The Three C's and a Cockroach

I realized the other day that I hadn't posted in a while. I have been fairly busy of late traveling and working on trying to get my dissertation chapters into journal article formats to get them published in scholarly journals. Currently, two chapters are either with the co-authors or a colleague for review prior to submitting them to journals. The final chapter has been reviewed by a colleague and I'm in the process of cleaning that up prior to submission though I may have do some re-estimation.

Anyway, there are three C's in Louisiana agriculture: chickens, cattle, and crawfish in that order of economic impact to the state. In the past few weeks, I've been to meetings for all three sectors. By now, you are probably wondering where the cockroach comes in. The LSU Ag Center has several Dodge Magnums which are used by extension personnel to travel the state. These Magnums have a stunning resemblance to the LARGE cockroaches I kill on a regular basis at the house I'm renting.


At the last meeting near Jerry Clower's old stomping grounds on the Tickfaw River, I got to drive one of the cockroaches. It was definitely an interesting meeting with chicken jambalaya instead of a beef dish. Prior to the start of the meeting, the parish ag agent had a demonstration plot of using corn gluten as a fertilizer on an oat field. It seemed to work really well though the gluten can actually prevent certain type of plants from growing due to its chemical composition. It certainly is a cheaper alternative to nitrogen these days.

Once at the actual meeting site, I stumbled on to a conversation of farmers upset about the recent financial bail-out (or buy-in for those fans of Rep. Pelosi). Historically, livestock producers have very rarely directly benefited from the farm bill (aside from the conservation/disaster titles), so it was interesting to hear their complaints of all the money in the bill going to food stamps. (Never mind that food stamps actually helps increase consumption of beef among lower income households.) There were only a handful upset, but those that were noticeably upset when these issues were mentioned. One even wanted a bailout for farmers.

What is certain is that rage seems to be rising as shown in this CNN story and it will be an interesting finish to the campaign season, although it can't come fast enough.

Earlier this week, I also made a quick trip to Chicago for a meeting there. The first night I was there I ate with some people I met (one had been at Purdue roughly the same time as me) at Gibson's Steakhouse in Rosemont. Gibson's is one of the fancy white tablecloth steakhouses that supposedly serve one of the best steaks in the nation as they serve USDA prime beef. It's so fancy that menus are re-printed each day with the prices updated. I ordered a nice sirloin that was quite tasty. As nice as it was, I still think the steak I had at Dakota's in Dallas in February was much better. Though that might have been the fact I didn't have to pay for that steak.