Habitat loss, intensified farming and record low bird numbers.

H

HighBrass68

Banned
Here is my personal take on this unfortunate situation affecting all of us that hunt birds across the Midwest and prairie.

I am not buying this farm "fence row to fence row" mentality just to make an extra buck! It's greed plain and simple!

What about the short term and long term affects from all this intensified farming?

1. Increased nitrogen into our streams and rivers.
2. Depletion of underground aquifers due to increased demand for irrigated crops.
3. Loss of millions of tons of topsoil from new erosion.
4. Draining once protected wetlands, playas and native prairies..

I grew up in Nebraska in the 70's and 80's and clearly remember the landscape before CRP began in 85. History has taught us nothing if we fail to look back at our failures and success.

Clean farming is a failure in the long run.
CRP and strong conservation efforts are and will always be a success!
 
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Part 2

I would also like to suggest some ideas that may help in the short term and long term......

1. Write your state congress and suggest strong conservation programs for the farm bill.

2. Attend state wildlife commission forums and try to voice concern of habitat loss and record low bird numbers.

3. Join or renew your membership to PF/QF and other upland wildlife conservation groups.

4. Consider not traveling this year to your favorite prairie hunting destination....
Sending a message that your not going to travel halfway across the USA to walk plowed, barren fields and spend your hard earned money in local rural economies.....while millions of acres of habitat are converted back to crops.
 
HighBrass68 said:
4. Consider not traveling this year to your favorite prairie hunting destination....
Sending a message that your not going to travel halfway across the USA to walk plowed, barren fields and spend your hard earned money in local rural economies.....while millions of acres of habitat are converted back to crops.
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Why would someone do this in the first place? Who would hunt ploed barren fields for upland birds anyways?

With hold your vote (meaning the dollar you spend) could be just the incentive the farmer needs to give up on any bird management and farm everything he's got to meet the budget.

How does the landscape look today compared to 1985 when CRP and Pheasants Forever was born?
 
Quote from the North Dakota Game and Parks website regarding the loss of upland habitat to intensified farming and drastic changes to the landscape:

"hunters need to be aware that this landscape change in North Dakota is the most dramatic since the arrival of the first settlers and their horse-drawn plows".
This only points out what I am trying to say......we are losing more than just pheasant numbers....we are destroying our land all for the lure of extra money!

As to why would anyone consider not traveling to the prairie this fall.....damn man there are lots of reasons....

We need to send a loud and clear message to Washington, and to the local state economies that we are not going to spend our hard earned money to travel for poor (at best) upland habitat conditions and numbers.

Note: I am fully aware the weather (2 years of extreme drought) has stressed our pheasants and other upland birds. And we have no control of that. However the size and scope of intensified farming is alarming and destructive to our land, water and ecosystems.
 
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I love pheasant hunting and all the tradition that goes with it.

If traveling to Kansas, the Dakota's or any prairie state this fall was only for the tradition and friendship......absolutely yes I would go each year regardless of weather, habitat conditions and bird numbers.

But let's look at this from another angle: I do not travel to destinations only to pump my hard earned money into their local economy. That is a part of it and I have 20+ years of doing so.....say $1,000 per year. That's approx. $20K dollars that I have spent in rural towns across the pheasant belt. But I and many others also raise expensive bird dogs and have thousands of dollars invested. So why bother traveling to hunt a barren waste land where all the CRP is plowed under and the fence rows pulled out and "fence row to fence row" farming is the norm. WHY? It's my money.....not yours! Hunting is a privilege and gaining permission to hunt private property is as well.....But it is also that same privilege that brings money into the local economies.....right?

So it is a 2 way street and we need each other for it to work.
If one side breaks down.....the system fails. And in my opinion that is what is happening now......The farming / private ownership team is letting us down by removing all the habitat to farm every available strip of land. Bird numbers are at record lows and the total amount of quality habitat to hunt is shrinking as well.



I'm a landowner and small farm owner and had the great fortune to live in Nebraska in my youth and have hunted the prairie's as an adult for 20+ years. I am a member of PF and QF and the president of my local gun dog club.....so I do have some idea of what I am saying....
 
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I can't blame the farmers, there doing what farmers do. If someone or some organization E.g.( Pheasants Forever) paid them as much to keep habitat I'm sure many would.
 
