There is Always Next Year

When profits fall, people leave, farms get bigger demanding an ever increasing capital layout.

Farm
and Ranch Guide: Regional News: "Red River Valley farm profit falls nearly
50 percent in 2005
By ANDY SWENSON, Farm Management Specialist, NDSU
Extension Service
Thursday, March 30, 2006 9:47 AM CST

The Minnesota and North Dakota Farm Business Management Education programs have compiled their annual financial summary of farms in the Red River Valley.

This is the most detailed farm analysis information available to the public for this region. It is available at http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/aginfo/farmmgmt/FBM.htm and will soon be available at http://www.mgt.org Financial performance in 2005 was much worse than in 2004. Gross revenues were similar, but total expenses were up 10 percent. This caused net farm income to shrink by 49 percent."

Another Part of the Sugar Industry

The Business Review (Albany): Maple producers tap into sweet season; extra cash comes flowing in - 2006-03-27: "Maple producers tap into sweet season; extra cash comes flowing in"

Maple sugar is a much bigger crop than I ever suspected. Also, I was surprised to learn that Wisconsin is a significant producer.

Out with the Old, In with the New

And so it goes.

Preservation Online: Today's News Archives: N.Y. Town Approves Demolition of 190-Year-Old Inn for Walgreens:

"A 190-year-old inn that may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad could be torn down for a Walgreens. Last week the town of Chili, N.Y., located outside Rochester, approved a developer's plan to build a
drugstore on the site of the Stagecoach Inn.

'There are quite a few people
who are against it,' says Darcy Beeman, a member of the grassroots group Friends
of the Stagecoach Inn. 'Our take is that the two buildings can coexist.'
On
Mar. 15, the planning board of Chili, a town of 28,000, voted 7-0 in favor of
Illinois-based developer Maude Development's plan to build a 14,820-foot
drugstore in place of the inn. Critics of the demolition plan will attend a
meeting with the zoning board of appeals next week.
'My feeling is that they
didn't do their homework on its cultural and historical significance,' says
longtime resident Pastor Rodney Jones. 'It's the most important historic site in
our town.'
Built around 1816 as a stagecoach stop, inn, tavern, and post
office, in 1867 the two-story brick building became the Chili Seminary, the
first Free Methodist educational institution in the country. The Free
Methodists, who were abolitionists, operated a 'temperance house' in the
building and may have sheltered runaway slaves there, Beeman says.
Last used
as an art studio and apartments, the building has been vacant for only three
months. Its owner, Alexander Tulloch, asked tenants to move out by January.
An Eckerd's drugstore, video store, gas station, and strip mall already
surround the Stagecoach Inn."

Molasses

I'm still searching for internet sites on the topic of Molasses. If anyone has suggestions, make a comment.

mosquitos in Arizona??

The Business Journal of Phoenix: Lowe's store fined for mosquito hazard - 2006-03-24

Do you think the snowbirds from the Dakotas brought the insects?

Dane considers porn fringe benefit - Aftenposten

I always knew the Danes were ahead on most social issues.

"An IT company in Nordjylland, Denmark has introduced a novel program to keep
employees satisfied. After examining well-known trends in Internet and business
traffic, LL Media decided it would be sensible and appreciated to offer all of
its employees free subscriptions to Internet pornography."

Hawaii Crop Damage

San Francisco Business Times: Lingle seeks federal aid for flooded farms - 2006-03-24

Flooding in Hawaii is causing significant problems for the state's adricultural community.

Modern Sugar Cubes a Disaster

When I was a boy my grandmother taught me how to drink coffee while holding a sugar cube in my teeth. Cubes in the market today cannot withstand the moisture and pressure and immediately disolve. What is a Norsk coffee drinker to do?


Lump sugar: "Lump sugar is refined sugar which has been pressed or cast into a particular shape. Chemically speaking, refined sugar is ultrapure sucrose which has been obtained from white sugar by dissolution and recrystallization. Its sucrose content is 99.9%. Refined sugar is pure white in color with sparkling crystals. Refined sugar has no secondary odors or flavors. The crystals are readily soluble.

Sugar cubes are available as either pressed or cast cubes.

Pressed cubes:

Sugar cubes were first made in 1840 by the Austrian Jacob Christoph Rad. Cubes were initially made by pressing moistened sugar and casting it in sheets, which were broken up first into strips and then into cubes.

Today, fine-grain refined sugar with 2 - 3% of added water is still pressed into sheets and strips, which are dried and divided into cubes. The dividing surfaces of pressed cubes may vary between smooth and very uneven as the strips are not always uniform in structure.

Since pressure bonds the sugar crystals together firmly only at the surface, pressed cubes are easily crushed and then break apart completely.


