By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

MIDDLETOWN, Ind. — A group of seven Taiwanese grain buyers and government officials were all ears at an Oct. 5 stop at Howell Farms in Middletown. As it turned out, so was the farm, what with hundreds of acres of corn still being harvested.

Willis Wu-Yeh Cheng, chair of Charoen Pokphand Enterprise Co., Ltd., held onto several ears of field corn he’d shucked from a stalk in one of farm co-owner David Howell’s fields, explaining he wanted to take them home to his grandchildren. Others in the party sponsored by the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) were similarly interested in touching and examining the unprocessed grain.

Perhaps this is not so unusual, since Clover S.Y. Chang, director of the USGC Taiwan office, said only one of the group of seven is a farmer: A swine producer with 5,000 head of hogs. Several others are in some way involved with livestock production – Chang described them as key grain buyers from Taiwan, on the tour on their way to the USGC Export Exchange Conference in Chicago late last week.

The day before was spent on Ohio farms, and their Oct. 5 Indiana Corn Marketing Council (ICMC) tour rounded out with a trip to the POET ethanol plant in Alexandria and the Rydman & Fox grain elevator in Anderson. Howell’s farm was on the agenda because he chairs the USGC’s Asia Programs Advisory Team and is the ICMC delegate to the grain marketing organization.

The purpose of the tour, Chang said, was to show the Taiwan buyers the quality of the feed grain and distillers dried grains (DDGs) U.S. farmers want them to purchase.

He said the nation raises about seven million hogs and 360 million broilers each year, and imports 4.7 million metric tons of grain – 95 percent of this goes for animal feed.

Chang, who helped as a translator on the tour, believed it had increased the buyers’ confidence in U.S. grain quality by letting them ask questions of farmers directly about planting and harvesting, use of precision farming to cut down on growing costs and results from genetically modified (GMO) seed.

While the government in Taiwan does allow the import of approved GMO grains, Chang said there are questions from some citizens and buyers about its safety. “We try to help people in Taiwan have a correct image of GMO corn,” he said of the USGC.

During one questioning session, Cheng asked Howell’s son Adam and son-in-law Mike Behrendt – who handle much of the farm management – about differences they notice between GMO and non-GMO crops. Adam said this particular year, the GMO-traited corn is not outperforming the same hybrid seed without the GMO traits.

But, he said, his family is willing to pay for GMO seed because its traits mean reducing use of pesticides.

Adam sees the GMO traits as being able to largely protect the good genetics of the corn hybrid and allow it to reach its potential yield. “The most traits do not necessarily mean the most corn” though, he noted.

Behrendt gave the group a quick tutorial of the farm’s computer-monitored GPS system, which allows them to see minute details of their planting operation – down to how many times two seeds were deposited in one hole, and if a hole was skipped.

“We really believe in seeing our yields (on this system), especially with corn, the details are very important,” he said. “Everything we do is really geared toward trying to do the details well.”

Dr. Simon Yuan-Kuo Chen, an AGAPE dairy consultant on the tour, also did much translating for other members. Back in Taiwan, he said each family’s farm is only about one acre in size – a vast difference from the swatches through the Midwest of up to thousands of acres under one owner or renter.

David and Mary Howell farm a great deal of land, but don’t like to broadcast how much they own. They began with 300 acres after college in Middletown in 1972, purchasing their own land despite both being raised on nearby farms. At first, they planted corn and soybeans only, with borrowed equipment and a pickup truck. They also had farrow-to-finish hogs for a while.

Five years later, they harvested their first crop of strawberries and gave up the hogs. “My husband really (would) rather grow things than raise livestock,” Mary observed.

These days, she said more than half the farm’s revenue comes from fruits and vegetables; most noticeable the day of the tour were the abundance of tomatoes and pumpkins ripe for harvest (the Howells have sold tomatoes to Red Gold for 15 years). But well under half of the farm’s acreage is planted to such things; David said one acre of the fruits and vegetables they grow is equal to about 10 acres of row crops, for income potential.

The family also has agricultural interests in Brazil, where son Aaron farms cotton, soybeans and – beginning this year – corn. Adam said the Howells have been in Brazilian agriculture for 12 years.
Crops can be produced more cheaply there and equipment and land are less expensive; he said land was the main driver for their South American expansion.

However, use of ag chemicals is more expensive, and it takes some years to build up fertility in the soil.

Also working at the Howells’ Indiana operation is daughter Audrey Behrendt, who works in the farm office and helps make and deliver meals to family and workers in the fields (her husband, Mike, grew up working on the farm before they married).

Daughter Amanda is a teacher, but also works at the farm part-time. David and Mary also have seven young grandchildren.
As of Oct. 5, farmhands had harvested all the soybeans and much of the season’s corn, and others were picking pumpkins in the cool, early morning to be loaded into semis for shipping. Despite the abundance of pumpkins and tomatoes on vines and stakes around their homestead, Mary observed – as many other growers have in 2010 – “It’s been a difficult growing season this year.

“But, God is good … we know we’re not always in control.”