I come from a long line of farmers and ranchers, and I thought I'd heard of just about every way to inspire rain: Let's see, we have our praying, our rain dancing, and the always-useful "if I water the garden this evening it's sure to rain tonight." But in China, cloud seeding -- the practice of literally creating clouds, with or without rain -- is a booming business. And in the strange world-that-is-China, it's the government who's selling.

The odd thing is who the buyers are. When the "Office of Artificial Weather Inducement" was created, it was meant as a public service -- to wash away pollution, for example or (even stranger) to create clouds in the day or days before an event (it's planned for the 2008 Summer Olympics) to increase the likelihood the event itself will be clean, bright and sunny.

But now private individuals and businesses can buy clouds. Want a beautiful day for your wedding? It'll cost you somewhere between US$700 and $3,500.

As for the farmers? They don't have nearly enough money to buy clouds for their own purposes, and are left as the unintended victims of cloud seeding. If the rain falls mainly on Beijing -- there won't be any left for the rice.

And that's just not cool.

A big crop report released this morning is once again bringing a lot of attention to corn and the global demand for ethanol. It all makes sense. With democracy and capitalism flourishing around the world, the demand for energy will boom and ethanol is a viable way to provide lower emissions fuel.

Even President Bush in his State of the Union address called for the United States to become less dependent on foreign oil. His solution: corn-based Ethanol?

However, as a reminder, investing is about "skating where the puck is going to be" as hockey great Wayne Gretsky used to say. Or as legendary John Templeton would say, look for points of "maximum pessimism."

There is little that is pessimistic about the outlook for corn today. Farmers throughout the U.S. are going to be planting it this season. Why? Because corn prices are approaching 10-year highs and the wide-spread belief is there is money to be made.

Conversely, the argument to invest in cotton might be more compelling. In a Barron's interview (subscription required) in January, Art Samberg of Pequot Capital said while cotton consumption in the US has been in decline, China's consumption, which has been growing nicely, is picking up more steam. Cotton consumption in the U.S. has fallen from 12 million to 5 million bales a year due to the growth of polyester and other materials. However, Textile spending is on a big upswing in China -- up 27% in '06, after jumping 36% in '05. Chinese consumption, which had been growing 4% to 6% per year, is now growing 15% per year.

Samberg said go long the December '07 cotton contract. Strong corn and soybean prices means U.S. farmers are going to remove acreage from cotton to earn better profits in corn and soybeans.

Supposedly, there have only been four times since 1913 when cotton was this cheap relative to grains like corn and wheat, with the last time being 1974. From 1974 to 1976, cotton tripled in price.

It's not enough for Wal-Mart to dominate grocery aisles, it has to dominate the organic grocery aisles as well. An article from CNNMoney today notes that Wal-Mart has already doubled the amount of organic products on its shelves this year and hopes to become the low-cost leader for all things fresh and healthy.

The article quotes Andrew Wolf, analyst with BB&T Capital Markets, as warning that natural food purveyors like Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe's should be wary.

But Wal-Mart shareholders should be happy to see their company move into this high-growth, high-margin business.

Business Week covered this trend in late March with a focus on what organic farmers think of Wal-Mart's plan. (Hint: not that much).