I am amazed by the one-sided approach to farming and habitat. We all wish it could be like the " good old day's". Guess what, me too. I find it appaling what is happening to much of the countryside in both my state and others. Bird numbers are down. Some due to weather, some due to farming practices. It is disappointing when we spend this much time and money in dog training, and toys only to go out and have very little wild bird contact. What I also find appaling is that many on here want the farmers to foot the blame for this. We would like to blame the farmers for their lack of sterwardship of the land. How about us? How many drive big gas guzzling suv's? Or throw stuff out at the first problem instead of fixing it? Guess what farmers and government have other problems bigger than us hunting pheasants this fall. Unless you recycle, or reuse, or fix cars and appliances without throwing them out, how can you stand and pass judgement on farmers? We are a wasteful society as a whole, we would just like to think farmers are a little different because of their relationship with the land. So what's the answer? Well I for one think we all need to put a little skin in the game. Maybe we need a pheasant/habitat stamp. Maybe that money could be used for supplementing farms a little to leave some cover crop. Imagine what 40 or 50 acres of good cover/food plots would do to a section of land. I have often thought the answer to haying crp would be to offer farmers some kind of substitute like " hay stamps". This would drive hay prices up and it could become more of a commodity than it is now. Most farmers I know hate putting up hay, but like this it could become a cash crop of sorts. The answer is not bashing farmers, or forcing them to set aside land. The answer is working with them and that is going to take some sacrifice on our part. We want them to sacrifice some. I guess the question is what will you sacrifice?
 
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At least in Kansas it's more about two consecutive years of drought. Now that is devastating.
 
carptom1 said:
...We want them to sacrifice some. I guess the question is what will you sacrifice?
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Exactly. I've been trying to think of what exactly was wrong with all the "farmers need to do something about this" mentality. That's it. If we want them to do something, how can we just sit and watch it all go to waste and do nothing ourselves? I definitely needed that. Now to do something...

And @BritChaser - Yep. Same for Colorado. Last year was the worst i've personally seen for either of the two states, but i can only assume this year will be worse.
 
You think it's bad now, just wait..... commodity prices are trending down. Corn is over a dollar down in 2 months. What happens here, is that the farm economy, fueled by land prices paid, fuel cost, cost of new equipment, will force farmers to plow everything and anything to manage the debt, the theory here is to have volume to compensate for a devalued commodity, this will create more pressure on commodity prices, which will spiral down, before she busts, right now the vast majority of farmers and farmland speculators are "gerbils on the wheel". We saw this in the aftermath of WWI, precipitated the dust bowl. We saw this in the 1970's, when Earl Butz, secretary of Agriculture for Nixon, said, " grow all you can, we'll sell it on the world market". We couldn't. This led us to crop difficency payments, 10 years of grain in storage which we could not use or sell. And at least 10-15 years of meager profits for grain farmers. Land prices bottomed out. It is a cycle. Problem is, the with giant machinery, we can do more damage to the ground, the habit, than the 1970's era farmer who generally, didn't tile, don't have a bulldozer in the shed, for afternoon entertainment, and could farm with a John Deere 4020. By the way, he lived there, probably hunted pheasants with the relations, fed the household covey of quail. Now he lives in town, on the golf course, or at least a some where else 5 miles away, or across the state from here. Good News, is this became CRP, conservation programs we are struggling to hold on to. All those government programs become popular with farmers in this scenario, or the former lender, now owner. Our purpose is to dig in and save what we can, and hope we're still young enough to be here when it returns.
 
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UGUIDE said:
You tell em O & N. The ranting from the sportsmen about the loss of this and the loss of that and have no connection to what is going on on the private acres is getting old.
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Thank you! I should also say that the rapid expansion of this will correspond to a rapid reversal. It might be bad and getting worse, but it will correct it's self pronto. I promote and subscribe to basing my income on long term averages. I use 2.50 a bushel for corn! If I get a windfall, I reduce debt, and save it for the inevitable downturn. Use the hunting income, less sensitive, volatile crops, and other outside and inventive ideas to make it work. All great farmers were contrarian investors. It's easy to complain about habitat when you not in the trench! Habitat-wise, we can recover with two or three years of CRP, or better yet soil bank.
 
The reduction in CRP should come as no surprise. The contracts were all predictable and were contracts at that. They always have a termination date. They were never designed to be IN forever.

The math is really simple. If the budget stays the same and you can afford X number of dollars for the state CRP budget if the competitive rental rate across the state goes from $100 up to $150 on average guess what? You are going to lose 33% of your CRP. that accounts for reduction of CRP acre from 1.5 million to just under 1 million acres in SD. No big surprise.

