Guest Blog

As the 111th Congress came to an end, the Senate held a vote on the DREAM Act, an immigration reform proposal focused on children of illegal immigrants. Commentators and some Republicans described the way the bill was brought to the Senate floor as a “kabuki dance.”

One of the many facets that make up the rich Japanese culture is kabuki.

This performance genre of singing and dancing (its characters mean “sing,” “dance” and “skill”) is highly stylized with extravagant costumes, scenery and high plot predictability. Kabuki portrays a believable story in a symbolic and structured way, unlike the way it would happen in reality.

Reporting to you from Islamabad, Pakistan.

In this, my second report from Pakistan, I report of a day in the field. I have four visits done today, all within Punjab province and near the capital city of Islamabad.

The following statements were recently made as testimony before the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) public workshops to examine margins at various levels of the agricultural supply chain.

“We need the milk pricing system fixed. If we want young farmers to come into the industry they need to be paid a living. Everyone in the chain can adjust their margin accordingly and earn a living except for the farmer.

"And if Antitrust Division and USDA doesn’t step it up and ensure that farmers earn a living first, and everyone else adjust their margins accordingly thereafter, the entire system will fail, rural America will fail, our farmers and our nation as a whole will fail, just because our whole infrastructure relies on our farmers who produce 70 percent of the world’s raw material.”

The first Progressive Dairyman issue of 2011 struck a chord with grazing producers across the country. See this unique post by Emily Zweber of Zweber Farms in Minnesota. Zweber talks about what it means to be a progressive grazing producer. Check out an excerpt here, and be sure to read the full post.

All of us at Zweber Farms read many industry magazines, newspapers and publications. Some are dairy focused, some are organic focused and some are just general agriculture information.

The other day when I pulled Progressive Dairyman out of our mailbox, I was shocked to see the words “consider grazing as a means to profitability” on the front cover. Don’t get me wrong, we enjoy reading the Progressive Dairyman. Their up to date coverage on industry issues and trends is very helpful.

Arriving in Pakistan in early December, I have begun my work here as an expeditionary agricultural scientist.

My mandate here is largely agricultural reconstruction and stabilization (R&S), and this work is largely in the realm of the third foreign policy pillar of the three D’s: defense, diplomacy and development.

Imagine the air temperature is 115ºF; the pastures have browned from lack of water, the cows are comfortably under roof in freestalls with a grass silage-based TMR, and the sound of magpies pierces the air. This sounds like an ordinary U.S. dairy, doesn’t it?