—Lancaster Farming. Saturday. August 19. 1972
10
County’s American Farmer
Earl Stauffer has been singled out to
receive one of the FFA's highest honors -
the American Farmer Degree.
Only one in a thousand FFA members
may receive the degree every year. This
year, Earl is one of ten Pennsylvanians to
receive the degree.
The American Farmer Degree is con
ferred annually upon the most outstanding
members of the Future Farmers of
America Any FFA member over the age of
18 may apply, but only one out of every
thousand FFA members can be chosen.
Life is fraught with dangers From the
moment we awaken, we're threatened by
hurtling automobiles, and endangered by
criminal elements. We risk our lungs with
every breath we take. Our minds are
bombarded with horrid, depressing news,
pernicious propaganda and brain rotting
mass entertainment. We're told that our
eyes are subjected to too much ugliness,
our ears to too much noise, our hearts to
too much stress. A myriad of dangers, seen
and unseen, surround us, bombard us,
threaten our individual and collective
existence
Then, there is diethylstibestrol, DES,
which in massive doses causes cancer in
mice or rabbits or some other rodent.
The Food and Drug Administration this
week declared a halt to the practice of
feeding DES to beef animals. The chemical,
a synthetic female hormone, had been
shown to increase gam rates in beef
animals by an average of 17 per cent. DES
helps farmers because they can produce
beef faster. It helps consumers because
they can buy beef cheaper.
The FDA, as explained in our page one
story, had no choice but to declare the ban.
The Delaney Amendment to the Food and
Drug Act allows absolutely no detectable
residue of any known carcinogen (cancer -
causing substance) in any human food.
However, detection techniques have
improved a thousand-fold since the
Delaney amendment was passed. Then,
tests were designed to detect one or two
parts per million of foreign substances in
foodstuffs Now, one or two parts per
billion can be detected.
No one is now asking that the Delaney
amendment be repealed. It is time,
however, to decide upon the criteria for
determining what constitutes a menace to
human health. A decision has to be made
not about whether a substance may be
allowed in human food, but how much of a
given substance is acceptable. And the
decision must be made soon.
The agri-business system of agriculture
in this country is a combination of
technology, mechanization and scientific
management The food and fiber
production miracle it has wrought has
produced an abundance of food and fiber
for our own growing population as well as a
surplus that has staved off starvation in
other lands.
When Secretary of Agriculture Earl L.
Butz went to Moscow last Spring, one of his
objectives was working out long-term
agreements by which the USSR will pur
* • «* - » , " -y •* ril
Earl Stauffer - Lancaster
The DES Ban
Remarkably Silent
This year, Earl is one of only ten Penn
sylvanians to receive the Degree.
It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to
win an American Farmer Degree. Suc
cessful candidates have to demonstrate
farm management expertise, community
leadership, and a high degree of service to
agriculture.
Earl Stauffer has proven all of these
qualities. We congratulate Earl, and ap
plaud his outstanding contributions to
Lancaster County’s farm community.
Researchers are working on devices that
will detect parts per trillion. When these
techniques are perfected, we may find that
people are consuming carcinogens in foods
that were never even suspected. Suppose
a cancer-causing substance were detected
in milk 7 Or wheat?
The Delaney Amendment is so worded
that the FDA cannot base its decisions on
how much of a carcinogenic substance is
found in food, but only that it is found. Any
quantity of any carcinogen, no matter how
minute, in any food, is considered grounds
for taking that food off the market. And
there’s a mistaken logic to the law.
Too much of some things can harm
oeople. Too much water and one may
drown. A few tablespoons of pepper, taken
straight, can finish off a person about as
well as arsenic. Ordinary household
cleansers, used in certain proportions, can
liberate deadly chlorine gas.
We can’t outlaw big bodies of water, we
won’t outlaw pepper and it would be silly to
outlaw household cleansers. In each case,
the benefits outweigh the risks.
It's quite possible, and many feel
definite, that the benefits from using DES
do indeed outweigh the risks.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz
commented on the action by FDA Com
missioner Charles C. Edwards. Butz said,
“The law forced him to take such action
even though he found that the use of DES
m animal feed constituted no known
hazard to human health after two decades
of use.
"What we need is to evaluate the
Delaney Amendment cooly and calmly in
light of new residue detection devises. We
must permit some leeway for the ‘rule of
reason’ of men, and scientists, to prevail.
Otherwise, we will blindly abandon many
very useful things in society because of the
rigid dictation of a ‘zero tolerance’ that
completely rules out any risk, and con
sequently and benefit."
chase sizable quantities of U.S. gram in the
years ahead.
It appears the Soviets are interested in
importing certain grams because, as one
Soviet official expressed it, “climate
conditions m our country are not favorable
for soybeans and corn." No doubt this is
true But, aside from weather, the climate
m Socialist countries is rarely conducive to
productivity. Capitalistic American
agriculture has no equal as a food
producer. Critics of capitalism are
remarkably silent on this point.
| NOW IS
•V
I THE TIME . . .
