WBEZ | farming

Dry spell moves Quinn to assist Illinois farmers

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 18:18:00 -0500

During a visit Monday to a southern Illinois corn and soybean farm, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced that drought-affected farmers would be eligible for state debt restructuring and loan programs in addition to the aid the USDA announced last week.

Quinn ventured into a corn field where he spent some time looking for an actual ear of corn. When he found one and peeled off the husk, there were no kernels.

Drought is affecting much of the Midwest, where almost a third of the nation's corn crop has been damaged by heat and drought so severe that some farmers have cut down crops midway through the growing season.

In southern Illinois, Kenny Brummer has lost 800 acres of corn that he grows to feed his 400 head of cattle and 30,000 hogs. Now he's scrambling to find hundreds of thousands of bushels of replacement feed.

"Where am I going to get that from? You have concerns about it every morning when you wake up," said Brummer, who farms near Waltonville. "The drought is bad, but that's just half of the problem on this farm."

Brummer could normally count on corn yields of 170 bushels per acre. He expects to get just 10 bushels this year, if he gets anything at all.

The top of the cornstalks are an unhealthy pale green, he said. Many of them have no ears, and "if there are there are a few kernels, they don't seem to know if they should die or make a grain."

Crop insurance will cover up to 150 bushels per acre. But no coverage is available for Brummer's livestock, so he figures he'll lose $350,000 to $400,000 on that side of the operation.

Not long ago, Brummer rejoiced along with countless other Midwest growers about getting their crops in the ground early.

"It looked really good until about a month ago," he said. "Then the concerns started, and it's been downhill ever since."

Two-thirds of Illinois is in what's classified as a severe drought or worse. Neighboring Indiana is even worse, with 70 percent in at least a severe drought.

The nation's widest drought in decades is spreading, with more than half of the continental United States now in some stage of drought and most of the rest enduring abnormally dry conditions.

Only in the 1930s and the 1950s has a drought covered more land, according to federal figures released Monday. So far, there's little risk of a Dust Bowl-type catastrophe, but crop losses could mount if rain doesn't come soon.

In its monthly drought report, the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., announced that 55 percent of the country was in a moderate to extreme drought at the end of June. The parched conditions expanded last month in the West, the Great Plains and the Midwest, fueled by the 14th warmest and 10th driest June on record, the report said.

Topsoil has turned dry while "crops, pastures and rangeland have deteriorated at a rate rarely seen in the last 18 years," the report said.

The percentage of affected land is the largest since December 1956, when 58 percent of the country was covered by drought, and it rivals even some years in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, though experts point out that this year's weather has been milder than that period, and farming practices have been vastly improved since then.

Around a third of the nation's corn crop has been hurt, with some of it so badly damaged that farmers have already cut down their withered plants to feed to cattle. As of Sunday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said, 38 percent of the corn crop was in poor or very poor condition, compared with 30 percent a week earlier.

"This is definitely the epicenter — right in the heart of the Midwest," said climatologist Mark Svoboda with the Nebraska-based National Drought Mitigation Center.

It's all a huge comedown for farmers who had expected a record year when they sowed 96.4 million acres in corn, the most since 1937. The Department of Agriculture initially predicted national average corn yields of 166 bushels per acre this year.

The agency has revised that projection down to 146, and more reductions are possible if conditions don't improve.

The lower projection is still an improvement over the average yields of around 129 bushels a decade ago. But already tight supplies and fears that the drought will get worse before it gets better have been pushing up grain prices, which are likely to translate into higher food prices for consumers, particularly for meat and poultry.

Monday's report was based on data going back to 1895 called the Palmer Drought Index. It feeds into the widely watched and more detailed U.S. Drought Monitor, which reported last week that 61 percent of the continental U.S. was in a moderate to exceptional drought. However, the weekly Drought Monitor goes back only 12 years, so climatologists use the Palmer Drought Index for comparing droughts before 2000.

Climatologists have labeled this year's dry spell a "flash drought" because it developed in a matter of months, not over multiple seasons or years.

The current drought is similar to the droughts of the 1950s, which weren't as intense as those of the 1930s, said Jake Crouch, a climatologist with the National Climatic Data Center. And farming has changed a lot since the Dust Bowl era. Better soil conservation has reduced erosion, and modern hybrids are much more resistant to drought.

But Crouch said it's important to understand that this drought is still unfolding.