No reduction in GPA or WPA acres of public ground. That's all intact.

Are people taking out trees and converting native prairie. yes. but it should come as no surprise. The incentives have changed. Want to get it back? change the incentives. It is really THAT simple.
 
My wife and I do what we can and will do so for as long as we can---nothing more nothing less. :)
 
This is what you get from a central planning and money printing. You get asset bubbles as in farm prices, you get mis-allocation of wealth and mis-allocation of resources.

The solution to these problems is not more of the same. It isn't CRP programs, farm programs and all the rest of the attempts to centrally plan or farm industry. Those things simply need to be shuttered and framers should be freed to make the decisions they want in how their land is used, what crops to plant and how they wish to farm.

They also need to be freed to succeed or fail on their own.

If so we will have better farming, better wildlife habitat, and a better farming system.
 
I am no expert by any-means on this subject. However, I would have no issue with paying a "stamp" tax for upland game hunting. On the condition that the money went back to the farmers who dedicated a better portion of their land to upland game habitat. As well as better management of public hunting and more Walk In Hunter Access lands.

If the upland stamp was set at say $1.50 and lets say 1 million hunters purchased that stamp in each state. Each state that implemented that tax could then deploy $700,000 back to farmers that dedicate 10% of their land to upland habitat (this may help to offset the cost of not farming that 10%). While at the same time the other $700,000 could be used to improve public hunting habitat and expand the Walk In Hunting Access acreage.

Over a the course of a few years with proper habitat and cooperation from hunters, farmers and state agencies the numbers should rebound to record highs.

I know the math doesn't add up, but let's all face it the politicians aren't going to let all that money go without getting their grubby hands on some of it.

Again, just my 2 cents.
 
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planning

AtTheMurph said:
This is what you get from a central planning and money printing. You get asset bubbles as in farm prices, you get mis-allocation of wealth and mis-allocation of resources.

The solution to these problems is not more of the same. It isn't CRP programs, farm programs and all the rest of the attempts to centrally plan or farm industry. Those things simply need to be shuttered and framers should be freed to make the decisions they want in how their land is used, what crops to plant and how they wish to farm.

They also need to be freed to succeed or fail on their own.

If so we will have better farming, better wildlife habitat, and a better farming system.
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i think that you would find if the gov. got out of the farming business you would see the same thing happen to the farmers taht happend when the gov. got out of the airline bus. many would go belly up without their gov. payments, when that happened, for a few years there would be weeds to hunt everywhere as many farmers would fold or be forced into using only their most productive lands. most of the farmers hate the gov. until it is time to get their checks, you probably would also see deere making cheaper equipment. you might but only might see the cost of groceries go up. a couple of years ago there were only 17 farmers/ranchers in the state of montana that didn't have their hands out



cheers
 
Lanerjo said:
I am no expert by any-means on this subject. However, I would have no issue with paying a "stamp" tax for upland game hunting. On the condition that the money went back to the farmers who dedicated a better portion of their land to upland game habitat. As well as better management of public hunting and more Walk In Hunter Access lands.

If the upland stamp was set at say $1.50 and lets say 1 million hunters purchased that stamp in each state. Each state that implemented that tax could then deploy $700,000 back to farmers that dedicate 10% of their land to upland habitat (this may help to offset the cost of not farming that 10%). While at the same time the other $700,000 could be used to improve public hunting habitat and expand the Walk In Hunting Access acreage.

Over a the course of a few years with proper habitat and cooperation from hunters, farmers and state agencies the numbers should rebound to record highs.

I know the math doesn't add up, but let's all face it the politicians aren't going to let all that money go without getting their grubby hands on some of it.

Again, just my 2 cents.
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Well I think that is a good idea, we just need to work on the math a little. First 1.50 probably won't cut it. I think a 25.00 upland stamp would be a good start. Secondly, there is nowhere near a million hunters in each state. SD last year for instance was somewhere around 180 k. That would result in about 4.5 million. That would buy a bunch of buffer strips and/or food plots.
 
carptom1 said:
Well I think that is a good idea, we just need to work on the math a little. First 1.50 probably won't cut it. I think a 25.00 upland stamp would be a good start. Secondly, there is nowhere near a million hunters in each state. SD last year for instance was somewhere around 180 k. That would result in about 4.5 million. That would buy a bunch of buffer strips and/or food plots.
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Something like this could work as long as the details were ironed out before hand
 
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