14—Lancaster Farming. Saturday. Sept. 11, 1976
9-
WASHINGTON, D.C. -
Farmers warned a panel of
top level congressmen and
government officials
recently that “a day of
reckoning is coming” unless
federal influence on land use
is reduced.
Comments such as this one
by John Bamitia, a small
beef producer from Moun
tain Home, Idaho, came over
the Agriculture Council of
America’s “Farm Line” and
were heard by a special
panel headed by Senators
Jim McClure (R-Idaho),
Carl Curtis (R-Neb.), and
Representatives Mo Udall
(D-Ariz.), George Mahon (D-
Tex.), Tom Harkin (D
-lowa), John Melcher (D-
Mont.), Fred Richmond (D-
Vote set for milk
order funds
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The
U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) will
hold a mail referendum to
determine if affecterd dairy
farmers approve of a rate of
seven cents per hun
dredweight for advertising
and promotion under the
Middle Atlantic federal milk
marketing order.
H. L. Forest, dairy official
in USDA’s Agricultural
Marketing Service (AMS)
said the rate of deduction for
funding the advertising and
promotion program would be
increased from five cents a
hundredweight to seven
cents a hundredweight. He
said evidence from a public
hearing held last May
showed that the increase is
needed to offset rising costs
of conducting the program.
This is a deduction, Mr.
Forest siad, on all milk
delivered to the Middle
Atlantic market each month,
before returns are paid out to
producers. The money is
used for research and
Land use is strictly local issue
N.Y.), and James Santini
(D-Nev.).
Bamitia went on to say
that the “federal govern
ment had better change its
approach concerning
agriculture. Land use is
strictly a local issue, but like
many others is important to
our future.”
He said most senators and
representaives respond only
to the majority of con
stituents who “holler about
high food prices,” but unless
Congress recognizes the
needs of the five per cent
who produce it “Mr. and
Mrs. America will be sitting
at dinner with knife and fork
at an empty table.” _
Interest in the issue “was
about as strong as anytlung
development, advertising
(except brand advertising),
sales promotion, nutrition
education, and other
programs to improve the
domestic marketing of milk
and its products.
The program provides for
quarterly refunds to any
producers not wanting to
participate.
Mr. Forest said farmers
who supplied milk to the
Middle Atlantic milk
marketing area in June 1976
will be eligible to vote. Two
thirds of those voting must
approve the amended ad
vertising and promotion
provisions.
TRY A
CLASSIFIED
AD!
ACA Farm Line
we’ve experienced,” ac
cording to ACA chairman
E.L. “Shug” Hatcher, a
wheat and beef producer
from Lamar, Colo. During
the four hours the program
was in operation over 500
calls were received from at
least 25 states. The heaviest
volume of calls came from
Nebraska, Idaho, Texas and
Kansas.
Many calls, particularly
from the Rocky Mountain
sttes, centered on whether
the federal government
should restrict or eliminate
grazing rights on public
lands.
McClure who has first
hand knowlege of grazing
problems in his state where
60 per cent the land is
publically owned said his
calls centered around the
“serious conflicts” over the
use of Federal lands for
agriculture versus
preserving the areas for non
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farming uses. One Idaho
rancher said, “Either the
government must begin to
look at the problems we face
or we’ll be forced out of
business.”
Concern also centered on
the government’s role in
dealing with urbanization
and other development,
which in the past decade
alone claimed over 22 million
acres of farm land. Ap
proximately two-thirds of
the calls related to land use.
Other questions and com
ments dealt with estate
taxes, government
regulation and the impact Of
embargoes on farm prices.
Mahon, chairman of the
House Committee on Ap
propriations, said that from
calls he took “farmers still
rankle under the impact of
the damaging grain em
bargo last year.”
One caller, though, W.
Harlan Micklebost, a banker
Look neighbor... you con
BELT IT OUT FAST
from the “near total
disaster” drought area of
Ramona, South Dakota said
that there is a place for the
government to “step in.
Farmers here need finan
cing relief with the delivery
charges of emergency feed
for their starving cattle.”
Farmers are forced to pay as
much as $llO a ton for alfalfa
hay, more than double last
year’s price, including a
“whopping” $l2 shipping
charge for a 90 mile trip
from its source.
The farmers aren’t asking
for free hay, just help with
the shipping charges, as the
government has done in less
critical times, he said.
This is one time the
government “should step in
where help is clearly needed
■ otherwise it should stay out
of farming operations,”
Micklebost said.
Other panelists included
representatives of the
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Departments of Agriculture,
Interior and HEW, as well as
various planning and public
interest groups.
As a non-political and non
legislative organization,
ACA operates the monthly
toll-free Farm Line, open
nationwide, not to advocate
any position of its own but to
provide a vehicle for
discussion of major
agricultural issues. The July
Farm Line on “Government
Regulation” received nearly
400 calls from people across
the country, talking directly
without any “go-betweens”
with experts on the issue.
The Agriculture Council of
America, founded in 1973, is
made up of individual far
mers, farm and commodity
organizations and com
panies that supply the far
mers. Its purpose is to im
prove communications
between farmers and urban
consumers.
*
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215-696-2990
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