"We can't say with certainty how long this might last now. Now that we're going up against the two largest droughts in history, that's something to be wary of," Crouch said. "The coming months are really going to be the determining factor of how big a drought it ends up being."

In northwest Kansas, Brian Baalman's cattle pastures have dried up, along with probably half of his corn crop. He desperately needs some rain to save the rest of it, and he's worried what will happen if the drought lingers into next year.

"I have never seen this type of weather before like this. A lot of old timers haven't either," Baalman said. "I just think we are seeing history in the making."

The federal government is already moving to help farmers and ranchers.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack last week announced plans for streamlining the aid process. A major goal is to cut the time it takes to declare an agricultural disaster area. He also reduced interest rates for emergency loans and made it cheaper for farmers to graze livestock or cut hay on lands otherwise locked up in a conversation program.

Some state governments are stepping in, too. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency in 42 counties last week to speed up the issuance of permits for temporarily using stream or lake water for irrigation.

Illiana expressway project has residents on edge

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:18:00 -0500

When Todd Benjamin and his wife Colleen found out about the possible routes for the Illiana expressway, they raced to their computer to see if the state would soon be bulldozing through their property.

"From what I understand they're gonna put that highway right here on the north side of this property between here and that grove of trees," Benjamin said, standing outside his livestock office in Peotone.

According to a map of three potential roadways, Benjamin could soon be looking out his office window onto a massive expressway. Members of the Illinois House are poised to take up a bill that would speed up construction of a proposed highway. The Illiana expressway project dates back as far as the early 1900s, in Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago, and would connect Indiana and Illinois.

Benjamin said he understands the need for the road, but he's upset about proposals that would take away land on his and his neighbors property.

"When you think about young people with houses, with families and they're buying a home," he said. "And now they're talking about taking it away?"

Benjamin's pretty tapped into what people are talking about - his sons are the sixth generation to live on his family's farm. He says there are a lot of rumors going around about "quick-take" and what that might mean for property owners.

"You know, land is a big investment. And to have some judge just come in and say that's all it's worth, that's all you're gonna get, and oh yeah, by the way, we're not gonna pay you for a while. You've gotta go now," he said.

A measure is pending in the Illinois House that would give the Department of Transportation quick-take powers for the expressway. It's basically a fast-track version of eminent domain. The state government chooses the land it wants and then tells a judge what it'll pay. Property owners can take that money and run, or fight in court over the value, but that's after their land's been taken.

According to Dan Tarlock, professor at the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, quick-take is a common practice for states around the country, especially with public-private infrastructure projects like the Illiana Expressway.

"In order to induce private financing, quick-take is a big incentive to invest, otherwise a lot of private money would be tied up," Tarlock said.

Quick-take, Tarlock says, is also useful for speeding up the process when a lot of parties are involved. In the case of the Illiana expressway, people like farmers and homeowners.

"We've been worried about hold outs, that is, you've got a project, probably most property owners will voluntarily sell, but if one person decides to hold out then the whole project can be delayed," he said.

Delay is one of the reasons State Senator Toi Hutchinson supports quick-take.

"Eminent domain takes about three years but quick take takes about two, so if you add another 24 months for land acquisition then we could be breaking ground in 2016," Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson is the Senate sponsor of the quick-take legislation. The bill has already passed through the Senate and is waiting for a final vote by the full House. Hutchinson said the highway project would bring needed resources to the region; it could create around 14,000 long term jobs, and could bring $6 billion in investment over the next 30 years.

"We're moving with another state, and we have a lot of moving parts to be able to coordinate, and there are also people who've been unemployed for so very long that will tell you they can't wait much longer for a job," Hutchinson said.

But Hutchinson says she does feel for landowners who could lose their land. Especially in a region where most property is passed down through generations.

"It's always difficult when the individual comes up against the needs of a region," she said.

But Todd Benjamin says it doesn't matter how long someone's owned land. He says what matters is that it's theirs, not the government's.

Agriculture drives the Midwest economy – and farming is just the start of it

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 14:18:00 -0500

This month, we’re looking into some of the hidden assets of the Midwest – the parts of our economy that don’t often get noticed when we talk about our strengths (the first part of the series is here). Agriculture is one of the biggest drivers of local economies in the Midwest – it accounts for billions of dollars worth of exports and thousands of jobs.

There’s been a lot of concern about whether enough young people are going into farming these days. But the ag industry goes well being just farming, and plenty of young people are interested.

