Support Sugar Beets

I am writing you because I believe you have an interest in agriculture. More importantly, I believe you would support a farmer's ability and right to choose to produce food in a more environmentally friendly manner.

In 2005 the US government, after a full scientific and regulatory review, authorized the planting of Roundup Ready sugar beets. These seeds had been modified to tolerate treatment by the popular and safe herbicide, Roundup. Farmers were quick to recognize the value of the a technology, and by 2009 fully 95% of the US sugar beet acres were planted with Roundup Ready seeds.

Now, the ability of farmers to continue using this valuable and environmentally beneficial technology is at risk. In response to a lawsuit brought by activist groups, USDA is now soliciting the public's view on the future use of this technology. It is imperative that supportive viewpoints be expressed. Failing to do so puts the future of the US sugar beet industry in severe peril.

Please take a few moments to click on the following link. I hope you will be willing to express your support of farmers ability to use this environmentally and economically beneficial technology. Comments MUST BE SUBMITTED BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS NEXT MONDAY, DECEMBER 6th.

Thank you very much,

Duane Grant


www.supportsugarbeets.com

Editorials | Be grateful for the bounty of Washington agriculture | Seattle Times Newspaper

Editorials | Be grateful for the bounty of Washington agriculture | Seattle Times Newspaper

Do I hear $3 million?

From the Casper Tribune-


The Big West Ranch, located near Arminto, was up for auction on Thursday.

Auctioneer Harold Musser didn't speculate about the apparent take of nearly $3 million, whether it would have been higher a few years ago. "If you want to sell today, you take today's money," he said.

That's just the way the free market works.

Well, sort of.

The yield got a boost from the auction process. It wasn't a simple matter of running through the bidding once and calling it good.

The ranch was divided into 14 large tracts, with varying degrees of deeded land and assorted state, federal and private leases. In the first cut, each tract was put up for bid. But "winners" in the round actually won nothing. They only established a set of baseline prices.

Once high bids for each tract were posted, a second round of bidding commenced. Now, ranchers had an opportunity to bid on combinations of tracts, or even the entire ranch, and to raise bids on individual tracts.

Accordingly, a high bid for a particular tract could be wiped out by a combination bid for several tracts. A combination of tracts, moreover, could be negated by someone else's combination of tracts. If someone offered -- and some people did at one stage or another -- a bid for the entire ranch that exceeded the total for the tracts, then that action wiped away all previous activity. However, if new recombinations exceeded the bid for the entire ranch, the bid for the whole was itself annulled.

In latter stages, as it became clear who was still in and who was out, and who had an eye on what, auction representatives stood at the elbows of some bidders, encouraging them to up the ante.

The Big West Ranch is a little over 92,000 acres in size; however, only about 11,200 acres is deeded land. Nearly 61,000 is leased from the BLM and about 18,000 acres from the state.

The number of ways in which 14 tracts can be combined is a mathematical calculation beyond the expertise of this column. The apparent result on Thursday was bids from four buyers totaling $2,990,000.

But even that was not the end. It was a reserve auction. So an invisible thumb had been applied to the scale of pure, free-market capitalism all along.

Finally, finally, finally, two bids were accepted, totaling $2.11 million for about 62,427 acres.

High, low or in between what the land may have been worth yesterday, or may be worth tomorrow, really didn't matter. On this day, the winners paid what the market, and the process, could extract.

Musser Bros. takes home awards

At the recent Washington State Auctioneers convention, Musser Bros. Inc. was recognized for their outstanding auction advertising and marketing efforts. Musser Bros. won the award for Best Web Site and Best Overall Auction Promotion piece.

The staff at Musser Bros. prides themselves on producing effective and award winning marketing pieces that capture the attention of potential auction goers. As buyers continue to gravitate to the internet, it is vitally important to have a fully web-compliant website that offers both buyer and sellers the information they are looking for.

The Productive American Farmer

We ran across this youtube video about the U.S. Farmer and thought we would share it here. Enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joUggaD6Mr0

Crane sells for $445,000

Musser Bros. set a new company record for the highest price attained for one piece of equipment when selling a 2007 Link Belt crane today for $445,000. Auction Coordinator Merton Musser said, "We had bidders onsite and online from coast to coast bidding on the crane." "Our advertising and market programming obviously attracted the right people."