Bluestem Prairie

The SWO Lake Traverse Reservation roots of some MN Zoo Dakota skipper butterflies

Over the week, Molly Korzenowski reported in Minnesota Zoo to release 400 endangered Dakota skipper butterflies:

. . .The Hole-in-the-Mountain is a 1,364-acre preserve south of Lake Benton in Lincoln County. When the Nature Conservancy bought the site in the 1970s, butterflies were a common site. Carpeted with wildflowers during the summer, it’s an excellent spot for rare prairie-dependent insects, including about 25 species of butterflies, according to the Conservancy.

In an effort to preserve the Dakota skipper, the Minnesota Zoo will release nearly 400 of the butterflies on the preserve. Starting Saturday, screened metal boxes containing butterfly chrysalises will be moved to the prairie for hatching. Zoo staff will visit the site daily to let butterflies go and to monitor the number of species in the area for a couple of weeks.

“It’s a conservation-centric task to get those individuals back out in the wild and sustain the species in a better way,” said Minnesota Zoo butterfly biologist Erik Runquist.

This year’s butterfly release is part of a reintroduction program created by the Minnesota Zoo in partnership with the Nature Conservatory and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The zoo has been raising Dakota skippers for five years in hopes of introducing the species back to the wild.

“We’ve been very successful,” Runquist said. “We are actually the only organization in the world that has been rearing and breeding Dakota skippers.”

The zoo released 200 skippers in 2017 and 250 in 2018. This year will be the last release before the team takes a step back to see whether the population will be sustainable in the long term. According to Runquist, they will do a butterfly count, document behaviors, and check to see whether the butterflies are breeding.

Read the rest at the Pioneer Press. We grew curious about where the Zoo obtained its butterfly stock. In a 2017 article on the Zoo's webpage, A Milestone – Reintroducing a lost prairie butterfly for the first time, we learned:

Behind the scenes since 2013 though, Minnesota Zoo scientists have established and grown the first and only conservation breeding program for Dakota skippers. Working under rigorous protocols established in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies, we have been collecting a limited number of eggs under from relatively large populations within the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate’s Lake Traverse Reservation in South Dakota as well as from the last known population in Minnesota, near Moorhead. These eggs are brought back to the Minnesota Zoo and reared through to adulthood the following summer. The Minnesota Zoo is the first and only institution to successfully breed multiple generations of Dakota skippers entirely in human care. We are literally writing the book on how to raise and breed Dakota skippers.

Here on the Lake Traverse Reservation, prairie lilies, conflowers and other native flowers are starting to bloom in abundance, and so we're not surprised that some of the Dakota skipper breeding stock at the Zoo have origins in our stretch of the prairie. We've been keeping an eye out for them--and are happy that a  nearly 1000 acres stretch of grasslands along "Old 81" was recently acquired by a couple interested in grassland preservation.

For more about Dr. Runquist's butterfly conservation research, see our post from this January: Video: MN Zoo's lepidopterist & conservation biologist testimony on saving prairie butterflies. We noted then:

In Thursday's meeting of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division, the Minnesota Zoo made made an appearance to let the committee members know about its educational and conservation work.

As always, the zoo animals brought before the committee--in this case a porcupine, a bullsnake and a chinchilla--were the stars for the media. But after the charismatic critters left the stage, the Zoo's lepidopterist and conservation biologist Erik Runquist testified about the organization's work to save butterflies and other pollinators.

We post video of the testimony below. It made us eager to pay more attention to the tiny prairie butterflies that do still live up here on the prairie grasslands of the Coteau.

Photo: The Dakota skipper is an endangered butterfly in North America. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Phil Delphey, File).

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Surely the Vernon Center cannot hold; or, #MeToo re-aligned in tiny town parade?

A source in tiny Vernon Center, Minnesota, population est. 318 in the 2018 Census community survey, sent Bluestem the cell phone photo above, snapped during the tiny town's robust Independence Day parade. While it's hard to make out in the sun-dappled photo, our source said that it depicts former state representative Tony Cornish driving the parade entry for Minnesota state senator Julie Rosen; our source tells us Rosen rode shotgun in the truck. 

