The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 63

INSIDE RICK JOST, business editor. 515-284-8258 Farm Classifieds 3J Weekly Markets 2J lift ii Emm XLS XhJ LlUU LJ3 Vii February 3, 1991 GARY FANDELTht RtgMw GEORGE ANTHAN researchers work to kill off multiflora rose Sunbaij Register IS tl IP WW" By VERONICA FOWLER Of Tht RttNstWi Amt Bur.au AMES, IA. There's new hope on the multiflora rose front. A group of Iowa State University researchers is working with what it believes is a virus that attacks and kills the multiflora rose plant, the bane of cattlemen throughout the Midwest. The bush, introduced from Japan in the 1930s as an ideal hedge, quickly became invasive and has turned more than 2 million acres of Iowa pasture-land into nearly impregnable briar patches.

It has infected pastures as far west as Kansas, as far south as Arkansas and as far east as the Eastern seaboard. Cattle won't go near it, and attempts to find an inexpensive way to rid pastures of the plant have been unsuccessful. Now, said ISU plant pathologist Abe Epstein, researchers have found a way to use a plant disease transmitted by a mite to kill off the plants. He is hopeful it might be. available for farmers to use within the next five years.

Death in Four Years The disease, called rose rosette disease, kills off multiflora roses in about four years after they are first infected. By releasing mites carrying the disease into a field infested with the plants, the disease spreads to all the multiflora roses. So far, said Epstein, it appears the mite will not transmit the disease to most plants Once infected, the multiflora rose goes into a stage of intense growth, sending out bright red shoots that nearly exhausts its energy supply. Then tiny little rosettes of leaves appear on the branches. Finally, after about three or four years, the plant turns brown and dies, disintegrating where it stands.

Cause Unknown Epstein is hopeful that this biological method of controlling the multi-flora rose will be available to all farmers within the next few years. The major obstacle, he said, will be finding out what precisely causes the disease, an essential step in obtaining U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval. "Until we find the cause, we can't in good conscience say, 'Here you said Epstein. Without knowing the cause, said Epstein, scientists could unwittingly unleash a deadly disease on not just the multiflora rose, but also on its more valued cousins.

All temperate-zone fruits, such as apples, strawberries, raspberries and plums, are relatives of the plant. In field tests where the diseased multiflora rose grew side-by-side with its healthy relatives, the disease has attacked only the multiflora rose ROSE li pop Some of Geo. A. Hormel products. tlormel endures on mix of sfandbys, new bits rL I Cpiljja i II Adding value to ag products WASHINGTON, D.C.

The de-cline in the United States' share of world agriculture trade over the last decade is a result largely of failure of the Reagan and Bush administrations to grasp the changes occurring in demand for food products, and to help guide U.S. agribusiness in meeting this shift. More than half the value of world agriculture trade now is represented by consumer-oriented products, but the United States continues to concentrate on selling inexpensive wheat and corn. Not only are we failing to compete abroad in processed meat, dairy, vegetable and fruit products, we're losing domestic markets to imports. This competitive breakdown could result in an economic disaster for the United States' farm sector and it raises questions over the nation's long-term ability to ensure its food security.

New Report The latest evidence of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's inability to shift from promoting production of bulk commodities to marketing processed foods is contained in a new report by the General Accounting Office, the congressional investigating agency. While the United States has expended much energy on achieving radical reforms in farm trade, our foreign competitors have emphasized development and marketing of processed products. Even in the unlikely event that a trade agreement is reached, the benefits could be far less than those already available in the fastest growing and most profitable sector of trade in food. The U.S.

share of agricultural trade fell from 21 percent to 15 percent between 1981 and 1988, the GAO notes. At the same time, consumer-oriented goods such as meat, vegetable and dairy products accounted for 56 percent of the value of worldwide agriculture trade, but only 21 percent of U.S. exports were in this category. While trade in bulk commodities has remained flat over the last decade, sales of high-value foods have increased by 50 percent. The United States accounts for only 8 percent of this $140 billion world market.