At Navy Pier, a special meeting of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences’s FFA chapter is being called to order. Ringed around the room, one by one, chapter officers check in during the traditional opening ceremony. It ends when President and Senior Jennifer Nelson asks her fellow FFA members: “Why are we here?”

The students stand and chant in unison: “To practice brotherhood, honor agriculture opportunities and responsibilities, and develop those qualities of leadership that an FFA member should possess.”

These students are part of the 17,000 FFA members in Illinois alone. Membership in the organization overall has increased 20 percent since 2000, to more than half a million members across the country. But there’s a reason why FFA no longer calls itself Future Farmers of America.

Actual farmers make up just about two to four percent of the American work force. But people who work in related industries that depend on what farmers do account for at least a quarter of the entire work force. That includes everyone from people in food services jobs to Kraft executives to commodities traders.

These students were at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show to exhibit a garden they designed and built, and to sell food produced in the school’s kitchens.

Applications to the public school – located on the far south side of the city – have almost doubled in the past year.

But student Justice Plummer wasn’t so sure about agriculture when she first found out she got in. Her mom convinced her to go, and she’s never looked back – even though she’s the first in her family to go into the industry.

At the moment, Plummer is nine for 13 on being accepted into colleges she applied for – all to study agricultural business. She wants to major in agriculture business in college, and eventually get her Master’s degree and work in the Peace Corps, all in relation to agriculture business or finance.

“Everybody looks at me, like, ‘Agriculture?’” she says, laughing. “They just think of farming. But it’s all about food, clothing and shelter, and people are always going to need those kind of jobs.”

Instructor Corey Flournoy agrees.

“Just here in Chicago – some of the largest food companies are based here, from Quaker Oats to Kraft Foods,” says Flournoy, who is in charge of the new Center for Urban Agricultural Education, a partnership with the University of Illinois. “The opportunities to work in agriculture – because those are agricultural companies – are plentiful. We need more people to go into those fields.”

Educators like to use the acronym STEM to describe this need for people who know science, technology, engineering and math.

“I say that agriculture puts the STEAM into STEM,” said Laurie Kramer, an associate dean at the U of I’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. When I asked her how much farming was a part of the college’s curriculum, she laughed and said you would think it was “big.” That’s what it was like 50 years ago.

“Nowadays, things are very, very different,” says Kramer. Seventy percent of the college’s students come from urban environments. The few students who focus on farming are likely to come from farming families, she said, adding that today, the number of farms – especially those operated by families – is very small.

“It’s very expensive to run those operations, it’s very tricky,” she says.

Part-time farmer Howard Haselhuhn would agree. He’s an electrical engineer for Texas Instruments. But his West Michigan farm has been in his wife Amy’s family for several generations. She’s a CPA. When they were first married, Amy says they thought about farming full-time, but:

“We just didn’t see how we could possibly make a living off of a farm that was this size and growing commodity crops and also make payments off the land,” she says.

Together, the couple saved for 25 years to buy the 420-acre land from the rest of her family. Most of it is rented out to full time farmers. But on the weekends, they make the three and a hour trek west from their house near Ann Arbor to check on their hops crop.

Michigan’s farmers exported $1.75 billion worth of food – mostly to Canada – in 2010. Forecasts are that number will top $2 billion this year. The state’s goal is to double Michigan’s exports in the next five years.

More than half the farms in the Michigan area are what the USDA considers residential or lifestyle farms – meaning that the owners have other full-time incomes. Another 20 percent are retirement farms – what the Hasselhuhns hope this will be.

The farm was started in the 1930s by Amy’s great-grandfather. She says growing up on the farm gave her strong attachment to the land that Howard now shares. And even though they didn’t grow up there, her children have it, too – that weekend, her eldest son and his wife were also up at the farm, helping out. Her hope that is future generations of Haselhuhns will be at this farm, maintaining that attachment to the land.

This story was informed by the Public Insight Network. If you want to learn how to be a part of our network, click here.

Landowners oppose the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:28:00 -0500

If built, the Keystone XL pipeline would slice through 1,700 miles of land to deliver crude oil from the tar sands in Alberta, Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. The project would impact thousands of landowners in five states. We speak with three of these landowners who are protesting the project, which has been proposed by TransCanada.

Earlier this month, Ben Gotschall of Nebraska, as well as David Daniel and Eleanor Fairchild from East Texas, traveled along the route of the proposed pipeline to speak out against it. The pipeline, they say, will threaten grasslands that have been unspoiled for generations as well as the livelihoods of American farmers, while reaping profits for a foreign oil company. They stopped by to discuss the project while on their way to protests in Washington D.C.

