Okay, first of all, I've been including a good deal of comments in my own reports about the situation in West Tennessee, parts of northeast Arkansas and the Missouri bootheel in terms of pitifully small amounts of rain and the short yields this season. Admittedly, I am a small voice and mainly preach to the choir, although there are commodity analysts, farm journalists and even a couple of Congressional aides on my distribution list.

I'm into my harvest survey reports for cotton and rice, with spillover for grain crops, and those reports continue to reflect the train-wreck situation in West Tennessee and those adjoining areas.

Let me point out, though, that I have carried far more information about the drought in Georgia because the University of Georgia has kept the drought in front of the public across all of its crops, including grain, cotton and peanuts. I probably got at least one press release a week, sometimes two, about the drought. I would have run every press release that UT would have sent me, but I go none, zero.

This is not a matter of me or anyone else being lazy. There are only so many bodies in any given media organization, and all the farm magazines are shorter handed than they were 15 years ago, thanks to less advertising due to Roundup Ready and Bt taking out competing products. 

The fact that West Tennessee isn't getting media coverage on the drought situation is not the fault of your Extension folks in that part of the state. They do a valiant job of generating what they can, mainly the IPM report which has become a good deal more holistic than its name implies. But there is no support from the main campus in terms of generating the kind of awareness and coverage you need to make people in Nashville, Memphis and Washington aware of the effect this drought and excessive heat will have on farmers and communities.

UT has never seen fit, to my knowledge, to put a writer or, better yet, a couple of writers in West Tennessee solely to write about Extension and issues that relate to farmers. Mississippi, on the other hand, has a staff of several writers in Starkville but also has installed a very competent writer in Stoneville to write about Delta ag and ag-related topics. He's turned out all manner of articles on the losses farmers suffered in that area this season due to heavy rain and plant bugs, for example.

Years ago when he was in charge of the Milan station and one or two more, John Bradley lobbied Knoxville for a writer to churn out press releases for both his programs and those at Jackson, Ames, etc. I don't think he ever was able to pull that off or, if he did, the position might have only been filled briefly.

I can look at all this from several perspectives. For one thing, I lived in Nashville for 11 years and actually covered one session of the state legislature a long, long time ago. There's that old bar-room bet about which is closer to the northeast corner of Tennessee -- Memphis or Canada? Don't bet on Memphis. West Tennessee ag is so far removed from Knoxville that I'm surprised it comes out as well as it does.

I've been a daily and weekly newspaper reporter and editor in 3 states, was a contributing editor for Soybean Digest for 20 years, write an occasional piece now for Progressive Farmer and now publish 7 ag newsletters. Plus, I've got a web site.

So, I've dealt with stories like this in all kinds of media. General media -- local and regional papers, TV stations, etc. -- typically don't have ag writers. The Memphis Commercial Appeal has someone who does pay close attention to the subject, but most papers in the South don't. And even the CA writer has to cover other topics. Very few regional or national papers anymore have a full-time ag writer/editor. Maybe Des Moines still does.

Smaller papers -- daily and weekly -- depend on the local Extension agent in many cases to send them stuff or maybe get something funneled to them from the Land Grant university. Most states in my coverage area have media packets that go out once a week. Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are among the best. Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas don't generate as much of this but still do far more than I ever seen out of Tennessee.

Many of them even have RSS newsfeeds that are updated several times a week. If UT has packets or a feed, I've never been able to find them.

Do not, under any circumstance, raise hell with any of your Tennessee Extension Specialists about this. They do what they can in terms of getting information to farmers through their newsletter. That is their job.

I can track how many Extension and related documents are downloaded from my web site each week, and the UT report is one of those that I regularly post, and I can tell you that people want to read it. But, it is directed at farmers and agribusiness, as it should be.

What West and Middle Tennessee need is at least one UT writer in those parts of the state who can increase awareness about agriculture. Put that person there on, say, the Jackson station. Don't just send somebody from the main campus once a quarter.

If any of you in West Tennessee have any starch in Knoxville, I'd suggest that you pound on some desks there. You've always been shortchanged. I've watched it happen for 30 years.