Cast cubes:

Refined sugar massecuite is allowed to solidify in a sheet mold. The sheets of sugar are then centrifuged and washed once more with saturated refined sugar solution. Then they are dried and divided into cubes.

Cast cubes are stronger, harder and somewhat more porous than pressed cubes. The sugar crystals are clearly recognizable. Due to their porous structure, cast cubes dissolve in liquids more easily than pressed cubes.

Sugar cubes are often arranged in neat rows in their packaging.
Loaf sugar:

Sugar loaves are also produced by the pressing process and used, for example, in traditional German burnt punch and in jam making."

Google Finance: Florida Crystals Corporation

Florida Crystals leans heavily on its cane. One of the top US sugar producers, the company, a unit of Flo-Sun, grows sugar cane and rice on its 180,000 acres. It makes granulated, baking, powdered, and large and fine grain sugar under the Natural Sugars brand name. The company also produces Sem-Chi rice. Florida Crystals jointly owns American Sugar Refining, a top sugar refining company that processes 3 million tons of sugar per year, with the Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida. American Sugar Refining's products are sold through Domino Foods, one of the largest sugar marketers in the US. Flo-Sun is owned by the Fanjul family, which founded it in the 1960s after fleeing Fidel Castro's Cuba. "

Since American Sugar owns C & H, I guess that makes us cousins or something.

Its Not Just Cane Fields That Were Damaged

Crawfish not as plentiful in 2006
Memphis Business Journal - 3:58 PM CST Wednesday
Summer crawfish boils across the South are likely to be more expensive this year, as the forces of last year's hurricanes combine with more aggressive action by U.S. Customs.
As the harvest gets underway this week, crawfish growers along the Gulf Coast are reporting yields of about 30 percent compared to last year's bumper crop, according to a report by the Louisiana State University Agricultural Extension Service.

Info for event nc51169283

Info for event nc51169283: "A minor earthquake occurred at 1:41:42 PM (PST) on Tuesday, March 21, 2006.
The magnitude 3.7 event occurred 6 km (4 miles) SE of Moraga, CA.
The hypocentral depth is 13 km ( 8 miles). "

More tax for foreigners

Just when I was thinking about getting a job teaching sugar history in Norway!!

New regulations mean that foreigners temporarily living in Norway will have
a bigger tax bill.
Foreigners with temporary employment in Norway are
entitled to a standard deduction on top of other common deductions, such as a
basic tax allowance, personal deductions and other schemes.
Beginning in
2006 this standard deduction for foreign temporary workers will be reduced from
15 to ten percent of earnings, and a ceiling for the deduction will be set at
NOK 40,000 (USD 6,000)."

Claus Spreckels Sugar King

One of my hero sugarmen


In 1857, he established the Albany Brewery in San Francisco, and after conducting both enterprises for a time, sold the store. His next concern was the establishment of the Bay Sugar Refining Company, but two years later he sold this and went to Europe to study more thoroughly the production and refining of beet sugar. While in Europe he entered a beet factory as a workman, and thus became familiar with all the details of the industry. He discovered that beet sugar could not at that time be manufactured in the United States with profit, and he accordingly returned to California and started the California Sugar Refining Company, which has grown to such proportions that it is now a landmark of San Francisco.

Sugar Outlook Brightens

Here are excerpts from several business news outlets:

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 News provided by Comtex.
Byline: Jo Studdert
Feb 14, 2006 (The Australian - ABIX via COMTEX) -- An improved outlook for the Australian sugar industry has lifted the price of sugarcane
farms. It has been difficult to sell sugarcane farms since 2000. However, the price of sugar rose to $US0.19 a pound in February 2006, the highest price for 24 years. The rise is due to a fall in sugar supplies. High oil prices have caused the world's major sugar producer, Brazil, to use
its sugar for the production of ethanol. Real estate agents in Queensland sugar- growing areas have reported strong interest
from buyers and an increase in land values.
Publication Date: 15 February 2006 HERRON TODD WHITE AUSTRALIA PTY LTD:

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 Argus Media Inc.
Brazil's sugar and ethanol producers are expanding the area devoted to planting cane at a rapid pace to meet growing domestic and foreign demand for their products.
As part of this process, they expect to increase the excess electricity produced from biomass to operate their mills from 3,000MW to 10,000MW by 2010-11. Brazil's total power matrix--including imports of 8,000MW--amounts to 100,000MW, according to the national energy regulator Aneel.
Brazil is the world's largest and most efficient sugar and ethanol producer, and operates the world's most developed programme in biofuel production, which is based on cane.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 Argus Media Inc.
Brazil's sugar and ethanol producers are expanding the area devoted to planting cane at a rapid pace to meet growing domestic and foreign demand for their products.
As part of this process, they expect to increase the excess electricity produced from biomass to operate their mills from 3,000MW to 10,000MW by 2010-11. Brazil's total power matrix--including imports of 8,000MW--amounts to 100,000MW, according to the national energy regulator Aneel.
Brazil is the world's largest and most efficient sugar and ethanol producer, and operates the world's most developed programme in biofuel production, which is based on cane.