Organic poultry farms have fewer drug-resistant bacteria, study finds

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:02:00 -0500

Proponents of organic meat often make the case that it's inherently better for people's health and the environment than meat raised by conventional farming methods. But the actual impacts of organic production can be tough for scientists to prove.

A study out today in Environmental Health Perspectives adds some weight to the argument that organic poultry, at least, may reduce one type of health risk. A team of scientists from the University of Maryland and other universities found that large-scale organic poultry farms — which are not allowed to use antibiotics to prevent disease in the animals — had significantly lower levels of one group of drug-resistant bacteria than their conventional counterparts.

The study comes at a time when antibiotic use in industrial livestock production is under heavy fire from the public health community. Farmers who raise food-producing animals use about 29 million pounds of antibiotics each year, according to the Food and Drug Administration, and the latest Salmonella outbreak in ground turkey turned out to be caused by a strain resistant to several antibiotics.

Bacteria resistant to antibiotics can make their way to humans through the meat itself and the environment — like waterways contaminated with runoff. If humans ingest those bacteria or are exposed to them other ways and get sick, there aren't many options for treating them.

Several European countries have already banned the prophylactic or preventative use of antibiotics for exactly this reason, and some studies there have shown that once farmers reduce antibiotic use, those resistant microbes mostly go away.

But that's been difficult to study in the U.S., since the majority of farmers still use antibiotics pretty indiscriminately. So Amy Sapkota, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Maryland and lead author of the study, decided to look at 10 mid-Atlantic farms that had just adopted organic practices. She measured the change in levels of enterococci bacteria against 10 mid-Atlantic conventional farms. Enterococci can show up in poultry litter, feed, and water. The researchers tested their resistance to 17 different types of antibiotic drugs.

"We were surprised to see such dramatic differences in the levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the very first flock at these organic farms," Sapkota tells Shots.

For one common antibiotic, erythromycin, 67 percent of an Enterococcus bacterium from conventional poultry farms were found to be resistant, while 18 percent were resistant at the organic farms. But Sapkota notes that organic farms usually still have "reservoirs" of resistant bacteria that can linger in the soil or the packed dirt floor of the poultry houses, so they may never be completely free of the bugs.

But Sapkota's work does not mean organic poultry eaters get a free pass when it comes to food safety. No chicken is completely free of pathogens, and consumers still need to take all the precautions they normally would when preparing poultry: Cook it well and beware of cross-contamination on the cutting board.

A year later, many of Pakistan’s poorest flood victims refuse to return home

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:02:00 -0500

One year after massive floods engulfed Pakistan and displaced 10 million people, many haris, or sharecroppers, face a difficult decision. Do they return home, where huge debts and impatient zamindars, or landlords, await? Or do they default on their debts and remain in refugee camps, where living conditions are miserable and aid agencies are packing up?

Christian Parenti, whose article "Pakistan One Year After the Floods" appears in the latest edition of The Nation magazine, joins us to discuss the collision between natural disaster and social inequality in Pakistan.

For more on the environmental impact in our own region, check out “Climate Change and the Great Lakes,” the latest installment of Front and Center, WBEZ’s special series examining critical issues in the Great Lakes region.

Food Mondays: Raising questions about the organic, local food movement in the West

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:58:00 -0600

Today, we revisit a conversation with Robert Paarlberg from earlier this year. He’s a professor of political science at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. His latest book is "Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know."

Paarlberg takes issue with some of the developing world’s more fashionable ideas about food in ways that might surprise you. He says the West’s embrace of organic and sustainable farming has eclipsed the bigger problem of poverty and hunger in the developing world.

Audio slideshow: A new garden for Altgeld

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:01:00 -0600

Altgeld Gardens is an unlikely place to put a farm. It’s a public housing development 130 blocks south of downtown Chicago. The community’s also surrounded by landfills, an expressway, a sewage treatment plant and the polluted Little Calumet River.

This is the place where a community organizer named Barack Obama got his start. Reporter Linda Paul and photographer Richard Cahan first started visiting Altgeld on the morning after President Obama was elected.

At his old stomping grounds, they’ve found optimism, toughness and people eager to share their lives and neighborhood.

They’ve been going back each year since the election. This year Altgeld proved to possess both the problem of and some steps toward solving the food access issues.

Sound of train whistle and early traffic.