The Netherlands has 13 percent, France 11 percent, Germany 9 percent, and the rest of the European Community 1 6 percent. Not Even Issue The USDA not only has failed to develop a coordinated marketing plan, but such a plan is not even an issue under its management-by-objective system, and it "is not prepared to guide agribusiness in a market-driven economy," the GAO concluded. The economic significance of value-added food products is hard to overestimate. "Adding value to raw agricultural commodities through processing reaps the benefits of added employment, economic output and government revenue," the GAO states. In one word, it's "jobs." The USDA's failure nationally is mirrored by Iowa's inability over the last quarter-century to tie its highly efficient production of bulk commodities to development of new industries adding value to those products.

As production of corn and soybeans has become more efficient, requiring fewer people on farms, the state's population has dropped. Other States, Nations The economic benefit from turning Iowa's commodities into consumer-oriented products has gone to other states, and now to other countries since our exports frequently are processed abroad and then sold back to U.S. consumers. Shortsighted, complacent federal officials, members of Congress, governors and state legislatures have frittered away the natural advantages we had in gaining the most economic benefit from our highly efficient farms. In Iowa, a state government more concerned with turning out lawyers and football teams allowed Iowa State University to decline as an agricultural research leader.

And United States agribusiness, Soften focusing on short-term profits father than long-term market building, has failed to determine what overseas consumers want and then failed to meet that demand. Tilting at windmills, such as ideologically driven trade reforms, is OK as a pastime. It must not replace programs to expand our sales of high-value food products, an enter-'prise that will pay great dividends to farmers and to the overall economy. James L. Ledger, new president of the Iowa Pork Produc- Veterans Memorial Auditorium last week.

Ledger wants ers Association, at the Pork Congress being held at to see Iowa's pork industry grow by 1 percent a year. Backdrop of change marks ascension of pork producer A multifloral rose fence. related to the rose, such as fruit trees. Garden roses can become infected, however. While the mite that carries rose rosette disease prefers multiflora rose, if it can't find any of that plant to feed on, it will feed off garden roses and infect them with rose rosette.

"I think if this becomes endemic here, there will be a certain amount of loss of garden roses," said Epstein. He points out that garden roses are not grown on a large scale in Iowa, and he thinks the impact of rose rosette would be minimal on garden roses. In field tests, the rose rosette disease "just absolutely wiped out" the multiflora rose plants, said Epstein. DON MUHM nize local "pork clubs" or peer groups for educational purposes, and to hire experts to provide financial advice. Consolidation Effort Fails On a lesser note, the pork delegates voted to merge with the Iowa Por-kettes while the Porkettes rejected the merger proposal.

Because both organizations must approve the consolidation, the two organizations will remain separate. Against this backdrop comes Jim Community College in Ankeny. Call 1-800-528-1234 for information. Honors for markets Six Iowa farmers' markets have been singled out for special recognition by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. Winners in the small community (under 25,000 population) category were: 1.

Iowa Falls; 2. Tama; 3. Franklin County. The large community winners: 1. Mason City; 2.

Downtown Des Moines; 3. Waterloo Downtown. Cash awards of $500, $250 and $100 were presented. Corn vote March 5 Iowa corn growers will vote March IPn, I Country Living I (w 1 Please turn to Page 2J DON MUHMThe Rec Isttr Ledger, the Iowa pork producer who once thought he be living pretty high off the economic hog if market prices ever got to 18 cents a pound. "I thought I'd be making real money then," he explained.

That was back in 1959, when his first load of butchers almost didn't make enough to pay the trucking bill. They brought 11 cents. Not until 31 years later did he harvest his personal best 68 Vi cents a pound. So Ledger, in his career of raising porkers on his southeast Iowa farm, has seen firsthand some of the good and bad times for raising hogs. Now he heads one of Iowa's biggest and richest farm commodity organizations.

13,701 Members Iowa Pork operates out of offices in Clive, a western Des Moines sub COUNTRY Please turn to Page 2J off to a half -cent per bushel. The voting will be open to anyone marketing 250 bushels of corn or more, with ballots cast at county extension offices from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Call (515) 242-9549 or (515) 225-9242 for information By DAN LOOKER Rttlittr AgrlbutliMSt Wrlttr AUSTIN, MINN. Some businesses celebrate a centennial with champagne.