Sugar is at the root of everything Mauritius is. It was the reason for importing slaves who gave the country its Creole language, the one common element that binds its different groups together, and later for bringing in indentured labour from India, the source of its majority population and dominant political class. Surplus proceeds from sugar were what enabled Mauritians to branch out into textile factories and tourism. Under the ACP deal, put in place more than 30 years ago, Mauritius sends all but a small share of its sugar to Europe, almost all in raw form and mainly to Tate & Lyle of the UK. The arrangement means it effectively commands the same price as EU sugarbeet producers.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 Asia Pulse Pty Ltd
TAIPEI, March 14 Asia Pulse - Taiwan Sugar Company (Taisugar) Chairman Yu Cheng-hsien said Monday that the company will increase cane plantation acreage in the wake of rising world sugar prices.

Norway tops in coffee drinking

Norway tops in coffee drinking

When you read this story in Aftenposten, you must wonder what is happening to the people in North Dakota!

Newspaper Chain Agrees to a Sale for $4.5 Billion - New York Times

Grand Forks-Contra Costa Connection moves from San Jose to Sacramento


Newspaper Chain Agrees to a Sale for $4.5 Billion - New York Times: "Knight Ridder, the second-largest newspaper company in the United States, agreed last night to sell itself for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock to the McClatchy Company, a publisher half its size, according to people involved in the negotiations"

Dominican Republic - Cash Crops

The Dominican Republic Remains the Place to Grow Cane.

"Despite ongoing diversification efforts, in the late 1980s the Dominican Republic continued to be the world's fourth largest producer of sugarcane. The sugar industry influenced all sectors of the economy and epitomized the nation's vulnerability to outside forces. Fluctuating world prices, adjustments to United States sugar quotas, and the actions of United States sugar companies (such as Gulf and Western Corporation's sale of all its Dominican holdings in 1985) all could determine the pace of economic development for decades. "

What if the Survey Included Crockett?

Sex survey with crown prince and princess

No doubt I would have been on top of the ladies list!!

100th Birthday Party for C & H

The event went off better than expected. About 200 people came. Ate both cakes and drank all the bubly. The sun shown until noon. C & H puts up the tents tomorrow. Great fun.

Celebrate Crockett 2006

C&On Friday, at exactly 10:25 a.m., the whistle will blow at the C&H Sugar plant, marking 100 years of sugar refining in Crockett.

"That's the time it started, 100 years ago, March 10, 1906," said Keith Olsen, the historian at the Crockett Historical Museum on Loring Avenue across the Union Pacific Railroad tracks from the C&H truck entrance. The museum is in Crockett's former railroad depot, which is owned by C&H, as were once most of Crockett's public buildings. Crockett early in the last century was virtually a company town, employing much of the working-age population directly and providing work to others indirectly through businesses that catered to C&H and local needs.
C&H also owned and operated buildings and parks and sponsored clubs, parades, picnics, festivals and other social events. At its peak, it employed about 2,300 people. But in the latter half of the century, with increased mechanization and globalization of the sugar business, C&H retrenched its social functions. About 600 people work at C&H today, and few of those are Crockett residents.

But the history of C&H still largely defines the town. The museum is the repository of a lot of it.
In its C&H section, the museum exhibits old sugar boxes, sugar barrel photos, magazines, documents, photos and other and artifacts. Retired C&H workers who still live in town frequently hang out at the museum, where they revel in their role of "living history," recounting how sugar used to be processed: sandy-textured, raw sugar was mixed in big bins into a syrup and put through filters and centrifuges to separate the molasses from a clear liquid, which would be boiled, leaving the crystallized sugar.

On Friday, former plant manager Jon Wolthuis and current plant manager Charles Nelson will offer toasts. There will be a birthday cake with the C&H logo and champagne and sparkling cider.
"We've invited all past employees and retirees and anybody else," Olsen said.
On Saturday, there will be a celebration in the C&H-owned parking lot across the street from the museum with finger foods and desserts and activities under big tents. Some C&H officials are expected to participate, Olsen said.

Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760 or tlochner@cctimes.com.H Sugar Co. celebrates century

ME at work

 

Norwegian sexologists unveil "penis atlas"

You have read this and wonder what has happened to Norway! Imagine. Ufdah

Carquinez Bridge is Falling Down!