Well before sun-up, occasional headlights pierce the dark. People are driving to work. Others are huddled at bus stops.

On this day.. as we've done in previous years.. we just begin strolling… talking with any early risers who have the time and patience for us …Our first 'taker' this morning is JD Payton. He's 57 years old and has lived in the Gardens since he was 12.

PAYTON: I'm a longshoreman. I load barges and ships that come in. Right now we're unloading products on BP. Windmills comin' in. Refinery equipment. And sometimes it's very difficult.

Payton is waiting on his ride to the Port of Indiana, since he has no car. He tells us there's a real appeal to the Gardens, the nature trails in Baubien woods, the fishing in the river. He's appreciated these things from the time he was a boy. But one thing he really doesn't like about this place? In a community of over 3-thousand people, there's nowhere to buy fresh food. Not a carton of eggs, not a shred of lettuce.

PAYTON: We haven't had a grocery store for 6, 7 years.. That's hard to believe in a community this size. We don't have a grocery store.

PAUL: How do people EAT ?

PAYTON: Uh, there's a Rosebud Farm about half a mile up that way and if you can't walk up there, or you don't have an ability to get on a bus to go to the store - that's it. And that's bad, cuz my mother can't even get milk & cereal. They got a liquor store, though. ( rueful laugh )

PAUL: So let me get that right. Within Altgeld Gardens there's a liquor store, but there is no grocery store.PAYTON: Correct. And it has been that way for years now. To our amazement. Because when it first went out, we were sure within a couple of months or two somebody would be in there. That's been like 7 years ago..In fact, Altgeld Garden Liquor is the only store in this entire development, and the only foodstuff it sells is candy and chips.

But a couple of blocks away, towards the eastern edge of the development, we stumble upon something new in the Gardens. A kind of counterpoint. It's a long, Quonset hut-shaped structure, encased in heavy white plastic.

PAUL: Good morning.

WOMAN: Good morning.

PAUL: We were just walking with some kids. They were showing us their military academy and - what is this ?

WOMAN: ( laughs ) Our farm site.

PAUL: Your farm site?

WOMAN: Right. Just a minute… DEEERRIIOONNN!! Derrion !

Rich and I are escorted to an unassuming 25 year old, Derrion Crawford, the manager at this site. PAUL: Where are we ? What is this?

CRAWFORD: Uh, this is an urban farm, developed by the residents of Altgeld.Crawford is with Growing Power, a not-for-profit out of Milwaukee. They aim to help poor communities become self-sufficient by growing organic food. Since July he's been working with about 150 people here at Altgeld - some who've never held jobs before. He shows them how to build raised planting beds with capping clay, so contaminants from this toxic ground can't leach into their organic crops. The residents make their own rich soil through composting and-- a new concept for me -- vermiculture.

CRAWFORD: Okay, vermiculture is composting, but with worms. So we raise the worms, red wigglers.

PAUL: You're raising red wigglers?

CRAWFORD: Yeeeppp .

Workers are paid ten dollars an hour, thirty to forty hours per week. With the cold weather setting in and some attrition, they're down now to a lean crew of 40.

In their jeans, shiny ski jackets, visors and cotton hoodies, these are farmers with a layered urban look.

Even now, on the cusp of winter, this crew is able to grow plenty of vegetables under a semi-permeable landscape fabric. They can water their crops, without exposing them to the cold.

CRAWFORD: Okay, so under there we got some lettuce, some spinach, lots of different type of mustard greens, mizuna, red mizuna… purple mustards. Inside of the hoop house we have some carrots growing and some arugula.

The hoop house, the building we spotted from the road, is a greenhouse, heated by the sun, that extends the growing season. Several of the ladies here today -- helped put it up.

LADY 1: We put the hoop house together.

LADY 2: Oh yeah, we all put it up together.LADY 3: We put up plastic, new posts. Do the doors. We all pitched in and helped.

LADY 2: I think lotta things that could be put together with just poles and screws and nails and- basic things that you would never think that you could use to build a hoop house

LADY 1: Working with your hands. That's it.

LADY 2: Just like we built the compost bins over there. You-all haven't been over there ?

I ask these workers what they've learned since they started this farm job:

LADY 3: It was new to us.

LADY 2: We learned how to fence. We learned how to plant crops. We learned how to do compost bins, make compost. We learned a lotta measurements..

CAHAN: And is this fun?

LADY 1: Yes.

CAHAN: And is it hard?

LADY 1: No.

MAN: It's lookin' good. It's lookin' good.

