Selected Articles from the LAND Newsletter

President's Report

By Richard Volk, LAND President

Summer is almost over as we head into August, and harvest is about to begin. It is hard to believe that we also in the downside of 2002. The crops that survived after all the rain in June look real good. Not much disease up here, except in certain varieties.

In a few days most farmers will get a notice from the FSA office concerning the new farm bill, their base acres and yields. You'll want to read this carefully and make certain it corresponds with your records.

I’d like to thank the Governor for putting the cap on out of state waterfowl hunters as high as he did. While we would have preferred no cap, we can appreciate that the Governor didn’t cut the number to something lower than have been previously sold.

I was reading through a magazine called the Environment and Climate News. One article talked about the people and groups that wish to ban pesticides. I do not believe pesticides are bad if used according to the label. Can you imagine your kids going to school and swatting flies all day or having to catch mice so they wouldn’t get in their lunches?

There are people who would like a ban on all pesticide products. If all pesticides are so harmful to people, why is the life expectancy rate so high in the U.S., and so low in the countries that don’t have them?

We must always be vigilant and watch so that liberal government activist groups don’t take our rights and privileges away.