Once noted Carquinez span now being torn apartBy Mike AdamickCONTRA COSTA TIMES

A tangle of rusted metal, twisted steel and broken concrete crosses the Carquinez straits like a crazed, tetanus-laced house of horrors. Holes gape where cars once traveled securely. Workers prepare to lift out entire 500-foot sections of towering metal. It's a somber ending for a once remarkable bridge.

The Carquinez Bridge was once the largest span west of the Mississippi. Built for $8 million in 1927 -- $83 million in today's dollars -- it incorporated seismic safety engineering and three kinds of steel. As a new connection between Solano and Contra Costa counties, it touched off a bridge-building boom throughout the rest of the Bay Area, replaced a ferry system that once carried 400,000 people a year and opened a motoring gateway to the Central Valley. The Golden Gate and Bay bridges didn't follow until the next decade. Now, it's quickly becoming a shadow of its former self, picked apart and scavenged as crews begin a painstaking demolition expected to last through next year.

"We can't just blow it up," said Caltrans spokesman Bob Haus. "We basically have to reverse engineer it, and take it down like it was put up -- piece by piece." The bridge is coated with lead paint and corroded with rust in some parts -- not particularly healthy food for protected smelt and salmon that swim below in the straits. So crews have begun taking the bridge down in sections and likely won't finish until September 2007, according to the latest schedule.
It begins with the road decks. Basketball court-sized chunks of concrete and metal are laced with cables and slowly lowered onto barges. The process takes more than six hours per piece.
Once the road decks are gone, crews will turn their attention to the steel towers that support the cantilever span, Haus said. When the bridge was built, the sections were hoisted into place by large cranes. Haus said the exact same thing will happen beginning this month. Only instead of lifting the pieces into place, the cranes will lower the towers onto barges, he said.
Under terms of the $35 million demolition agreement, the contractor -- California Engineering Contractors -- will be able to cart the metal to a scrap yard and keep any profits from selling or recycling the steel.

That's not to say the bridge will disappear altogether. Crockett's historical society will receive pieces, while Caltrans will keep portions for its own museum. Haus said a segment may even be displayed near the pathway of the new suspension span, which replaced the 1927 span.
"This was the first of the Bay Area bridges," Haus said. It deserves some recognition, he said.
So why not just keep it up -- for BART or extra traffic? Haus said the bridge has reached the end of its useful life and can't be easily retrofitted. Plus, Caltrans doesn't want to pay the maintenance costs of keeping it in operation.

So after almost 80 years, the bridge will enjoy one last party -- a retirement ceremony slated for March 17 when Caltrans hopes to send the bridge out with a bang . . . just not a big one.

Opening: The Carquinez Bridge opened on May 21, 1927 -- one day after aviator Charles Lindbergh's famous solo flight across the Atlantic.

Operator: 1927-1940 private; 1940-today Caltrans
Length: .8 miles
Cost: $8 million ($83 million today)
Demolition cost: $35 million
Completion date: September 2007

Tampa Bay Business Journal: Dairy Queen to test new store concept in Clearwater - 2006-03-07

"Tampa Bay Business Journal - 2:58 PM EST Tuesday
The first freestanding DQ/Orange Julius TreatWorks restaurant in the United States has opened.
The new TreatWorks location at 2046 Gulf to Bay Blvd. in Clearwater replaced the DQ/Limited Brazier store at that address since Oct. 1990. It marks the first time a DQ/Limited Brazier store has been converted to a TreatWorks. "

I wish they would open one in Crockett.

Breakfast Lunch and Dinner!!

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal: Taylor Farms in joint deal with Sunkist - 2006-03-06: " foodservice market, has entered into a joint venture with Sunkist Growers, the nation's oldest and largest citrus growers cooperative.
The new venture, called Sunkist Taylor LLC, will leverage the two firms' skill and assets in both the foodservice and retail markets.
Bruce Taylor, Taylor Farms' chairman and chief executive officer, said the goal 'is to build our fresh-cut fruit operation to serve both foodservice and retail customers nationwide... Our expertise in fresh vegetables and bagged salads and Sunkist's expertise in fresh citrus and other fruits are a perfect combination. Working together, we are creating a world-class fresh-cut fruit and vegetable company.' "

Man found dead after four months

This simply proves the old adage that you have to have a sharp eye to tell the difference between a Norwegian at rest and a dead body!

Strike Rumors??

The word floating around the drinking fountains these days is that a strike is brewing at C & H. Evidently the company is building its warehouse stockpile. Hopefully nothing will happen to mar the 100th anniversary celebrations on the 10th and 11th.

Angry hare attacked dogsled

This is the first item I've seen about an angry rabbit since President Carter was chased in his canoe.