I could not agree more. In one sense we are all greedy. For example you could probably define the belief that people should do on there land not what they think is right but what you want them to do.
Well let me know if you need help running the tile plow or backhoe now that you have joined the club.
I find it interesting that PF whose goal it is to increase pheasant numbers doesn't spend all its time trying to piss off land owners but tries to work with them.
I wonder what type of impression do you think two of our newest farmer members, travis and scott, will have when hunters pull on to there yard asking permission to hunt? A positive one of hunters who appreciate farmers allowing them to trespass on their property or one of hunters who are critical of farmers. We post stuff on the Internet so people will read it. We should be mindful of who might be reading it.
We have hinted around at a statement by you that we should " encourage conservation programs, that farmers will allow",( these are your words), The confusion stems from what we see, increasing food prices, fuel prices ramped up by ethanol, government subsidies to agriculture, farmers who will not allow access to hunt. We all have water usage and water quality problems. In addition we drive past miles of fields of pristine plowed ground which can't house a wren, get encouragement from news stories of items of disappearing wildlife, and habitat. Is Iowa's farmer's vision of pheasant habitat what farmer's will allow? I admit that it's their land, and if that's what they want, they with get it. Please come up with a plan to tell us what you, Travis, and Scott are going to do? My assumption is that to hunt pheasants, you farmers may have to get permission from a neighbor to make it worthwhile. The story of working shoulder to shoulder with high powered ag interest has been a landslide of defeat, habitat destruction from Penn. to E. South Dakota. Wildlife survives on what margin might be left after the next tile plow, tree plow, tilling stubble, mowing ditches, "emergency CRP" grazing or baling. So again I ask, and I will listen intently, what are you farmers willing to do? Currently, I hear whistling in the graveyard, or as the my grandda, a limetime farmer, with quail, said, "don't piss down my back and tell us it's raining" If it's profit say so, it's your right, if you can come up with a real message tell us we can use, I assure you we can take the program and run with it. I have a small farm, I manage it with quail habitat, I don't care about how much it makes. We can have quail, and pheasants we have that ability, but my situation is not a model for serious agriculture, and would not be for me if I had to rely on it. The recent blog on tiling basically said we are doing it, it makes a huge profit, it's tax deductable, and it might not be good for pheasants, or others, might be better for water quality, but that is 'iffy", but it's just a small cut along the way, in habitat, along with a whole lot of other cuts along the way, and we won't get all pheasants, "we still have a fair percentage of pheasants on our ground", (for now). So I leave it to you, what do we all do to make this work? Show me a plan where financial bottom line agriculture profit is beneficial to wildlife habitat. I see this as directly apposed, somebody is making a sacrifice for one side or the other, period. Show us the light, or a balance. You claim I am a pessimist, I think it's reality, refusing to face it is delussional. Ears are open, I am anticipating meaningful response. :cheers:
. 
