Seawytch
Information isnt Advocacy
I disagree. It is arrogant to assume that people who live in rural areas are not up to "speed" or less educated and that your view is somehow far more important and correct based on where you live. I promise you there are jackasses in the city, the desert, the mountains, ocean side, island and in the country.
Different communities have different needs. There is no one size fits all. This divisive shit has to stop.
No doubt.
I was speaking to the woman in your post who is bitching about the gubmint. Since they had worked the land for 70 years they somehow don't need to conform to current laws? Farm runoff is a huge problem that has grown tremendously in the last several decades. Poor or out of date farming practices need to be updated to address these issues.
I said nothing disparaging at all. I simply said they need to get up to speed.
oic
I think it is a matter of concessions on either side. Even if her farm is taken care of it doesn't mean that the farm one county over has taken measures. And the voluntary part is not working out on the pig farms.
You can't just shut down a farm that people rely on for a half-acre of wetland and then charge x amount of money for wetland someplace else.
And this is where those changes should occur: With Trump in the White House, she sees farmers getting more attention: "It's the difference between feeling like you are being talked to and being listened to."
This isn't about the poor old family farmer. This is a big deal nowadays. She said they farmed 160 acres. At 300lbs of fertilizer per acre, that's 24 tons of fertilizer applied annually. That's a lot and certainly should be regulated. That's not even counting the manure.You can't just shut down a farm that people rely on for a half-acre of wetland and then charge x amount of money for wetland someplace else.
I'm sure she was free to conserve or create a new wetland on her land if she wanted. She opted to pay instead. Given all of the new land management and conservation programs, I would say that $5k to bring 160 acres into compliance is cheap.
Here's a good source for what we're talking about.
Iowa conservation progress and future challenges
$5,000 may not seem like much to a farmer who has 10,000 acres of land but to a farmer who subsists on 160 acres it very well be the expense that breaks the bank.
*****SMILE*****
NO FARMERS---NO FOOD! NO TRUCKERS--NO DELIVERIES!
Just try to get along without either of them!
The human animal is amazingly adaptable...
Farm to Table: Building Local and Regional Food Systems