Not Geo. A. Hormel Co. It passed out SPAM. It wasn't the canned version of the processed pork created in 1937 a staple of U.S.

troops in World War II but rather SPAM "breakfast strips" introduced last May. The strips were in a souvenir box of Hormel's newest products given with birthday cake to 2,500 shareholders crowded into the high school here for the annual meeting. The repackaged SPAM reflects Hormel's ability to continue profiting from enduring brand names such as Dinty Moore beef stew and Cure 81 ham while blitzing competitors with 200 new products in the past three years, many aimed at the growing microwaveable meal market. Bitterness Remains All is not perfect at the company, though. There is still bitterness in Austin from the violent 1985 strike by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

And record high pork prices dented profits during the company's third quarter last year. Still, Hormel seems to have succeeded in shifting from a meatpacking company to a processor of consumer products. And most of the strike wounds have healed, says a union leader. Austin streets sport banners proclaiming it the "Birthplace of Hormel" and last week 500 people saw the opening of a Hormel museum in a shopping mall. When Hormel president Richard Knowlton addressed stockholders last week, he told them that "our company has recorded its seventh consecutive year of earnings improvement and financial growth and is well on its way to its best year ever this fiscal 1991," which began Oct.

28. He also bragged that Hormel had one of the food processing industry's lowest rates of lost time from worker injuries and an all-time low absenteeism rate at its plants last year. And Hormel is profitting from military contracts for the war against Iraq. Last November, the Pentagon or- Grinnell ag lectures Two lecture sessions devoted to sustainable agriculture are scheduled for Tuesday at Grinnell College. Anthropology professor Jon Andel-son is to speak at 4:15 p.m., and Farm 2000 leader Steve Hopkins and Julia Kleinschmidt of Prairiefire are to lecture at 7:30 p.m.

Both lectures are free in the South Lounge of the Forum. Oscar grounded Oscar, the world's biggest steer (4,100 pounds), has been grounded. He won't be part of the Tri-State Farm Expo at Dubuque's Five Flags Center Wednesday and Thursday as earlier announced. Last November, the Pentagon ordered $44.4 million of Hormel's Top Shelf main dish entrees. dered $44.4 million of Hormel's Top Shelf main dish entrees, which can be boiled or cooked in microwave ovens.

In January, it ordered 8 million of canned foods including beef stew, chili and SPAM, said spokesman V. Allen Krejci. Negotiated for Years He said Hormel had been negotiating with the military for two years before U.S. forces went to the Middle East. "Maybe that let us get a leg up on everyone else." The $44 million in wartime sales of Top Shelf was a sliver of the company's $2.7 billion revenue last year, he said.

But the military contract can't hurt Hormel, says L. Craig Carver, a food industry analyst with Daine Bos-worth Inc. in Minneapolis, Minn. "It gives them publicity they couldn't buy." And that publicity may help boost Hormel's earnings again this year. Carver said he expects Hormel's performance to improve this year to earnings of $1.20 per share, up from last year's $1.01 per share.

A year ago, earnings rose 10 percent to a record $77 million. Some earnings came from the sale of assets such as inefficient distribution centers and processing plants, Carver said, but most were from "a continuation of a move toward a value-added sales mix." The company's most profitable consumer products are Top Shelf, in- HORMEL Please turn to Page 2J Sustainable ag packet An information packet dealing with sustainable agriculture is available from Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (515) 266-5213. The packet costs $7 for farmers and FFA chapters and $15 for others. It includes a directory of 80 Iowa farmers who have reduced or eliminated the use of fertilizer and farm chemicals. Brock gets 4-H post Wendy L.

Brock, Linn County 4-H leader, has been appointed leader of the Iowa 4-H and Youth Development Unit until June 30. 1993. By DON MUHM RteUttr Farm Editor James L. Ledger, the Washington, hog farmer who now heads the Iowa Pork Producers Association, takes over the post at a key and somewhat controversial time. Ledger's presidency occurs when Iowa Pork becomes a dues-paying organization for the first time ($10 a year).

It does this in part to support its lobbying functions, something for which pork checkoff money can't be used. His debut also follows close votes by pork delegates against a proposed increase in the national pork checkoff, as well as a second vote not to oppose boosting the checkoff. Another resblution that failed sought to have the organization of 13,701 producer-members abandon its new plan to form an "Iowa pork cooperative." The proposed pork co-op would have had three missions: to buy pork production supplies cheaper through bulk purchases for members, to orga- GRASS ROOTS Organic meeting The second annual meeting of the Iowa Organic Growers and Buyers Association is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday at the De Moines Area.