Sometimes an ag news item comes across my notification feed and lingers in the back of my head. This is not intended to be an ag news-brief summary. It’s the “other” ag news – the ridiculous, the impossible, the you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me news.

Lynn Jaynes

Emeritus Editor

Lynn Jaynes retired as an editor in 2023.

Item No. 1: Tortilla popularity rising in the U.S.

From: World-Grain.com

What it says:

In the U.S., there are approximately 200 tortilla facilities, most of them members of the Tortilla Industry Association (TIA). The whole category – including wheat flour and corn tortillas, tortilla chips, tacos, tostadas and salsas – generates sales of approximately $25 billion and shows a growth rate of 5%.

Just my opinion

It’s the new bread – the new flatbread, but not new really, just gaining popularity with versatility. What can’t you put between tortillas? And no more soggy-bread sandwiches! My only problem with tortillas is having the guts of the thing fall out in my lap. Why can’t we shape a tortilla like a plastic cup, then just fill it with the good stuff? Come on, people … we’re smarter than a lap full of cheese and lettuce.

The article states tortillas have a shelf life up to six months – but how would they know? No one at my house seals up the bag properly, so they usually last about two weeks and by then they’re dried out.

Item No. 2: Kanpur's leather industry relocates to greener pastures in Bengal

From: Irish Farmers Journal

What it says: The crackdown on cow slaughter affected the supply of raw material, and now the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order on removing all polluting units along the Ganga River is sounding the death knell for the leather industry in Kanpur. Amid what is said to be the biggest slump in the leather industry (in the area), the tanners of Kanpur are moving to West Bengal, Bangladesh and to other greener pastures to stay afloat.

Just my opinion

So, where again is Kanpur? In Uttar Pradesh, India. I doubt you’re any smarter now that I’ve told you, but you probably have an idea of where India is. The River Ganges (Ganga) emerges in the western Himalayas and flows down across northern India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. Nearly 80% of the river basin is in India, the rest is in Nepal, China and Bangladesh. It supports 650 million people. And if websites can be believed, it has many environmental problems, tannery waste being one of them.

Apparently, the global leather industry has been surging ahead in the past few decades, particularly in export of finished buffalo leather for upholstery and harnesses for saddlery. At one time, Kanpur was exporting 56% of buffalo leather and meeting the harness needs of the saddlery industry.

Did American cowboys know their saddles might be made of buffalo? I had no idea. I searched a few saddle companies in the U.S., and they boast “American cowhide skirting leather” but several leather manufacturers listed “imported leather skirting” but didn’t say what animal it came from.

Getty Images.

Item No. 3: Sunflower field owners beg visitors to stop taking nude photos

From: New York Post

What it says: The owners of a UK sunflower field are asking their visitors to refrain from taking nude photos at their family-friendly farm.

Siblings Sam Wilson and Nette Petley, who run Stoke Fruit Farm on Hayling Island in England, put up signs begging guests to stop stripping down in their flower fields after children witnessed the lewd photo shoots. “We’ve always had people take risqué pictures but this is the first year it’s been a problem, which is why we’ve put signs up,” Wilson told CNN.

Just my opinion

“ … the first year it’s been a problem” ??? Are you kidding? Like this is a thing, and you’ve let it go on other years unabated because it wasn’t “a problem”? This is what’s wrong with our society, people! Am I disgusted with people wanting to take nude pictures to begin with? Yes. But what disgusts me just as much is people who let it go and say nothing. It makes it sound like it was only a problem because children witnessed it. Like it wasn’t wrong to be nude in public if children weren’t present? It’s still wrong on so many levels.

But then I can’t help but laugh at the thought of nudes subjecting themselves to sticky, prickly sunflowers, mosquitoes, flies, bees, gnats and dirt … it’s possibly a very apt punishment to fit the crime. I only wish they had chiggers too.