A photo Cornish posted to his Facebook page on July 4 shows him dressed in the same shirt and hat. Moreover, reliable area residents confirmed to our source that Rosen rode in the truck during the parade.

According to the source, current state representative Jeremy Munson, New Republican-Lake Crystal, who replaced Cornish after the powerful Public Safety chair resigned after credible sexual harassment allegations emerged during the national #MeToo movement's heyday, marched in a parade unit two blocks back in the patriotic civic celebration.

While the Munson parade unit featured a Hagedorn sign on a vehicle, Hagedorn's Facebook page makes it appear that the first term congress member participated in parades in Austin ..., Harmony and Stewartville.

#MeToo revisited in Southern Minnesota

Given Senator Rosen's reputation as a strong power broker and a formidable Republican woman lawmaker, it's curious to see her appearing in public with the former state representative. Wikipedia notes:

He resigned in disgrace from the Minnesota House on November 30, 2017, following multiple accusations of sexual harassment. . . .

In November 2017, state Rep. Erin Maye Quade and another woman, a lobbyist, accused Cornish of sexually harassing them.^[6] In response, Cornish said that his interaction with Maye Quade was taken out of context and meant as a friendly, joking exchange.^[6] He said the incidents in his office alleged by the lobbyist never happened, though he admitted that he did send her a string of text messages soliciting sex.^[6][7] House Speaker Kurt Daudt suspended Cornish as chairman of the Public Safety Committee following the allegations.^[7]

Subsequently, former House Speaker Kurt Zellers said that during his time as speaker from 2011 to 2012 he had confronted Cornish about sexually harassing women at the State Capitol and called for him to resign.^[8] In interviews with MPR News, 25 people who worked with or around Cornish the past seven years described alleged unwanted sexual advances to unwanted flirtatious contact.^[9]

We're not sure what the probation period for that is, but we're guessing few lawmakers would have the courage to pick Cornish as their driver. 

Does the parade gap represent a division between district Republicans?

As we noted in Julie Rosen and Bob Gunther go to bat for Rapidan Township--where's Jeremy Munson?, Rosen looked beyond Rapidan Township's own state representative (Munson) when seeking a House companion bill sponsor for a run-of-the-mill aid package for a township that was faced with a $238,000 bill from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The Mankato Free Press reported:

There's no timeline to pay the money back, but the township can't produce the cash on its own.

Senate Finance Committee Chair Julie Rosen, R-Vernon Center, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate [SF843] . Rep. Bob Guenther(sic), R-Fairmont, is authoring similar legislation [HF615 ] in the House.

"Those poor people," Rosen said. "There's no way they can foot that bill on their own."

Remedying that predicament seems ready made for a small-government House New Republican Caucus guy like Munson, but whatever on that.

Moreover, Munson seems to have a radically different view of legislation praised by the Mankato Free Press editorial board in Our View: Opioids Resources to fight epidemic finally pass:

. . . Kudos to Sen. Julie Rosen, the Vernon Center Republican who carried the legislation in that chamber. It’s been a multi-year fight with Big Pharma to get this done, and Rosen and others involved in passing the measure view it as only a start. They promise more legislation in future sessions.

One of the few opponents was Rep. Jeremy Munson, R-Lake Crystal, who represents half of Rosen’s Senate district. His argument is that the fees will be passed on to consumers with legitimate need for the painkillers.

Apparently Munson would prefer to continue to starve the response to the deadly epidemic of funds. While Minnesota has not been as hard-hit as some other states by opioid addiction (meth has consistently been a greater problem in the North Star State), it has been a problem, as evidenced by the number of legislators who have lost adult children to opioid-related deaths.

Rosen has been vocal in her scorn for the drugmakers’ consistent refusal to bear any responsibility for their role in creating and fueling the wave of addiction. She is more correct — far more correct — on this issue than is Munson.

Munson fired back In Response: Opioid legislation fell short, is legally suspect:

In the May 23 “Our View,” The Free Press editorial board failed to accurately summarize the opioid legislation, understand the impacts, and appreciate our Constitutional restrictions.

Had The Free Press bothered to contact the 29 Republican legislators who voted against the opioid bill to understand both sides before it proclaimed its opinion, it may have presented a less biased view of the legislation and my position.

