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WGC REPORTS WL responsive to the moves on the board of trade. I have it set up now that I get text alerts every half hour when the market is open. Plus, I receive email notifications from some marketing advice groups. That, and I have cell phone capability to call my broker. All of those things are now happening at the same time,” he said. Does it make a difference Blankenship said if nothing else, the connectivity keeps him focused on the idea that marketing is a year-round endeavor. “This is not the old days when, after harvest, you counted your bushels and sold a contract or two. Now, it is a 12-month plan,” he said. Brit Ausman, who farms near Asotin, Wash., and is the newest member of the Washington Grain Commission, has had cell phones since the mid-1990s, and he agrees they have helped make him more efficient. Accessing the weather, the market, using the calendar function, GPS and texting and emailing throughout the day has provided him with a range of capabilities to stay on top of an increasingly complicated operation. And yet Ausman, 40, sees a dark side to all that productivity. He feels it is rude and unproductive when he goes to a meeting and 60 percent of the room is sending or reading a text or on the internet Facebooking. “We are losing the face-to-face contact of a meeting. It is almost as if the world is becoming disconnected from personal conversation, and I don’t think that is good,” he said. He admits he’s part of the problem. Like Berg, he likes the text function because it’s quick and direct when he doesn’t want to spare time for an actual conversation. But removing face-to-face contact and now even voiceto-voice contact can lead to conflicted “conversations” that result in miscommunication due to a text or email without an emotional connection. For Ausman, the cell phone opened Pandora’s Box, and the smart phone is just the latest iteration. On his farm, the linkage will become even more sophisticated next year when his sprayer is connected to the internet. Thanks to new software from a precision ag company, he will be able follow the sprayer in real time from his phone. It’s not that he necessarily needs the ability to know what his sprayer is doing at any given moment, but by connecting its functions to the internet, he will have an automatic record of all of his chemical applications, something he believes will be more important as time goes on. Like most farmers, Ausman occasionally chooses to turn his phone off. Reading bedtime stories to his young children is one of those interludes. As for time to reflect and plan without being disturbed by endless interruptions, he has two intermissions. One is while he’s taking a shower. The other is when he’s on an airplane. Unfortunately, as airlines begin to offer high speed internet connections on their flights, it appears that for smart farmers like Ausman, the only respite from smart phones and today’s 24/7 business of farming will be taking longer showers. WASHINGTON GRAIN COMMISSION Email is one of Nicole Berg’s most used functions on her phone—and it’s not all about the farm. Some people like to dress up their phones, like Mary Palmer Sullivan, program director for the Washington Grain Commission. WHEAT LIFE JANUARY 2012 53
WL WGC REPORTS Belt tightening at FSA farmers WASHINGTON GRAIN COMMISSION Patience is a virtue the State Executive Director of Washington State’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) is asking wheat farmers to practice in 2012. Cutbacks at the Washington State FSA due to a declining administrative/operational budget will necessitate growers planning further ahead and paying for some of the materials previously supplied by the agency. Due to a program of incentivizing retirement, it is also likely that farmers who have worked with specific staff in the past will no longer see those people behind county office counters. Not only that, those positions will probably remain vacant for now. The number of permanent, fulltime employees at the state FSA will decline from 130 to 118 by September 2012. Judy Olson, who serves as state executive director and also operates a wheat farm with her husband, Rich, expects staffing reductions will all be achieved through retirement. Meanwhile, funding for temporary employees who are brought in to county offices to help during busy sign-up periods has been eliminated, and no overtime has been authorized in more than a year. Olson has been making the rounds of agricultural organizations to let them know what to expect, but even that is a problem. The state agency’s travel budget has been cut by more than 50 percent, and there is no money for per diem, which means overnight travel is out. Olson made it clear, however, that funding is still available to make spot checks