Harvest time is here – and with the peak of harvest season comes the annual peak of injuries and deaths of farmers and farm workers. People are stressed and rushed, equipment is in heavy use, and there seems to be no time to take safety issues into consideration. Remember, though, that it doesn’t do you any good to bring in a record crop if you kill yourself in the process. Here are some tips on keeping safety first as you bring in the fall crop.

• Examine your equipment for dangerous parts – pinch points, pull-in areas, freewheeling parts or sections, and other moving parts. Be familiar with all equipment and read the safety manuals – and make sure farmhands have read them, too.

• Stay well-rested. It’s difficult at harvest time, but fatigued brains make mistakes. Put other jobs off if necessary, and get the rest you need. A 20-minute nap after lunch can provide a much-needed vitality boost for the rest of the day.

• Shut down equipment and make sure all mechanized parts have stopped operating before climbing down.

• Inspect all your equipment thoroughly before starting work, particularly if the machine was put away in haste the day before.

• Keep charged and inspected fire extinguishers and first-aid kits on hand, and have emergency numbers posted on all equipment. Carry a cell phone – and make sure that you’ve registered your phone with 911 services in your county so that they know where your farm is geographically located.

• Check hydraulic equipment for leaks, and make sure tires are fully pressurized on all vehicles. Make sure lift cylinders on trucks and trailers are in good working condition before you put a load on them. Don’t raise or lower truck or trailer beds anywhere but on a firm, flat surface.

With these tips, some caution, and some common sense you can have a safe and productive harvest. Good luck and stay safe!

I’ve mentioned AgWired here before – they’re a great source of breaking news from the world of farming, as well as some good analysis and opinion. There was a pretty disturbing post there the other day, though.

Richard Brown, chairman of the Association of Equipment Manufacturer’s Small Enterprise committee, testified before Congress this Tuesday, and had some bad news about how farmers are reacting to the credit crisis, and some more bad news about the equipment business. Brown told representatives of the House Committee on Small Business that equipment manufacturers and retailers are hitting serious snags in getting the lines of credit that they need in order to run their businesses.

Brown cited an example of a South Carolina equipment dealer who had a secured line of credit at his bank, collateralized from a stock portfolio. With the market crisis, the bank froze his credit line, and Brown says he is now spending much of his time trying to resolve that issue instead of pursuing new business. Brown also says that the crisis is becoming a problem for farmers, and that in turn is putting pressure on Main Street businesses, particularly in small towns, that depend on farmers for their livelihood. Brown said “We are now seeing farmers delay the purchase of these inputs from their “normal” pre-season purchasing patterns as they are having trouble accessing credit and are hesitant to pay such steep prices. The ripple effects of tightening credit markets at a time of increasing capital requirements for agriculture will lead to economic hardships for rural America. I can also say that I personally perceive a sense of anger among rural Americans about this situation. Generally speaking, they did not buy homes they could not afford or run up huge credit card debt, but now are forced to deal with the consequences of other people’s excesses and as a consequence are losing faith in the system.”

Now, in the big picture, and long term, agriculture as a sector can survive and even thrive in down economic times. People still eat – and even if they shift from high-end organic vegetables to corn, or from prime rib to hamburger, they still purchase the agricultural products that farmers create. So I don’t join up with the doomsayer crowd who think the sky is falling; there are farms today, there were farms yesterday, and there will be farms tomorrow.

But which farms will be here tomorrow, is not written in stone. Now, I always empathize with the farmer – too much soil under too many boots in my family for that not to be the case. We’ve all known farmers who fail because, to be excessively blunt, they just weren’t any good at it. Farming is hard. But this credit crunch, which doesn’t seem to be letting up despite the federal government’s intervention, seems set to ruin farmers who didn’t do anything wrong – who, as Brown said, didn’t take out stupid loans or run up crazy amounts of credit debt. They’re just men and women who rely on being able to get at least some credit each year in order to smooth out the cash flows of what is a very up-and-down business. Farmers who can’t float a loan to buy feed are going to be in a very bad way next year – and the government needs to be on the ball here and get this situation fixed.

If you’re interested in farmland investing (whether as an investor or as someone with an operation that can be invested in), you might want to check out the 2009 Farmland Investment Fair. Put on each year by the Chicago Farmers, an agribusiness education group, the Farmland Investment Fair is an annual expo for farmers, investors, farm real estate brokers, agricultural marketing folks and pretty much anyone else with a connection to farmland and agriculture.

The 2009 Fair will be held at the Joliet Junior College Weitendorf Agriculture Education Center on Larawa Road in Joliet, Illinois, on February 7, 2009. Registration is $50 for attendees ($75 after January 28) and exhibitors can grab a booth for just $275.

For a one-day event, the Farmland Investment Fair has a pretty wide array of topics that they cover. There will be seminars on 1031 exchanges, farm land values, energy production in agriculture, opportunities with small farms, “green” farming, the 2008 farm bill, international farmland investing, recreational uses of farmland, organic farming, and how plant genetics relate to farm yields. Past fairs have seen a huge amount of business getting done, as farm owners meet farm buyers and strike deals right there on the convention floor.

I’m not sure whether I’ll be attending this year’s Fair, but it looks like it’s definitely worth attending for anyone interested in farmland investing, particularly given the central location and low cost.

A lot of people are opposed to ethanol subsidies. Right now, the Federal government provides three basic supports to the American ethanol industry: a 51 cent per gallon produced direct subsidy to the ethanol manufacturers (which will be dropping down to 45 cents per gallon come January of 2009), fuel standards that require gasoline producers to blend in 10% ethanol, and a 54 cent per gallon tariff on imported ethanol.

Free marketers and global traders hate these ethanol subsidies, particularly the tariff and the direct subsidy. Most farmers, of course, love ‘em – because the subsidies push demand for corn up, up, up. Regardless of opinion, though, nearly all economists agreed that such subsidies – however justifiable on environmental or other grounds - were overall bad for the market because they distort the price of things.

New research from Iowa State University, however, contradicts the conventional wisdom. The researchers say that their model demonstrates that not only do ethanol subsidies not hurt the market, they actually created a net gain for the economy of about $2.65 billion in 2007. The reason? High corn prices, driven in part by the biofuel subsidy, have drastically cut loan-deficiency payments to farmers! That’s right; farmers who have grown corn have seen their loan-deficiency payments cratering, because the strong corn market has made corn farming downright profitable. The subsidies cost the government about $1.3 billion in 2007- but payments dropped $3.45 billion. Adding in the additional profits to refiners and farmers, the net gain is $2.65 billion.

Now, free marketers will tell you that this doesn’t mean ethanol subsidies are a good idea – it just means that two mistakes are canceling each other out. Regardless of your views on that, we know that deficiency payments aren’t going away anytime soon – and if ethanol subsidies are cutting the costs of those payments, creating a net gain for the economy, and alleviating a portion of our dependence on foreign oil, that’s good news to all of us.