The Free Press’ assumptions do not reflect my position, nor are they supported by my statements or votes. I support paying to fight this crisis now; not two years from now, as this bill does. Four times, I voted in favor of using money from our Health Care Access Fund, which is available immediately, to fund the programs in this legislation, instead of relying on this bill’s unconstitutional fine, which will likely be held up in the courts.

Recently, in Healthcare Distribution Alliance v. Zucker et al. a New York federal court found a similar opioid tax to violate the interstate commerce clause. The role of the Legislature is not to be judge, jury and executioner, assessing punitive damages just so it looks good on campaign mailers. We should not be supporting crony capitalism, as reflected in this bill. We should not pass bad legislation to fix in future years. And, we should not be increasing the cost of health care.

Minnesotans’ number one issue is the cost of health care. After New York passed a similar opioid tax, generic manufacturers stopped distributing there. (In Minnesota, 90% of legal opioids come from generic manufacturers.) In New York the judge stayed similar opioid legislation until after the lawsuit was decided. Court testimony predicted a 1,200% increase in the cost of opioids.

We do not decrease the cost of anything by taxing it. This new $20.5 million annual opioid tax, the proposed $10.4 million annual insulin tax, and the new 1.8% tax on all medical bills will increase health-care costs and are wrong. They create another tax to pass on to the sick.

The Free Press failed to mention the bill, as signed by the governor, takes many of the fees, originally aimed at Big Pharma, and assesses them to veterinarians, suppliers of medical oxygen, and non-opioid drug wholesalers. Of the $20.5 million in annual fees, $12 million will be assessed to everyone else taxed under this bill. Furthermore, the sunset eliminates fees for opioid manufacturers, but permanently increases health-care costs for everyone else.

Your editorial board’s biased approach prevented it from seeing the truth: Big Pharma put the screws to the authors of the opioid bill and rewrote it to benefit Big Pharma. As I stated on the house floor, “This is crony capitalism at its finest.”

Instead of assessing the fees in proportion to market share, a flat fee is assessed to all manufacturers in an effort to box out competition. Finally, the bill funds additional bureaucrats, extending their reach to more drugs than just opioids.

Minnesotans want Big Pharma to pay for their role. However, assessing punitive damages is not the role of our Legislature; it is the role of our courts. Thus, on May 17, Attorney General Keith Ellison joined other states in a lawsuit against opioid manufacturers. I support this suit, which is expected to produce over a trillion dollars for states to combat addiction and opioid crimes.

If your editorial board understands the role of our courts and Ellison’s suit, how can it support punitive damages assessed by an emotional Legislature? Where is its support for the 29 lawmakers who repeatedly voted to use available funds to fight addiction now, who fought against increasing health-care costs and who honored their oath to legislate within the confines of our Constitutions?

The bill’s authors made excuses for it being poorly written, “hoping to fix it in the years to come.” Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Vernon Center, acknowledged, “clunkers” in the bill. Rep. Liz Olson, DFL-Duluth, the House author, admitted frustration with how Big Pharma changed this bill and said: “We’ll have more work to do. This isn’t the end, this is the beginning.” This is not how good laws are created.

We need to address the opioid problem, but the opioid legislation passed this year in Minnesota is not even a good start. It is an unconstitutional punitive penalty that unfairly increases expenses for farmers and patients and will likely be held up in the court instead of actually helping to fight addiction now.

Could such exchanges create distances between local old and new Republicans? We certainly can't fault Congressman Hagedorn for marching in larger towns like Harmony to the east of sunny Vernon Center and so not having to mind the gap.

Meanwhile, on July 2, Governor Walz [Held a} Signing Ceremony for Bill Combatting Opioid Epidemic in Minnesota. Judging from the reaction to it on our social media stream, many Minnesotans would rather march with Rosen on that one.

Photo: The Rosen parade vehicle in the Vernon Center July 4 parade. Supplied photo.

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MN07: principle architect of American farm policy doesn't see the conflict inherent in the system

MinnPost's Glean and other observers are taking note of West Central Tribune reporter Carolyn Lange's coverage of the latest remarks about American agriculture by House Ag committee chair (ranking member when Democrats are out of power), MN07 congressionman Collin Peterson. 