Martin Tate, one of the workers here, says at first, it was hard to get people enthused about this farm.

TATE: They was, you know, a little hostile at first. But now, you know, they fitting in like they supposed to, because they see something. At first, you know, it was just vacant. They didn't see anything.. And so, you know, it's kinda hard to try to tell a person, hey! this is gonna be beautiful. They don't look at that part, ( laughs ), so FADE IT UNDER

As the farm took on a physical presence, he says, there was a change.

TATE: They could visualize it, they can see it, they can feel it. And so now, it's a great thing.

PAUL: A little pride of ownership

TATE: Oh yeah.

The farm at Altgeld Gardens was started earlier this year by the Chicago Housing Authority, when it set the land aside and put in water and electrical lines. But the project was jump-started when it hooked up with Put Illinois To Work, a state program that has hired about 26- thousand people state-wide since last spring.

80% of its money came from President Obama's federal stimulus program, but that ran out on September 30. Democrats in Washington tried to extend the funding, but Republicans blocked it.

So, in a controversial move -- given all of Illinois' unpaid bills -- Governor Quinn kept the program alive with a $75 million infusion of state funding. And that money runs out November 30, about a week from now.

Nobody knows whether the state, or the U.S. Congress, will provide any more money, but the CHA says it's committed to keeping about ten workers on throughout the winter, even if it has to pay the salaries itself.

ALFRED: Everybody listen ! I need everybody's attention!

After working several hours out in the cold, some of these farmers retire to an empty CHA unit that's being used for a culinary arts class.

ALFRED: This is a Vitamix machine. It's about a four to five hundred dollar machine. ( FADE IT UNDER)

Camilla Alfred, one of the instructors with Growing Power, is trying to convince these workers to look at food differently.

ALFRED: Of course you know I brought our own water. So you not going to fill it up all the way. At least half way to get it started.

And what's on the lesson board for today? Smoothies.

Sound of Vitamix mixing

ALFRED: Thick as you want it. Or loose as you want it. ( FADE IT UNDER )

She wants to introduce them to green living- to eating more fruits and vegetables. But sometimes it's a hard sell:ALFRED: You wanna take me from my fries, pork chops, polish sausages ? Yeah, I am. And I'm not tryin' to turn anyone to a vegetarian. I just want you to eat healthier. We're basically comin' out teaching them how to grow their own food, you know sustainability. Dunno, cuz if you notice- I don't know if you've been around in the Garden. There's not a grocery store out here. We have maybe 2 clinics out here, 2 pharmacies & a liquor store - so where's the food ?

The workers at this urban farm dearly hope that it gets a new lease on life and that their jobs are prolonged. Partly cuz they need the income. And partly for their community.

Cahan : How do you think this'll change Altgeld?

LADY 2: It'll help us a lot. Cuz we only had that store up there. And you know, they chargin' us so much, that now we get the chance to grow our own crops and vegetables. And we can market and sell and give back to the community, that they took out from the community.

Last Monday a Chicago Public Library opened at Altgeld Gardens. A new charter high school opened in September. A planned extension of the CTA's red line could bring the new south terminal within walking distance of most residents. Meanwhile, the remodeling program continues, with more than half of the 2000 units fully rehabbed.

But there's still no bank, no post office - and as we've heard - no place within the development to buy fresh groceries. Problems made even worse by the fact that about 60% of households have no car and - last time the Census Bureau checked - about 40% of these households have incomes below 10-thousand dollars a year.Given all that, a grocery store within Altgeld Gardens seems like a reasonable expectation.

For WBEZ, with Richard Cahan…. I'm Linda Paul

Music Button: Orgone, "Dramatic Times", from the CD Killion Vaults, (Ubiquity)

Indiana farmers could see higher incomes this year

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:41:00 -0600

Indiana farmers this year are expected to see a 25 percent increase in farm income. A local economist expects Indiana's total 2010 farm income to reach just above $3 billion.

A drought in Russia and a wet season in Canada has reduced the world's wheat crop. Economist Chris Hurt at Purdue University in West Lafayette says that helped drive up grain prices and bring more money to Midwest crop farmers.

"So with these higher incomes and probably substantially higher incomes, first category we're going to see is spending on machinery. So this will be essentially plowed back into their own farm operations," Hurt said.

Hurt says he expects farming communities to benefit from the extra cash flow. But he says not all Midwest farmers will see higher incomes this year. He says animal farmers took a hit from the high grain prices.