|
How has your approach to pest control changed in the last few years?
|
|
|
Welcome to eFGN! |
 |
|
|
Welcome. This is the first e-newsletter in a new monthly service from Fruit Growers News.
Like you, we’ve noticed how more and more people are tuning in to the World Wide Web, to get more information quickly.
Growers pruning their orchards, miles from town and knee-deep in snow, can tune in to the worldwide information grid as easily as turning on the light switch gets them to the electricity grid. Take 10 minutes at noon, warm up, eat lunch and open your e-mail.
As we start out, eFGN will be monthly – just as our magazine is. But it will be fresher – arriving at near-light-speed in your inboxes. And we’ll build from there.
We are looking for more interactivity with our readers. We started a new section this year, Talkin’ Shop, and it was about 50 times as effective at getting reader responses through e-mail than the old-style Letter to the Editor ever was. We hope this newsletter will be even more so. After all, you’re reading your e-mail right now, so you’re just a click away from sending us a message, a question, a response.
For me, winter is an exhausting and exhilarating time. I just came back from my fourth major horticulture show in seven weeks, and it’s like a continuous family reunion, visiting with growers, researchers and vendors. These shows buzz with vitality and I come back with a headache from smiling and laughing and talking and listening and learning.
The world is so full of information. The news – the stuff you want to know fast – needs to move fast. And the educational information – how to kill the codling moth, what rootstocks are doing well where – takes more time, more processing and demands a more complicated treatment in print. We think print and electronic work together effectively. And we can bring you both.
 |
  
|
|
David Schweikhardt
Agricultural Economist and Farm Policy Specialist, Michigan State University
Just before Christmas, I interviewed David Schweikhardt, an agricultural economist and farm policy specialist at Michigan State University, about the state of the economy and especially the farm credit outlook. More than a month has passed and no miracles have occurred. I called him to ask questions about his expectations from the new president, Barack Obama, his new administration and the new Congress.
Congress poured $350 billion into the financial system to shore up banks’ balance sheets and help them lend money, but little trickled out the bottom. What’s wrong?
The financial crisis is even worse than it looked at first. There has been a continued erosion of large banks’ balance sheets, particularly as housing prices continue to fall. The TARP program has provided capital injections to the banks in an attempt to improve their balance sheets, but their balance sheets are eroding even faster as mortgages and other loans continue to go bad and banks keep writing asset values down. When that happens, they’re still not able to lend.
How do we get out of this dilemma?
Initially, Treasury Secretary Paulson proposed that the government buy all the bad mortgage assets, get them off the bank books, write them down and sell them back later. But that process takes too much time when the banks are in immediate danger of bankruptcy. As a result, TARP was switched into a program that provided immediate capital injections for the banks. It now appears we need to do both – make direct capital injections and buy this paper. The problem is, the government has no way to buy all the bad paper fast enough (examining the books and making the loans) and there is the question of how to price these assets.
To see where this is going, watch CitiBank. It has continuing financial problems and keeps asking for larger and larger sums of money. Either the government gives more money, it allows Citibank to fail or it takes over the bank. It might take over the bank and separate the good loans from the bad that way.
Injecting the $350 billion bought some time, but the government may have to take the next step. The problem remains finding a way to get the bad loans off the balance sheets of banks and getting the lending system working again.
The Obama administration needs to do something more (than has been done). The stimulus package Congress passes is the only tool government has left. The Fed has few bullets left in its gun (having already cut interest rates effectively to zero.) But Congress has to move fast. We’re losing time.
Is time essential?
We’re getting end-of-year reports now from companies, and they look bad. We’re seeing retailer bankruptcies and others may be coming along. That could add commercial real estate to the “bad asset” side of the bank ledgers.
Many economists believe housing was overpriced by 30 percent at the peak in 2007, and that values have fallen half to three-quarters of that. A problem, however, is how to keep values from continuing to fall even below that.
As the economy worsens worldwide, trade issues are coming back on the radar. The European Union is talking about dairy subsidies once again. Free trade could collapse if subsidies and tariffs return.
Can the economy be stimulated by making “green” decisions – to cut dependence on imported oil and put Americans to work doing what is needed to shift to other energy sources?
Will the public pay more for greener energy? Will they buy an electric car? Gas prices are back down. Is there any commitment to change? The Obama administration can’t do this. The American public has to decide. Will they make major investments in the electric grid to harness sun energy from the deserts and wind from the plains? Are they willing to pay the cost?
There is no question: The high oil prices of the last two years are tied to this recession. The question is, Will the public support measures to reduce our dependence on imported energy?
 |
|
|
Events Calendar
January 29-31, 2009
Tennessee Horticultural Expo
(joint meeting of Tennessee Fruit and Vegetable Growers, Tennessee Viticulture Society, Tennessee Flower Growers Association and Tennessee Farmers Market Association). Airport Marriott, Nashville
Airport Marriott, Nashville
423-667-1950, lee.greer@valent.com
January 31, 2009
Iowa Farmers’ Market Workshop
Sheraton Hotel West Des Moines, Iowa
Barbara Lovitt, 515-281-8232, Barbara.lovitt@iowaagriculture.gov
February 1-5, 2009
International Fruit Tree Association Annual Conference
Germany
pheasant@itfruittree.org, www.ifruittree.org
Click here to view more calendar listings...
|
|