In Rep. Peterson’s dire predictions for the ag sector, a MinnPost staff member wrote in the afternoon Glean:

Plagues of locusts would be a relief. Carolyn Lange of the West Central Tribune covered Rep. Collin Peters
on‘s recent talk in Willmar: “He said the ‘chickens are coming home to roost’ for the ag economy, and they may be roosting for a good long time. ‘I don’t think this thing is going to turn around anytime soon,’ he said. ‘I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am.’ Low crop prices – which Peterson said were brought about by overproduction, the Trump administration’s tariffs and the lack of markets for soybeans because a widespread swine flu is killing millions of hogs in China – has taken its toll on agriculture.”

Sadly, the staff member stopped quoting copy before the next sentence in Lange's article Congressman Collin Peterson makes dire predictions for agriculture:

What Minnesota farmers needed this year was a bumper crop, Peterson said.

Curious that a bumper crop (overproduction) might solve "Low crop prices – which Peterson said were brought about by overproduction . . . "  

Moreover, we're curious why lower land prices and lower land rents are to only be considered a horror show. Lange reports:

Peterson predicts that agriculture is heading into an economic cycle that will look like the 1980s, when foreclosures and bankruptcies put thousands of farmers out of business across the Midwest.

“It means foreclosures, it means land prices coming down, it means rent coming down,” he said. “And it could last. It could just be that this winter is the tip of the iceberg and it could get worse.”

Will thousands of farmers go out of business in this new century? Didn't they do that in the last? Or will low land prices allow younger and new farmers--some with differing visions of what agriculture might be from those agribusiness entities-- the large family farm corporations or limited liability partnerships that hoarded acreage, equity and farm payments? 

Perhaps lower land prices and lower rents might result in more independent farmers entering agriculture.

Certainly that hasn't been the trend since Peterson joined the House Agriculture committee during the 102 Congress, according to a January 24, 1991 resolution. The Fencepost reported in January 2019's Peterson elected House Agriculture Committee Chairman:

This is the second time Peterson has served as the committee’s chairman, first serving from 2007 to 2011. Peterson, who had previously served since 2011 as the committee’s ranking member, issued the following statement upon his election:

“I am honored to receive the support of my colleagues to serve as Chairman of the Agriculture Committee in the 116th Congress. I look forward to continuing the important work of the committee to address the many challenges facing our producers, our rural communities, and our working families across the country.

“There is no shortage of work to be done. There is a new farm bill to implement, a growing economic storm in farm country to address . . .

Readers may remember that as ranking member, Peterson pushed to have the Republican bill passed, leaving the new Democratic majority to implement that law. AgWeek's Michelle Rook reported on December 17, 2018, Congress passes farm bill; Peterson calls it 'a miracle': 

Peterson will become chairman of the House Agriculture Committee with Democrats taking control of the House and so implementation will fall on his watch. He says that process could take a long time.

"It always does. Probably to get all of it done will take a year," he says.

Peterson says he's going to more closely oversee that procedure than he did with the 2014 program.

"One reason is the lobbyists that lose out in the process of writing the bill wait until it's signed and go over to USDA to try to undo parts of the legislation and often they are successful," he says.

Farm groups praised lawmakers for improving the legislation. American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall says the passage is welcome news for America's farmers and ranchers as "it renews risk management tools, foreign market development and environmental stewardship programs that farmers and ranchers need to survive a prolonged and painful downturn in farm income and be sustainable."

In the six months since, Peterson has only grown more dire along with the farm economy. Sad. But maybe overproduction will solve the problems created by overproduction.

Photo: Randall, MN,  and vicinty, literally underwater in 1972. Via the Morrison County Historical Society.

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Not in Minnesota anymore: SD Gov will oppress farmers' god-given right to hay right-of-ways

Bluestem is astonished by the resilience of the pheasant species, or at least the ability of Republicans on different sides of the Minnesota-South Dakota border to define state highway right-of-ways as suitable habitat for the non-native game bird.

