Brownback Tax Plan, Kansas GOP Mocked

June 14, 2013

The national headlines were unkind to Governor Sam Brownback and his GOP compatriots this week. It seems the national media i
Here’s a sampling:s catching on to the disaster thatis the governor’s tax plan that raises taxes on working Kansans to pay for tax breaks for the richest Kansans.

Rogue-state: How far-right fanatics hijacked Kansas – Rollings Stone
Is Kansas on the path to financial crisis? – Christian Science Monitor
Watching a train wreck in Kansas – Citizens for Tax Justice
What’s the matter with Kansas’ tax policy? – US News & World Report
And what is the main complaint of these national publications? They’re the same as those Kansas Democrats have been warning of since Brownback took office: Brownback is using Kansas to further his political aspirations, his tax plan shifts the burden onto the backs of working Kansans, and the Kansas budget is set to implode, taking the state’s economy with it.

Brownback’s presidential ambition and political ideology is a highlight of Rolling Stone’s coverage. Rolling Stone accuses Brownback of “using Kansas as a sort of laboratory, in which ideas cooked up by Koch-funded libertarian think tanks can be released like viruses on live subjects.”

US News & World Report sees a tax model that won’t create jobs, but will raise taxes on the poorest Kansans while slashing taxes for the richest Kansans.

As this chart from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows, just replacing 50 percent of the revenue lost by eliminating Kansas’ income tax with sales tax revenue would seriously wallop those with lower-incomes:

Tax Change

They also see these regressive changes being pushed in the hopes of improving Sam Brownback’s presidential standing with GOP presidential primary voters: “It may be that poor Kansans are simply being asked to pay the price of Brownback’s political ambitions.”

Citizens for Tax Justice see no relief over the horizon either. They note that “good policy is not even on the priority list for Kansas lawmakers who “for two years running, have been falling all over themselves to pass tax cuts of disastrous proportions, despite red flags from experts, editorial boards and their colleagues in other states.”

Finally, a review of Gov. Brownback’s dysfunctional tax plan and budget by the Christian Science Monitor doesn’t believe the governor’s magical claims of unfettered economic prosperity, arguing that “Kansas is setting itself up for a period of ongoing budget crises and uncertainty that seems likely to undermine the attractive environment for business lawmakers are trying to create.”

Kansas has already started seeing the effects of ongoing budget crises, highlighted by the $66 million higher education cut that Kansas GOP legislators rammed through this session.

So there you have it: political ambition before good public policy, devastating budget cuts to education, and a tax plan that soaks working Kansans and fails to create jobs. National observers are waking up to Brownback’s Kansas – now it’s our job to make sure Kansas voters wake up too.

– See more at: https://www.ksdp.org/blog/kdp-weekly-wrap-4#sthash.h7SDwIQ0.dpuf

Stacy Campbell
K-State Research & Extension
June 13, 2013
Turnips for fall grazing
In writing this I fully realize we are still in the midst of a drought and no one knows when it will end. So the idea I am putting forth may not seem plausible, on the other hand if some timely rains fall it could work. Planting turnips or a mix of turnips and radish into wheat or oat stubble for late fall and early winter grazing could yield some valuable fall forage and ease the burden on pastures and hay feeding.
Turnips are a high quality, high yielding, fast-growing crop that is particularly suitable for grazing by livestock. Turnips often have digestibility of 70 to 80% with crude protein from whole plants of 14 to 22%. Stocker cattle gains of 1.5 to 2.0 pounds per day have been recorded. Turnips are 85 to 90% water, so it is beneficial to have some dry hay, grass or stalks for roughage to the diet. Although cattle have performed well on grazing turnips alone, cattle have done very well when added in a mixture of cool season grass such as triticale, wheat, or oats.
Turnip seed is inexpensive currently about $1.55 per pound and the ole “Purple Top” variety that has been planted in gardens for years seems to yield just as well as any others. Another brassica that might work equally as well is Dwarf Essex Rape and it is cheaper about $1.00 per pound. Radish seed will be more expensive about $2.25 per pound. Bottom line is that turnips and/or rape could provide some cheap fall and early winter grazing.
Planting a brassica such as turnip, radish, rape or kale for fall grazing would take place in late July through late August. When planted with a drill, just scratch the surface with your openers covering only slightly, and seed turnips at 2 to 4 pounds per acre. Drilling it no-till into stubble might be the preferred planting method, given the current weather conditions. But if no-till is not an option then broadcast 2 to 4 pounds of seed per acre and go over with a cultipacker or harrow. Covering the seed with more than 0.5 inch of soil will suppress emergence, and as always plant into a weed free seedbed. Good early weed control is essential. Turnips or any brassica do poorly if weeds get ahead of them, but once started, turnips compete very well. Since no herbicides are labeled for turnips, weeds must be controlled either by tillage or by using contact herbicides before planting. Then plant quickly to get them off and running.
Forage yields of turnips in Saline County on non-replicated farm strip plots in 2004 and 2005 averaged 4,800 pounds of dry matter per acre, this included the tops and bulbs. The turnips out yielded the other forages in the test being wheat, triticale, oats, canola, forage canola, and forage peas. Eighty pounds of nitrogen preplant was applied. Taking a soil sample is recommended to determine amount of nitrogen and phosphorus needed for your yield goal.
Turnips are ready to graze when plants are “rooted down” enough not to be pulled up. This may be 70 to 80 days after emergence, and should be utilized by the time temperatures reach 18 to 20 degrees. Once leaves are all grazed, cattle will pull bulbs and eat them, choking on bulbs has been an extremely rare problem. Some use a field cultivator to lift bulbs to the surface after tops are grazed off, resulting in almost complete utilization of the plant.
Oats or triticale can be added to the mix, the oats would probably be best where you would fall graze only…triticale would be best if you desire some late winter grazing as well, or both could be added to the turnips and radish. Cover crops are a hot topic among some no-tillers right now and this could serve as a cover crop and provide some much need forage.
If you do add some triticale or oats with the brassicas, planting both at the correct depth becomes a challenge. Some folks run the brassicas on the surface just ahead of the packing wheels if they have a small seeds box or the air seeders have two boxes.
Brassicas can be prone to having high levels of nitrates especially if precipitation is limited. Before turning cattle out to graze it is always recommended to get a forage nitrate test.
In Saline County where grazing plots were planted to single forage of either oats, triticale or turnips, the cattle ate the oats and triticale first before the turnips. If turnips are there only option, cattle will acclimate to it very rapidly and do just fine, but it won’t be their first choice probably due to the rougher leaves turnips have.
If this is your first time to try something like this, then I would recommend planting a limited number of acres. More information on growing turnips can be found at www.ellis.ksu.edu
And as always if you have further questions give your local County Extension Office a holler.

