Ben Yale

A nation in need of good and virtuous farmers

June 28, 2012

Editor’s note: This column was Ben Yale’s final contribution to the magazine. He passed away suddenly June 13. A tribute to Ben’s life and contributions to the dairy industry will be published next issue. Independence Day comes with fireworks, parades, festivals, patriotic music and, at least for me, at my latitude, wheat harvesting. Combines empty their golden harvest into wagons and trailers. Overflowing wagons and trailers parade along the highways to the mills and railheads proclaiming the wealth of the land. The sound of machinery fills the quiet rural scene.

Connecting milk with health care

June 8, 2012

Ben Yale

“DAIRY VICTORIOUS IN MILK DICTATOR SUIT OF WALLACE” read the headline on October 30, 1940 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune. The lead says, “The attempts of Henry A. Wallace as secretary of agriculture to force an Illinois dairy to comply with his milk marketing regulations, although it is not engaged in interstate commerce, met defeat yesterday.”

Relying on too small a lifeboat

May 18, 2012

Ben Yale

History becomes reality as one walks among the markers in Fairview Lawn Cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Among the final resting places of Halifax notables lie the remains of some of the victims of the SS Titanic. Walking among the several rows of markers, one comes to understand that real, living human beings were brought to a sudden and unexpected end in one of the greatest sea-borne disasters. The nearly identical stones are universal in one thing – one after another states as the date of death, “April 15, 1912.” After seeing 121 of these, the enormity of the loss overwhelms.

Lincoln’s ‘People’s Department’ 150 years later

April 27, 2012

Ben Yale

One year into the Civil War, the Union cause was not going as well as the early swagger had promised. Gen. McClellan failed to take Richmond and gave up an opportunity at Antietam to inflict a heavy blow on the Confederacy. Lincoln had finally given up on his top general and canned him in March of 1862. Meanwhile, General Lee was still a desk general advising Jefferson Davis in Richmond. But on May 15, 1862, while rebel forces at Drewery’s Bluff successfully stopped the Union navy from attacking Richmond via the James River, Abraham Lincoln signed a statute creating the Department of Agriculture.

Beyond averages: Finding the right number

April 9, 2012

Ben Yale

The national morning news reports the NBA scores from the night before and the weather for the day. “Last night in the NBA the score was 1904. Half of the teams won with average scores of 98 to 92. "Meanwhile today’s weather will average 50 degrees across the country and there will be clouds and sunshine at least somewhere.” So did your team win? Is this a day for the Cartwrights or shorts and a T-shirt? If you are in southern Arizona, the latter might work but what about Bayfield County, Wisconsin, or in eastern New York or in the Yakima Valley?

Exchanging exchanges

March 19, 2012

Ben Yale

In 1921, cooperatives and cheese factories in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, and surrounding areas created the Farmers Call Board. Weekly dealers would attend the meeting and bid on cheese. Dealers’ bids for cheese were written on a blackboard. The highest bid would get the sale and often that price set the price for all of the cheese offered. The creators of the Farmers Call Board argued it as a necessary counterpoint to the Wisconsin Cheese Exchange (WCE), formerly the Plymouth Central Call Board of Trade. The arguments were that the prices of the WCE represented collusive pricing between dealers, reflected a thin market and were an undue influence on the price of cheese and, therefore, milk.

When is a pig not a pig?

February 29, 2012

Ben Yale

In the Supreme Court term which began in October, the court has been called upon to decide what is a religious minister and what is not, whether a GPS monitoring by police is a search or not, and whether the Congress can mandate that individuals buy health insurance or not. In the midst of those weighty decisions, it recently decided what a pig is. This tale begins with a cow. Early in 2008, undercover photographers for the Humane Society of the United States caught workers at a California slaughterhouse mistreating a non-ambulatory cow. It was shocking footage.

Selling the curds and whey

February 9, 2012

Ben Yale

A classic nursery rhyme starts like this: Little Miss Muffet Sat on a tuffet, Eating her curds and whey; The poem’s main character loved every bit of dairy. But what if this Mother Goose character became a modern, more selective dairy consumer? What would happen if she only wanted cheese curds and not the whey?

Are you ready for the secret ingredient?

January 20, 2012

Ben Yale

A popular cable show, “Chopped,” routinely appears on the Food Network. In this show four chefs of varying experience, training and positions vie for the title of Chopped Champion and a prize of $10,000. Each round begins when the emcee tells the contestants “Open your baskets!” The contestants must prepare a specific dish incorporating the mandatory ingredients. There are three dishes – appetizer, main entree and dessert. The preparation is timed from opening the baskets to a finished plate. There are no cooking assistants or sous chefs. There are no recipe books. They are on their own.

The growing reach of child labor laws

December 30, 2011

Ben Yale

Ask anyone in agriculture how they got their present job. Whether they be a teacher, professor, researcher, manufacturer, government employee, veterinarian, professional service provider or farmer, the odds are very great they will tell you that their career in agriculture began as a child working for their parents or grandparents on a farm.

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Home

Ben Yale

ARTICLES

A nation in need of good and virtuous farmers

Connecting milk with health care

Relying on too small a lifeboat

Lincoln’s ‘People’s Department’ 150 years later

Beyond averages: Finding the right number

Exchanging exchanges

When is a pig not a pig?

Selling the curds and whey

Are you ready for the secret ingredient?

The growing reach of child labor laws

Heat and sun safety on the farm

A closer look: Reading the mineral tag

How rising temperatures are affecting dairy cow fertility in Canada

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