This reflection is prompted by the Keloland headline over the Bob Mercer article, Governor Noem wants warnings issued for mowing early along state highways, as well as the copy:

South Dakota doesn’t allow mowing rights of way along state highways east of the Missouri River before July 10 in most instances. This summer, Governor Kristi Noem wants landowners reminded about the regulation, which is intended to protect pheasants and other wildlife that use ditches for nesting.

Noem has directed state Department of Transportation crews to suspend mowing until July 10 except in rural areas. She also wants conservation officers for the state Game, Fish and Parks Department and state Highway Patrol personnel to keep track and issue warnings.

Tony Leif is director for GFP’s Wildlife Division. He said the mowing ban is a state Transportation Commission rule.

“Our goal this year is to ensure that farmers and ranchers are aware of the date when state highway roadsides can be mowed for hay. GFP conservation officers will stop and visit with landowners who they see actively mowing state highway rights of way prior to July 10,” he continued.

“Our officers will reiterate the governor’s interest in promoting pheasant habitat and convey the message that this landowner outreach effort is being done in line with those efforts.  Where our officers find rights of way that have already been mowed, we will record the date and location of where the right of way mowing occurred. . . .

“South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers are on the roadways every day, enforcing the laws of the state. If a trooper sees someone mowing in the ditch before July 10, they will both educate and warn the individual,” Colonel Rick Miller, superintendent of the Highway Patrol, said Wednesday. . . .

Pheasant habitat is an emphasis of the new Noem administration.

“Roadside ditches provide valuable nesting cover for pheasants, especially in portions of the state with limited CRP land or other upland nesting habitat,” she said.

“Mowing too early can kill hens and newly hatched broods, and result in lower pheasant populations. It is critical that everyone refrains from mowing or haying until July 10.”

The Noem pandering to pheasant habitat contrasts sharply with the debate in Minnesota over mowing and haying state right-of-way ditches, where efforts to enforce the state's August 1 mowing opener have been greeted with calls to allow haying at any time, along with claims that leaving habitat alone during the nesting season does no good for pheasants, as they don't nest in ditches to begin with.

As we noted in our lede, the species is highly adaptable to varying political ecologies on either side of the states' borders.

What Minnesota Republicans said about ditch mowing

We recommend checking out Tony Kennedy's 2018 article in the Strib, Minnesota farmers, environmentalists and legislators stuck in a ditch over roadside maintenance, Iowa Public Television's report from Collen Bradford Kranz, Minnesota Continues to Debate Hay Making in Ditches, and 2018's Minnesota News Network's MN House authorizes extension of moratorium on permits for ditch mowing, haying (with AUDIO), which drops a money quote from Mazeppa Republican Steve Drazkowski:

MN-DOT for another year, until April 30, 2019, could *not* require permits for people to mow or hay in trunk highway ditches along their property, under a bill that cleared the Minnesota House late Tuesday on a strong vote. Members of both sides of the aisle say they need more time because agreement has been difficult — Mazeppa Republican Steve Drazkowski putting his finger on one major point of contention:  “If people want to grow bees and butterflies and birds, there’s lots and lots and lots of space well, well, well beyond the two or three steps out of the car off of the road.”  Drazkowski argues ditches should be clear for safety reasons, but others say that’s important wildlife habitat.

Now, Bluestem isn't a fan of all of Kristi Noem's notions about nurturing pheasant populations--the nest predator program is summarized in Dakota Free Press's April article, Noem to Kids: Go Outside and Kill Something!--but we give her credit for asking South Dakota Highway Patrol troopers to scold those mowing state highway right-of-ways before July 10.

Back in June, in a Morning's Hot Dish at the Strib, we read:

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will have a lunch convo with Minnesota Chamber members on June 19 at the Nicollet Island Pavilion in Minneapolis. Republicans are in desperate need of women leaders. Interesting that she’s making the trip over here. There will be a GOP post-Trump sooner or later, after all.

While the Strib reporter thinks he's spotted a contender, Bluestem suspects her willingness to oppress farmers who want to hay public lands won't get her support from rural Republican leaders in Minnesota, any more than her veto of bipartisan industrial hemp legislation will win fans among farmers across America. Add the suburban vote-killing Constitution carry bill and the anti-Soros malarky when introducing her past-deadline "riot boosting" bill--later denied in court, Bluestem believes there's something to alienate most voters.