£
Max Smith
County Agr. Agent
Telephone 394-6851
TO TEST FORAGE
All livestock producers and
especially dairymen should keep
in mind that the grain feeding
program should be developed
according to the amount and
quality of the roughages fed. We
should not leave anything to
chance. Due to the poor weather
conditions this .summer for
making hay, it’s important to
know what it will take in the grain
ration to have a balanced ration.
We’ve heard the comment that
“my hay isn’t good enough to test
this year” and the cows are fed
more of it. In this case we would
like to suggest that the testing of
the hay and the silage will pay big
dividends. Get the forages tested
during the early fall and use that
information to build a sound
feeding program. Forage test
kits are available at any of the
Penn State Extension Officces.
TO PROTECT STREAMS
I’m sure that all farmers
recognize the value of high
quality water for their families
and for everyone. Pure water
supplies are vital to all of us and
we urge everyone to do all they
can to keep the water of top
quality. Livestock and dairy
farmers who are building
feedlots, or placing feeding
areas, are urged to keep them
away from streams as far as
possible, and in many cases a
diversion ditch may be needed to
carry the water out into a sodded
area before it reaches the
stream. No doubt farmers will
become acquainted with more
strict pollution regulations set up
THE DYNAMIC
MYSTIC
Lesson for August 20,1972
lockgreuna! Scripture John 17 1-20,
John IS 1-11
Devotional Reading John 14 12-21.
“Dynamic”
There are two words that just
don’t seem to go together. The
mystic, the man of prayer and
meditation and deep devotion,
seems anything but “dynamic.”
The dynamic man, the man al
ways in action, do
ing something,
pursuing some
goal, never ap
pears to have time
for the deeper life
of the spirit
There is a dis-
turbmg tendency
to separate Chris-
Bev. Althouse tians into these
two categories to
day. On the one hand there are
those who believe the essence of
Christian discipleship is found
in a life of doing battle with all
the problems that surround us.
On the other hand, there is the
camp that seems somewhat irrel
evant, content to seek an ever
deepening life of the spirit
The false dichotomy
Although very pervasive, this
is a very false dichotomy One
does not have to be one or the
other. In fact, to be quite accur
ate, a Christian must be both. If
he is only one and not the other,
he is not a true disciple of Jesus
and to be enforced by The En
vironmental Protection Agency;
the stream that runs through a
property is not the possession of
the land owner; the land owner
may use the water and claim
rights to his share of the water as
long as the purity of the water is
not decreased. Special care
against water pollution is
necessary at all times.
Many property owners report
the problem of having a nest of
some of the larger insects that
can inflict serious bee stings;
some folks •are allergic to these
insect stings and can have
serious problems. We suggest
that owners use extreme care in
working around these areas and
use a strong insecticide such as
chlordane or Lindane to spray
into the nest. This should be done
at night when all of the “family”
is in the nest. Some cases we
know of the large carpenter bees
that will drill holes into wood and
then be a pest for weeks; these
are large black and yellow in
sects about a half inch long and
resemble a bumble bee. Most of
the carpenter bee infection can
be prevented by keeping the
wooden parts of the building well
painted; eradication is difficult
but the holes and the area may be
sprayed with Sevin several times
in order to kill the bees; suggest
that this spraying be done at
night.
Christ. For Jesus is the true
blending of both these aspects of
man’s religious nature. Jesus
was a man of prayer and a man
of action. He was a mystic, plumb
ing spiritual depths unimaginable
to most of us, yet he was a dy
namic man who is best remem
bered because of something he
did on a cross.
A friend of mine decided to
leave her church and devote her
time to working with poor peo
ple in a nearby housing project.
She had become disillusioned
with a church that only talks
about helping the helpless. To
day, however, several years later,
she is disillusioned. Her sincere
desire to help others has burned
out, the victim of countless dis
appointments and defeats.
What she has found in her own
experience is an age-old truth;
nothing is dissipated so quickly
and painfully as our desire to
help others, because the reality
of working with people is less ro
mantic than the idea. We lose
our motivation because people
do not turn out to be as lovable
as we had imagined.
“Mystic”
Another way of looking at this
is the analogy of the vine in John
15. It is true we must do some
thing, we must bear fruit, but we
cannot continue to bear fruit
very long unless we are drawing
our power from the vine. The
branch that is cut-off the tree
soon withers and becomes use
less. So it is with Christ’s disci
ples. They can not continue to be
of service to others, unless they
are drawing strength and power
from a deep spiritual relation
ship with Christ. To try to bear
fruit without being part of the
vine is hopeless
Jesus was and calls us to be
both.
(Cased on outlines copyrighted by the
Division of Christian Education, National
Council of the Church** of Christ in the U.S A.
Released by Community Press Service.)
TO CONTROL HORNETS
AND WASPS