Michigan’s Corn Producers Vote Down Proposed Assessment Increase

Feb 29, 2024

Michigan’s corn producers have voted down a proposed assessment increase under the state’s Agriculture Commodities Marketing Act, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development announced today which ran the referendum for the Corn Marketing Program.

MDARD received a total of 1,317 ballots with 107 of those ballots being disqualified as invalid. Of the valid 1,210 referendum ballots to determine whether to increase the assessment of Michigan corn by additional $0.01 per bushel, 583 producers voted yes (48 percent) representing 41,612,583 bushels of corn (43 percent) and 627 producers voted no (52 percent) representing 55,402,313 bushels of corn (57 percent).

For the amendment to pass, more than 50 percent of the producer votes cast, representing more than 50 percent of the total number of bushels represented on the cast ballots, must approve it.

The assessment remains at $0.01 per bushel of Michigan corn as supported by growers during the 2023 referendum.

Source : michigan.gov

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

We're a 6th generation family farm in southeast Iowa showing the real ups and downs of pig farming and row crop farming. No script, just the work. Subscribe and follow along.

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