As the cliche asserts, even a stopped clock is right twice a date, and Noem's on more solid ground with mowing than Republicans in Minnesota.

For more information about the debate in Minnesota, see our March 2018 post, MN House bills go after habitat with a vengeance

Meme: Not in South Dakota, oddly enough. 

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Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting: Brazilian JBS lowballed USDA pork contracts

In yet another case of an independent news organization proving its worth, Christopher Wallperson at the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting reports in JBS a big winner in USDA trade war relief contracts:

A Brazilian-owned meat processing company undercut its competition by more than $1 per pound to win nearly $78 million in pork contracts through a federal program launched to help American farmers offset the impact from an ongoing trade war.

As a result, JBS USA has won more than 26 percent of the $300 million the USDA has allocated to pork so far – more than any other company, according to an analysis of bid awards by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting .

The USDA’s Trade Mitigation Program was announced last August, and included direct payments to farmers, as well as $1.2 billion in food purchases from farmers and ranchers whose crops normally benefit from international markets. The plan called for $558 million worth of pork purchases. The program is intended to help U.S. farmers and ranchers hurt by the ongoing trade disputes with China, Mexico, Canada and other trading partners.

JBS bid an average of $2.56 per pound for five pound pork loin cuts, while its competitors bid an average of $3.80 per pound. The company bid as low as $2.02 for the cut, the Midwest Center found.

The analysis found that JBS bid 33 percent less on the contracts - undercutting its competitors, even Tyson Foods, the second largest meat processor in the country.

JBS USA is the U.S. division of JBS SA, the world’s largest meat producer. The company owns more than 300 live hog operations in the United States.

It’s expanded its reach in the U.S. in the last decade, buying Swift & Co., Smithfield BeefGroup, Inc., Pilgrim’s Pride poultry and Cargill’s Pork business, in addition to other acquisitions abroad.

JBS’ facilities in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and California have won trade mitigation contracts with the USDA.

“Who’s the government going to purchase it from? The Brazilian-owned JBS or the Chinese-owned Smithfield? They’ve allowed enough concentration in the packing industry, you’re running out of choices,” said Brian Duncan, a hog farmer from Northwest Illinois and vice president of the Illinois Farm Bureau.

On the eve of Independence Day, the international corporate agribusiness's dominance reminds Bluestem Prairie of the struggle between business power and liberty. But perhaps it's stretch to draw an analogy between government "supporting one business's interests at the expense of the liberty" of individual farmers and the East India Company.

Bluestem's paternal family legend told the story of how her distant colonial ancestor appropriated indigenous wardrobe and partied in Boston Harbor prior to the American Revolution, but the Houghton fellow who engaged in that performative transgression appears to have been a cousin to her late family members in the colony of Massachusetts. Close enough, we're guessing the family storytellers decided in the 19th Century.

Meanwhile, it's not just the Brazilian-based JBS cleaning up from the top in Trump's trade wars. Associated Press journalist Steve Karnowski reports in Big farms find easy ways around trade aid limits:

When President Donald Trump’s administration announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers struggling under the financial strain of his trade dispute with China, the payments were capped. But many large farming operations had no trouble finding legal ways around them, records provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act show.

The government paid nearly $2.8 million to a Missouri soybean operation registered as three entities at the same address. More than $900,000 went to five other farm businesses, in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and two in Texas. Three other farming operations collected more than $800,000, and 16 others collected more than $700,000.

Recipients defended the payouts, saying they didn’t cover their losses from the trade war and they were legally entitled to them. Department of Agriculture rules let farms file claims for multiple family members or other partners who meet the department’s definition of being “actively engaged in farming.”

But U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has long fought for subsidy limits, and other critics say it’s the latest example of how loopholes let large farms collect far more than the supposed caps allow.

Grassley said in a statement to AP that some of the nation’s largest farms are receiving huge subsidies “through underhanded legal tricks. They’re getting richer off the backs of taxpayers while young and beginning farmers are priced out of the profession. This needs to end. The Department of Agriculture needs to re-evaluate its rules for awarding federal funds and conduct more thorough oversight of where it’s funneling taxpayer dollars.”

