That's Agritainment

Volume 8, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2003 That’sThat’s agritainmentagritainment page 18 BIG BUSINESS. Arkansas counts on agriculture Agriculture is big business in Arkansas. Agricultural production and processing provided 12.4 percent of the gross state product (GSP) in 1999, the latest year for which all relevant data were available, according to a Bureau of Economic Analysis report from the U.S. Department of Commerce. That was more than in any of the 11 other southeastern states. The average for the region was 7.1 percent, and the national average was 4.6 percent. A recent study by economists in the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture estimated that the total impact of the agricultural sector on the state’s economy was $13.6 billion, which was 22 percent of GSP. The study estimated total impact by combining direct, indirect and induced economic impacts of farm production, forestry production and processing, and the food processing industry. Indirect impact occurs when producers and processors buy input goods and services, which is an important part of the economy in many communities. Induced impact is primarily the personal spending by owners and employees of the agricultural sector or firms that provide inputs to the agricultural sector. Looking at total impact brings into focus the fact that agriculture is part of a diverse, interactive base of economic activity in Arkansas. In addition to $13.6 billion in value added to GSP, the agricultural sector accounted for one in every five jobs and 15 percent of wages paid in the state. For more details, see “Impact of the Agricultural Sector on the Arkansas Economy,” by H.L. Goodwin, J. Popp, W. Miller, G. Vickery and Z. Clayton-Niederman. Research Report 969. Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Call 479-575-5647 for a free copy or view online at www.uark.edu/depts/agripub/Publications/bulletins/. ■ Impact of agriculture on state economy Wages & salaries Value added to GSP Jobs (billion $) (billion $) Direct impact 192,160 5.16 7.8 Indirect impact 67,540 1.99 3.2 Induced impact 67,446 1.55 2.6 Total ag impact 327,146 8.70 13.6 2 ARKANSAS LAND AND LIFE Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2003 Page 10 Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2003 Visit us on the World Wide Web! Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arkansas — http://www.uark.edu/admin/aes/ Cooperative Extension Service, University of Arkansas — http://www.uaex.edu Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences — http://www.uark.edu/depts/dbcafls Changing faces of Arkansas forests ____________________________________ 4 Invasion of red oak snackers _________________________________________ 5 New farm bill means new opportunities ________________________________ 8 ‘Cattle-friendly’ endophytes help solve fescue toxicosis ____________________ 10 Hay, what’s going on down there? _____________________________________ 11 Page 18 Slashing winter feed costs for cattle producers ___________________________ 12 Page 4 Fighting fire (ants) with fire __________________________________________ 13 The evolution of Arkansas agriculture _________________________________ 14 Agriculture plus fun equals agritainment _______________________________ 18 Managing price risk ________________________________________________ 21 Market makers ____________________________________________________ 22 Page 14 2002 farm family survives on diversity and unity ________________________ 24 Page 24 Endnotes 2003 Arkansas Select plants make garden sing ______________________ 25 Division personnel honored for work in stink bug problem _____________ 25 Fire ants 101 __________________________________________________ 26 Local parenting show gains national audience _______________________ 26 Arkansas Land and Life is published twice a year by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. Milo Shult, Vice COVER: Hannah Marie Robertson, President for Agriculture; Ivory W. Lyles, Associate Vice President for Agriculture–Extension; daughter of Shawn and Dr. Susanne Gregory Weidemann, Associate Vice President for Agriculture–Research and Dean, Dale Bumpers Robertson, tiptoes through the daffodils College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences. Howell Medders and Bob Reynolds, co-managing at the Wye Mountain Daffodil Festival editors, Lamar James and Fred Miller, co-editors. Judy Howard, Jennifer Vickery and Chris Meux, co-designers. Shareese Kondo, writer. Send change of address notification to Communications, in Roland. Read more about this festival Cooperative Extension Service, P.O. Box 391, Little Rock, AR 72203, telephone 501-671-2117. and other forms of agritainment, Articles may be reprinted provided that no endorsement of a product is stated or implied. The starting on page 18. (Photo by University of Arkansas is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution. ISSN 1081-2946 Jason Shivers.) ARKANSAS LAND AND LIFE Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2003 3 TEXT AND PHOTOS BY FRED MILLER atch closely. Ozark