Image provided by: Morrow County Museum; Heppner, OR
About Heppner gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1925-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1978)
EIGHTEEN The Gazette-Times Heppner, Oregon, Thursday, Nov.2, 1978 Farmers involvement is needed to avoid unworkable conservation laws "We farmers must broaden our thinking and involvement in agricultural conservation and pollution abatement is sues, or this movement will run right over us." That was the message Stewart Smith, Associate Administrator of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) had for more than 200 Oregon farm leaders attend ing the statewide ASCS confer ence in Bend October 11-12. Attending the conference from Morrow County were Kenneth Nelson, county com ' mitteeman, his wife Julie, and Judy Buchke, county execu tive director. Harold Kerr, county extension agent, also attended. In his remarks to the ASCS, Extension Service, and other agricultural specialists from Oregon's 36 counties, Smith, a former Maine potato grower, urged farmers to get involved in the whole conservation planning and decision-making process. "We must provide as much assistance, information, and alternatives to the proper authorities at local levels as we possibly can," he said. "If we don't, you can be sure someone else will, and the consequences could be rather severe." Smith referred specifically to the agency's Agricultural Conservation Program (ACP), which provides fed eral cost-sharing assist ance to producers who volun tarily perform selected con servation practices on their land. ACP, he said "is in a great deal of trouble." Full funding, at $190 million, for the 40-year-old conserva tion program was approved for 1979 only on the provision that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) take a hard look at ACP to see where it fits into overall conservation needs. Congress has also directed USDA to evaluate its entire agricultural conserva tion effort and to recommend changes and new directions in its programs. "A great number of peo plein and out of the Con gress," Smith said, "view conservation in a very broad and general sense not mere ly in terms of holding soil on the fields, as we have with ACP. Others view some of our ACP practices as primarily production-oriented, and not designed primarily for con servation." "The problem is one of perception what is agricult ural conservation if not to protect land for production for future generations? But if we want to keep ACP and hold our own in this conservation movement, we must redirect our thinking." "We must broaden our conservation effort," the as sociate administrator contin ued, "and make it more comprehensive, not only to clear ourselves of whatever charges are made that we farmers see conservation pro lems too narrowly, but to take the lead in getting at solutions for some very critical national conservation problems." Smith strongly encouraged ASC committeemen, who ad minister ACP financial assist ance to the farmers in their states and counties, to direct more funds into water pollu tion abatement projects under the provisions of Section 208 of the Water Pollution Control Act of 1972. That section of the "Clean Water" law calls for identification and solution of nonpoint source water pollu tion problems, a category that includes most agricultural pollution, such as sedimenta tion and runoff of soil and agricultural chemicals into , streams and rivers. The growing national con cern with rural water pollu tion and the farmers' natural concern with holding soil on the land are really "two sides of the same issue," Smith noted. ACP practices designed to prevent soil from eroding downstream can also achieve the goals of the clean water effort. ASCS, through its ACP pro gram, offered the only federal cost-sharing assistance now available to farmers for' agricultural conservation and pollution control. It is also the only federal agency whose programs are actually admin istered and operated by farm ers, he said. Also speaking on the conser vation issue was William Young, director of Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality' Young reviewed the recommendations of the De partment's agricultural sub committee on Section 208 plans, which included a prop osal that a 5-year voluntary 208 program be established prior to mandatory . water cleanup measures. He told the farm' audienee that he ap preciated 'agriculture's con cerns over' mandatory agri cultural pollution standards, i n M n n l l I k. n i r . 1 M . T i 1 mum I L-ii I I I I J L-virla 1 1 mrlLL 1 ffl T U'A mm iy I 1 1 I Mm & Aim but noted that the state agency faced considera ble pressure to put a manda tory water cleanup program in effect, ' A highlight of the confer ence was a panel discussion featuring three county com- mitteemen moderated by State cpmmittee chairman, . Martin H. Buchanan, of Milton ton-Freewater. Dennis Gilson, Lake County, Merton Sahnow,; Washington County, and Stan ley Timmerman, Umatilla County, discussed ' county committee responsibilities as they relate to the operation of the county ASC office, how committees should cooperate with other agencies, and how local farm program decisions are made to adapt federal farm programs to local condit ions. Other speakers at the state wide conference included Jerome Sitter, director of ASCS's Emergency and In demnitv Payments Division in Washington, D.C., who noted that under USDA's new emer gency livestock feed program, county ASC committees can Cont. on page 17 tfif'! si ffioi food s2ir n n n n fin ma Straight Trim . . Soft, Medium, Hard. Regular 56c .. . Save 68c on 3 ill! ...H, W lHILNI i I Tough and Rugged Ready for Hiking and all Sports. Full range of Sizes. ORE-IDA COUNTRY STYLE Dinner Fries Quick Fix, Heat & Serve Kkg. with Flooride to help to reduce cavities . . . 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