USDA officials said they believe its rules are being followed and that procedures are in place to audit recipients.

About 83 percent of the aid under the Market Facilitation Program has gone to soybean farmers because they’ve suffered most under China’s retaliatory tariffs. The program sets a $125,000 cap in each of three categories of commodities: one for soybeans and other row crops, one for pork and dairy, and one for cherries and almonds. But each qualified family member or business partner gets their own $125,000 cap for each category. Farmers who produce both soybeans and hogs, for example, would have separate caps for each and could thus collect $250,000.

But there are legal ways around those caps.

USDA data show the biggest beneficiary has been DeLine Farms Partnership and two similarly named partnerships registered at the same address in Charleston, Mo., that collected nearly $2.8 million. They’re led by Donald DeLine and his wife, Lisa DeLine. Their attorney, Robert Serio, said the partnerships qualified legally and probably could have qualified for more if not for the caps. He said each partnership farms around 27,000 acres and is made up of eight or nine partners who all meet the “actively engaged” requirement. . . .

Read the rest at Big farms find easy ways around trade aid limits.

We're just guessing that Jefferson didn't have this in mind when he lavished praise on yeoman farmers, or so the late historian Richard Hofstader would have us believe. While we abhor Jefferson's slave holding ways, there's much to be admired in his prose--and the seven-year crop rotation outlined here is to die for.

Image: Will there be a Lake Okabena Pork Party, following the example of revolutionary American patriots? Since the Worthington Windsurfing Regatta & Music Festival has passed for 019, perhaps the area's yeoman farmers--many working on pork production contracts with large concerns--will have to pick a more environmentally-friendly protest than throwing pigs or pork in the lake (regardless of this inspiring example).

If you appreciate our posts and original analysis, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. Those wishing to make a small ongoing monthly contribution should click on the  paypal subscription button.

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Millions of milkweed stems needed to conserve monarch butterflies in the Dakotas

At the Grand Forks Herald, North Dakota Outdoors columnist Doug Leier writes in State and federal partners work to benefit monarch butterfly populations:

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was scheduled to determine whether the monarch butterfly warranted listing as an endangered species.

That didn’t happen, not because the North American monarch population suddenly improved dramatically, but because the deadline for this important decision was extended for about 18 months, to Dec. 15, 2020. With the additional time, biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Service and other organizations will continue to collect information on the monarch’s status.

A lot of people care about this, because monarchs are perhaps the most recognized of all butterfly species. But as familiar as monarchs are, they are much less common than they were at one time.

Two years ago, North Dakota Outdoors, the state Game and Fish Department’s magazine, featured a story on the monarch’s status in the state, which indicated the North American monarch population, based on surveys of wintering grounds in Mexico, was estimated at 1 billion in 1996. The number eventually dwindled to estimated 35 million but has improved somewhat in recent years.

Sandra Johnson, Game and Fish Department conservation biologist, said that while there are a number of potential reasons for the decline in monarch numbers, such as disease and predation, loss of milkweed habitat is near the top of the list. “Without milkweed, there are no more monarchs,” Johnson said at the time. . . . 

The North Dakota Monarch and Native Pollinator Strategy [linked added] outlines actions to increase the monarch population in its summer range and further pollinator conservation in the state.

Wildlife managers understand that listing a species as federally threatened or endangered may restrict certain actions on private and public lands. The cost of protection or restoration of a listed species is often far greater than preventing or stemming the decline in the first place.

“No one wants the monarch butterfly on the endangered species list because of the restrictions that come with managing public and private land,” Johnson said. “And no one wants it going extinct in 20 years.”

Here's the South Dakota plan:

SD Monarch Strategic Plan Nov 2018 uuploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd

We're still looking for Minnesota's plan and will post a link to the document when we find a live version of it. Meanwhile, enjoy the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' monarch webpage here.

Photo: We left this milkweed patch in a vegetable garden last year. We were surprised by the number of neighbors who didn't know  milkweed varieties were the only food for monarch caterpillars. When they learned this natural fact, several quit weeding out milkweed on their properties and enjoyed watching the transformation of the caterpillars into butterflies.

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