Library Scc'cl 0:" Agriculture
107 Pat tow Bldg; ISC-02 m
Vol. 19 No. 17
Congressman Edwin D. Esheiman,
left, discussed farm problems with
group of Lancaster County farmers in
his Washington office on Wednesday.
FARM
TRENDS
JAPAN: A GROWING MARKET
FOR HIGH QUALITY U.S. BEEF
Japan a rising market for U.S. beef? You better
believe .t! While Austral* has been and stilus,
Japan’s major supplier of beef, demand for the higher
priced cuts has suddenly given the U.S. a growing
share of the market. '
As a result, U.S. exports of beef to Japan -- only 97
metric tons in 1969 and 597 tons in 1972 -- rose to
11,000 tons last year and are expected to hit 40,000
tons this year! That’d be over 20 pet. of the market.
Australia exported 106,000 tons of beef to Japan
last year, is expected to boost that total to 125,000
tons this year. And, the prices: Wow! Australian beef
was selling at from $1.69 to $1.98 per pound retail in
Japan last November, but U.S. beef was going from
$2.92 (for brisket) to $6.49 per pound (for ten
derloin) there that month.
Japan does have domestic beef output,- but
production totaled only 295,000 tons in 1972, was off
to 226,000 tons last year, when farmers, with
Government encouragement, held back heifers for
breeding. Domestic .prices hit a record high there last
(Continued on Page 18]
Conservation Case History No. 4 . . .
Conservation Halves Soil Loss
“We can’t do anything about the rain God sends us, but we
can sure control it after it gets here,” is the way John Yost
sums up his approach to conservation farming. Yost got a
conservation plan for his Kinzer RDI farm in the fall of 1968,
and started putting it into practice the following yeari-He was
named outstanding cooperator of the year by the Lancaster
Couifty Conservation District at that group’s annual meeting.
Two waterways were installed in 1969, 4500-feet of diver
sion terraces in 1970, another waterway and 4000-feet of
terraces in 1971, and 3000-feet of terraces in 1972. Before the
land was terraced, Yost said he had small gullies every year,
but he kept them closed by plowing them shut. Gullies are no
longer a problem on his 100 acres, but that is one of the minor
benefits Yost has realized from his conservation work.
“I was losing eight tons of topsoil every year from every
acre,” Yost said. “That’s faster than I build topsoil on this
Shown with the Congressman, left to
right are John Myer, Ivan Yost and
Donald Hershey. Two of Eshelman’s
assistants are at the far right
--by Dick
Wanner
Lancaster Farming, Saturday. March 16. 1974
Eshelman
Addresses
Conservation
„ Congressman Edwin D.
caster farmers .
Wedhesday, he hosted a
contingent of 10 countians in
his Washington office. They
were in the nation’s capitol
to take part in the Penn
sylvania Farmers
Association annual
Congressional Meeting.
Then on Thursday evening,
Eshelman was the speaker
at the annual Lancaster
County Conservation
Banquet.
On both occassions, the
Congressman talked at
length about Watergate and
energy. On Thursday
evening he said, “When our
- gasoline prices become
competitive with the rest of
the world, we’ll have enough
(Continued on Page 3]
farm, so eventually I would have run out. I couldn’t afford not
to put in conservation practices.”
Yost’s allowable soil loss, he was told by Orval Bass of the
Lancaster County Soil and Conservation Service, is about
four tons per year. Even under optimum conditions, some
soil will be taken away from any farmland by wind and rain.
The proper conservation practices can insure that the losses
don’t eventually wreck a farm’s worth.
Yost said that his eyes were opened to the magnitude of his
soil loss during a land management course conducted by
Donald Robinson, advisor for the Garden Spot Young Far
mer Association, of which Yost is a member. “I can’t take
full credit for my conservation practices,” he noted. “Don
Robinson really started me thinking. Titus Musser, the
contractor who did my terraces, was a big help, too.”
At PFA Meeting . ..
Sen. Schweiker Hits
Dirty Dairy Imports
“Imported dairy products
should meet the same
standards we set for
domestic products,” U.S.
Senator Richard Schweiker
told a Pennsylvania Far
mers Association meeting n
Washington on Wednesday
night. Schweiker said the
Senate was presently con
sidering a bill which would
make inspection of foreign
products mandatory.
The U. S. milk industry has
been up in arms recently
about dairy imports, most of
which come from European
Economic Community
countries. EEC governments
subsidize their dairy far
mers, often to the tune of 30-
cents or more per hun
dredweight. This means they
can ship dairy products to
this country, where they’re
sold cheaply enough to un
dercut U.S. pricing
mechanisms, an important
factor in holding farmers’
milk checks down.
Not only is foreign product
, cheaper, it’s also of con
siderably lower quality.
They’re so low in quality, in
fact, that almost all im
ported cheese and milk
powder are used in
In This Issue
FARM CALENDAR 10
Markets 2-4
Sale Register 56
F armers Almanac 6
Classified Ads 25
Editorials 10
Homestead Notes 34
Home on the Range 39
Organic Living 12
Lancaster Co. DHIA 40
The Farm As
' Inspiration 14
(Continued on Page 24|
manufactured products -
candy, pizza, etc. - rather
than for direct consumption.
Some 15 percent of all dairy
imports are checked for
quality, and about one-tenth
of all those samples checked
are contaminated with
things like rat excrement,
rodent hairs and in
secticides. One-tenth of the
85 percent that isn’t checked
presumably has the same
amount of contamination.
Senator Schweiker said the
Senate bill is aimed at
protecting both farmers and
Land Use Tax Bill
Meeting Held Here
Nearly 100 persons from
Lancaster and nearby
counties attended a public
' affairs seminar Wednesday
at the Farm and Home
Center to study the new draft
of the proposed Farm Land
Assessment Act, H.B. 1056.
The program was arranged
by tiie Farm and Home
Foundation.
The proposed legislation
will allow farmland to be
assessed according to its use
and not Its market value.
When land use changes there
will be a five year roll-back,
making farmers liable to a
penalty equal to the amount
of taxes saved plus interest.
Under the bill a farmer will
be able to split off parcels of
land for building lots without
John Yost, this year’s Outstanding Conservcatioi
Cooperator, checking out one of his terraces oni
snowy day last month.
$2.00 Per Year
consumers. It protects
consumers by giving them
more assurance of quality
products, and farmers are
protected by not having to
compete with low-quality
dairy imports. The bill would
not attempt to limit the
quantity of imports.
Also addressing the group
was Pennsylvania’s other
senator, Hugh Scott. Both
Schweiker and Scott said
they’re trying to get more
gasoline for Pennsylvania
from federal energy chief
[Continued on Page 7]
losing the tax advantage on
the rest of his land.
Interest was high, and
questions after the formal
presentation showed that
most of those present sup
ported the provisions of the
bill, with just a few reser
vations about some of the
effects of the bill.
Panel .Moderator Robert
Williams, managing editor
of Pennsylvania Farmer, set
the tone of the meeting,
calling preservation of
farmland the key issue of
1974.
Williams said, “The
question is, just how long can
we keep cementing over
farm land and still eat or
even still breathe?” With
[Continued on Page 20]