forests “The apparent trigger for decline in Ruth Ann Chapman, a graduate are changing right before the Ozarks was three consecutive dry student at UA-Monticello who works W your eyes. years in the late 1990s,” Heitzman with Heitzman, compared a 2002 Oaks are dying throughout the says. “Drought stress weakened the inventory of trees she conducted in the Ozarks of Arkansas, Missouri and trees’ natural defenses.” Sylamore Experimental Forest near Oklahoma. It’s part of a decline in oak Diseases and insects that take Mountain View with one done in health throughout the hardwood belt advantage of stressed trees are the final 1934. Her study indicates Ozark from the Atlantic coast to Arkansas. progression of decline. The most forests are considerably denser today. “Oak declines have been occurring “Denser forests stretch limited sporadically throughout the South resources and thicker canopies inhibit since at least the early 1900s,” says growth of seedlings that could replace Eric Heitzman, silviculture researcher The apparent trigger for the older, dying oaks,” Heitzman says. at the Arkansas Forest Resources decline in the Ozarks was He says oak seedlings are less shade Center at the University of Arkansas at three consecutive dry years tolerant than other species growing in Monticello. “A decline is typically a in the late 1990s. the Ozarks, including dogwood and series of things working together to maples. “These other species spring kill trees.” up faster and further shade out the Heitzman and other scientists with oaks,” he says. “As mature oaks the U of A Division of Agriculture and visible villain in the Ozark National decline and die, these other species the U.S. Forest Service are striving to Forests is the red oak borer. Other will take over.” figure out the causes, determine the opportunistic pests in this category “We’re witnessing an ecosystem- ecological impacts and decide what include fungi that attack tree roots and changing event,” Oliveria says. “Oaks can be done about it. other chewing and boring insects. won’t disappear, but the composition Some of the reasons for the oak How today’s conditions came to be of species will change. decline are unknown, but Dale Starkey, is a matter of debate among foresters, “This will have impacts not only on plant pathologist for USFS Forest but the favorite theory points to a the appearance of the forests and the Health Protection, says the pattern is passive style of management that value to the timber industry, but also familiar. dominated the 20th century. on wildlife,” Oliveria says. “Oaks drop “There’s a progression to a forest “The philosophy that guided their acorns in the fall, providing an decline that begins with predisposing management over the last 100 years over-winter food source to everything factors,” Starkey says. “In this case, we was that the forests should be allowed from squirrels to deer and bears. Other have overly dense forests of 70- to to grow wild and fires should be trees drop their seeds in the spring, 100-year-old oaks growing in thin, avoided,” says Forrest Oliveria, U.S. which leaves little food for the winter.” rocky soils. This makes them more Forest Service entomologist. “The If oaks are going to maintain their susceptible to insects and diseases that forests grew increasingly dense, and dominance in the Ozarks, they will younger, more vigorous trees can little was done to promote growth of need help from forest management. fight off.” younger trees.” Oliveria says thinning forests by 4 ARKANSAS LAND AND LIFE Vol. 8, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2003 CHANGING VIEW — The appearance of Arkansas forests, like this view from White Rock Mountain in the Invasion Ozark National Forest, is changing as aging oaks surrender their dominance to other species. of red oak snackers cutting trees is an unpopular idea, but one that may be TEXT AND PHOTOS BY FRED MILLER needed to maintain healthy forests. Another, more radical, tool is fire. ike kicking a man when he’s down, a little native Another UAM graduate student, Rick Soucy, surveyed fire beetle is taking advantage of the weakened health of scars in the tree rings of stumps in the Ozark National Forest LArkansas forests to decimate large tracts of red oaks. near Fifty-Six. He found that fires were much more frequent The red oak borer lays its eggs almost exclusively on until fire suppression became common in the 1930s and ’40s. red oak trees, though they’ve been known to attack white Heitzman and his students have planted oak seedlings in oaks in some areas. The larvae eat their way into the Ozark National Forest trees. “One borer by itself doesn’t do a lot of harm,” says plots near Fifty-Six and Forrest Oliveria, entomologist for the U.S. Forest Service Clarksville to research Forest Health Protection, Southern Region. “Thousands of efforts that may stimu- borers can kill trees. late oak regeneration. “These beetles were not Beginning this year, in a considered a threat until project supported by a a few years ago,” Forest Service grant, Oliveria says.

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