Commentary: Clueless Consumer

Dan Murphy  |  Updated: 06/12/2013

What’s the biggest contemporary problem for livestock producers?

That’s easy—if, like me, you’re an outsider looking in, that is.

The No. 1 problem is that even the most articulate producers spend way too much time talking to each other, or to scientists, veterinarians, policymakers and members of the trade media. The majority of those professionals have an understanding of the dynamic and the economics of livestock production; many, in fact, are more than equipped to engage in protracted, technical discussions about inside-the-industry issues that when “translated” to a lay audience are ripe for misinterpretation and misunderstanding.

Take the case of one Jeremy Ranck, a 30-year-old Pennsylvania hog farmer and subject of an insightful profile in the Des Moines Register as World Pork Expo gets underway in Iowa’s capital this weekend.

“Any farm, that’s your life, that’s your passion,” Ranck was quoted as saying. “We do everything we can to have the best production in crops, the best production in hogs. It is very frustrating when there are activist groups and social media blitzes of blatant lies.”

That quote could probably have come from any of thousands of producers across the country, and indeed in its essence, Ranck’s observation informs a whole lot of conversation among attendees at virtually any industry trade show or conference I’ve ever attended.

That’s the problem: When producers try to state what they believe to be the obvious advantages of modern production, consumers come away with a far different interpretation—they buy the lies.

Just don’t do it

Nowhere is that phenomenon more evident than in debates over the use of antibiotics.

For more than a decade now, consumer groups and industry critics have joined forces with an activist segment of the scientific community to decry what they deem the “overuse” of antibiotics in animal agriculture, blaming it (and the producers who have embraced such inputs) as the culprit in the rising incidence of antibiotic-resistant microbial pathogens that are plaguing human medicine.

Here’s the problem: The concepts of dosage, specificity and prophylaxis escape 99.99% of the public when they happen upon media coverage of the antibiotics issue. To most people, the activist mantra—an anti-Nike slogan that boils down to “Just stop it”—makes perfect sense.

People fail to recognize that if one of their children develops an infection, they’re demanding that their doctor prescribe antibiotics—the connection with veterinary medicine never occurs to them.

Likewise, arguments that the industry’s well-intentioned spokespeople make about sub-therapeutic usage keeping animal healthier, and thus limiting the need for more powerful antibiotics (the kinds that cause resistance problems), simply don’t resonate with shoppers pushing their carts through the local supermarket.

There was a great example of that in the newspaper article. Ranck described how he and his dad (who also raises pigs) removed an old barn two years ago and replaced it with a new $500,000 steel-framed facility. The investment resulted in more uniform growth rates, fewer bouts of illness and death among the animals, and thus a sharp drop in overall antibiotic use.

If you’re a producer, your head’s nodding. Of course—that’s why the industry’s gone to controlled housing and more sophisticated management, you’re saying to yourself—as if that settles any arguments.

But what do consumers think when they read about that anecdote? That a scenic old barn—the kind we love to spot on our infrequent drives through “the countryside”—was torn down, and now the poor pigs are trapped in a steel-and-concrete prison, never seeing the light of day and spending their waking hours crammed into tiny, sterile pens.

The notion that producers are “pumping pigs full of antibiotics” because they’re crammed into crowded, unhealthy housing actually makes a lot of sense—if you’ve never been on a farm, never seen the inside of a modern hog barn and don’t have a clue what animal husbandry’s all about.

Which describes pretty much 9 out of every 10 Americans.

The solution is twofold: One, open up those barns. Show people what goes on inside and the clean, sanitary environment in which pigs are raised. Yes, that involves issues of biosecurity, but under controlled conditions, the precautions that have to be taken before people enter a barn help underscore, not undermine, the message that modern housing isn’t dark and dirty at all.

And two, more farmers and producers need to speak up, along with fewer scientist and spokespeople. Industry experts are important voices in policymaking debates, but rarely can such folks communicate effectively with people who have basically zero technical or scientific education.

What the industry needs is more messaging that reflects how ad agencies handle copy: Aim it at seven-year olds, and you’ll be right on target.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Murphy, a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator.