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April Fool’s Day – farming style

Farming has seen its fair share of mischief

By Diego Flammini, Farms.com

It’s April Fool’s Day.

The day where the truth is stretched, news is made up and everyone seems to take themselves a little less seriously.

Every industry seems to participate in April Fool’s antics.

In 2011, Virgin Group announced Sir Richard Branson purchased the planet Pluto, while in 2009 Hotels.com announced it was selling hotel rooms on the moon.

Farming and agriculture are no exception to April Fool’s pranks and Farms.com has found a few pranks related to life on the farm.

Spaghetti Tree Hoax
In 1957, the BBC produced a segment about a Swiss family completing their spaghetti harvest. Women were seen on TV taking strands of the pasta from trees and leaving them to dry in the sunlight. With Richard Dimbleby, a legitimate broadcaster providing the narration, people were calling the BBC with requests for spaghetti trees.

According to Dimbleby, the end of March is a crucial time for spaghetti because the winter’s frost can affect the taste.

 

Lard from live pigs
In 1921, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung did a story about a German farmer from “Schleichegrieben” who figured out how to get lard from live pigs.

The farmer would remove the rashers, put bandages on the pigs and let them heal. The farmer said the operation could not be done more than three times a year.

People were astounded by the finding but concerned about the welfare of the animal.

Upon further investigation, not only did the city of “Schleichegrieben” not exist, it also translated into “sneaking bacon”.

 

Marshmallow farming
Channel 9 news from Iredell County produced an undated video about North Carolina’s marshmallow crop and its danger due to rain.

A farmer is seen in the video standing in front of marshmallow trees talking about the struggles of the crop.

“It takes four years from the time that you get the tree planted before you’re going to get your first harvest,” the farmer said.

Join the conversation and tell us of any other farming-related April Fool’s pranks you know of. Did you play any on someone today? If so, what was it?


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Funds Ditch Ag Commodities, Chase Stocks Amid an End to Middle East War, & Trade Deal Buzz

Video: Funds Ditch Ag Commodities, Chase Stocks Amid an End to Middle East War, & Trade Deal Buzz


The 12-day war between Iran-Israel came to an end sending crude oil futures plunging as the big fund speculators removed the war risk premium.

The weather risk premium in the Ag complex is sending corn, wheat and soybean futures lower on month-end selling ahead of the market moving USDA quarterly grain stocks and acreage reports on June 30th.

Instead, funds were chasing and sending tech stocks higher with the S&P 500/NASDAQ indexes setting new all-time record highs!

June 1 USDA Hogs and pigs report was slightly bearish while the U.S. $ Index traded to new contract lows as the de-dollarization that began in 2014 continues.

Feed in the form of soybean meal futures for livestock producers got cheaper, trading to new contract lows.

The Stats Canada seeded acreage update was bullish canola and wheat.