held on, thrived and is going to be what looks like for the county a record sorghum crop." and that could create what some view as a good problem, finding enough storage for it all. "in this county, we have a lot of acres planted. we have a lot of yield there. from here on up into southwest kansas, i think there will be milo everywhere." from a record crop, to a record demand. "it's been fun to be in the sorghum industry the last couple of years." exports are another bright spot in 2015. "typically, we export a third of our crop in sorghum. we exported over half of our crop this last year." after traveling to some of the key export buyers, born says
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there is a certain attraction to the u.s. crop. "we have a high quality sorghum. we have sorghum that's consistent wiwi size and weight. i think our exporters do a good job moving that sorghum out in a timely fashion and having a good quality end product." while e aveling is part of the job, coming home and admiring a year's work with his family by his side, are the days he cherishes most. "it's the time we have together. that's why we do what we do." thanks, tyne. if you've been wondering about this incredible back drop-up next we'll take you on a quick tour of boboeyville mill includudg its historical connection to harvest in indiana. and later illinois farmer john phipps joins us from his family farm to share his thoughts on bringing in the bounty. we'll be right back. clinton, before we hd to break, we have one more story of farmers coming together in a time of need. mike conner suffered a aeart attack in mid-d-tober, with corn stiti in the field. with the hustle and bustle of
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e often forget how much time and energy went into producing products a century ago. al pell shows us a gem in northern indiana that still shows visitors the daily griri that goes into their daily bread. modern agriculture relies on raw energy to power the machines that plant the crops and reap the harvest. so let's return in time when water was the driving force. built in the mid 1830's, bonneyville mill served farmers in northern indiana and southern michigan as a feedmill...a center of commerce...a gathering place to spin yarns and share news. john jenney is the miller and historical intrepeter. 30 years on the job, he knowswsbout as much about the history of this place as anyone. after it closed, a water conservation group purchased the property to insure the land would never be developed. it was later donated
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museum. the spinningtones still pulverize corn, rye and a variety of wheat --about fivi tons annually. jn says folks come back year after year, looking for their favorite flour and cornmeal, stocking up before winter sets-in and the grinding shuts-down. this is al pell. thanks, al..when we come back, a lesson frorom john phipps about gratitude and how it can make all of our lives richer.
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al invento are thankful for. but it's also a good time to run down the list of people we should be thankful to. as john phipps tells us, making that list can widen our sense of gratitudedes well as honor the many thoughtful acts that make our lives richer and easier. it's a good thing to annually take stock of the blessings in our lives and thanksgiving gives us a great occacaon to make that inventory and acknowledge with gratitude how much we have. but this year, i find myself wanting in addition thanks to some special people who add more to my life than possessions can possibly bring. first, i want to say thanks to all of you who preserve the rare courtesy of extending the benefit of the doubt. cutting others some slack is not in fashion in the current atmosphere of instantaneous hot
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comment, because they think they may have misunderstood or misheard, those who allow for a possibility of an innocent mistake, are those who can admit they just don't know enough to form an opinion are friends to be treasured and i do. in addition, thank you for all of you who pay attention to conservation or presentations without checking your phone or tablet. this has become one of the highest forms of respect. i think it lifts our interactions to a high level of dignity and efficiency. thank you to all of you who think beyond your time. from planting a hardwood tree to installing drainage tile or terraces to working totoope with climate e ange, these are actions that lift our eyes to very distant horizons and remind us that we are linked to those who follow us and that the world will not end when we're not around. finally, i want to say
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internet has done to help us communicate with each other. there is a reason we call very moving experiences, touching. there is still an enormous value in being with each other. those touches are a powerful bomb for a wounded spirit. from all of us at prairie township, happy thanksgiving and thank you. beautifully said. thanks john. as always from our families to yours-sincerest thanks to the farmers, ranchers and businesses serving this great industry. may your harvest be ll of thanks-and your blessing's bountiful. the hard work, dedication and passion are appreciated by all of us on this program and across t farm journal family. thank you for all that you do to ensure our tables are full and our thanksgiving's a special time with family. (high strength steel for high strength dependability, the chevy silverado is the official news gathering vehicle of agday
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