of farmers’ field or to measure grain bins to ensure compliance under the programs the agency administers. With belt tightening extending to items like paper, printer ink cartridges and postage, farmers and their landlords will no longer receive printed newsletters. Monthly electronic newsletters will replace them and will be available on the Washington State FSA website at www.fsa.usda.gov/wa. For those individuals without high speed internet, Olson said various ideas are being considered to reach them, including leaving a few printed newsletters at county office counters or at locations where farmers gather. Individual letters will continue to be sent, but not bulk mailings. The cutbacks are extending even to the materials farmers have come to expect over the years. Olson said farmers will be limited to one set of maps and one set of documentation. If they need additional copies for landlords, they will either have to make copies themselves or pay the FSA to do it. It will be possible for county offices to download the information onto thumb drives or disks for farmers, but Olson noted that such storage devices must come to the offices in new, unopened packaging due to security concerns. The operational cutbacks are part of a national mood aimed at making government smaller by reducing federal agency funding while attempting to balance the budget. This national debate sets the scene for what members of Congress submit regarding annual appropriations for all federal agencies, Olson said. In Washington, the state FSA cuts amount to about 10 percent from the Fiscal Year 2011 funding level. These administrative/operational funding reductions are not expected to change deadlines for sign-ups which are set nationally. That could create challenges, especially in some county offices which will be left shorthanded by retirements. “We are urging patience, and we are encouraging producers to make appointments, especially where that hasn’t traditionally been the case,” Olson said, adding that a register will be established that can extend service to farmers past the imposed deadlines. She cautions, however, that only those who have attempted to make a timely appointment will be included on the list. Because the FSA doesn’t have a say in who retires, office staffing around the state is likely to be unbalanced until staff can be repositioned. Staff may be asked to change duty station assignments to assist with workload demands. Some county offices which are understaffed may be shut part of the week, and farmers who don’t phone ahead may be greeted by a sign on the door noting the closure. In Eastern Washington, Asotin and Garfield, Columbia and Walla Walla, Okanogan and Ferry and Chelan and Douglas counties all have shared management, although each county has its own county committee. Additional temporary shared management situations may occur as employees retire. Shared management refers to a single county executive director managing multiple county offices. 54 WHEAT LIFE JANUARY 2012
Page 1 and 2: W L HEAT IFE The official publicati
Page 3 and 4: WAWG President’s Perspective 2 WA
Page 5 and 6: Why in-pLace BeTTer coVeraGe. incre
Page 7 and 8: TIME FOR A LITTLE PAYBACK This just
Page 9 and 10: DC agenda set Washington’s wheat
Page 11 and 12: CUTTNG CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY YOU
Page 13 and 14: Quality Fuels & Lubricants Prompt,
Page 15 and 16: Transition Planning - Asset Protect
Page 17 and 18: Industry, work, character, honesty,
Page 19 and 20: POLICY MATTERS WL Jetties at top of
Page 21 and 22: The Washington, D.C., hand FEATURE
Page 23 and 24: MACHINING • FABRICATION • REPAI
Page 25 and 26: 2011/12 Senate Committees Senate Ag
Page 27 and 28: WL FEATURE Global Demand, Local Imp
Page 29 and 30: WL FEATURE Where does our fertilize
Page 31 and 32: At the Wheat Marketing Center in Po
Page 33 and 34: PROFILES WL “I decided that in li
Page 35 and 36: PROFILES WL as part of a living tru
Page 37 and 38: and were driven to get the job done
Page 39 and 40: WASHINGTON GRAIN COMMISSION Apply h
Page 41 and 42: WASHINGTON GRAIN COMMISSION WL WGC
Page 43 and 44: WL WGC REPORTS EPORTS RWASHINGTON G
Page 45 and 46: WL WGC REPORTS WASHINGTON GRAIN COM
Page 47 and 48: WL WGC REPORTS $MARTPHONES FARMERS
Page 49: WL WGC REPORTS WASHINGTON GRAIN COM
Page 53 and 54: WL WGC REPORTS Table 1. Worksheet f
Page 55 and 56: WL WGC REPORTS WASHINGTON GRAIN COM
Page 57 and 58: WIDE WORLD OF WHEAT Photo by ANDREW
Page 59 and 60: WL FEATURE Getting the word out A c
Page 61 and 62: WL FEATURE Mitchell & Lewis Co. Dur
Page 63 and 64: WL FEATURE Raising the roof on an o
Page 65 and 66: WL FEATURE project. The use of the
Page 67 and 68: Your wheat life... Two-year-old Jac
Page 69: CIH-PF-02 Advertiser Index A & L Su

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