SDJIM
New member
Oldandnew I could not agree with you more and it's a sad thing that it seems to offend more and more people everyday. Value systems are changing across our country and not for the better.
South Dakota prairie land in danger of losing hunter's paradise
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Oldandnew I could not agree with you more and it's a sad thing that it seems to offend more and more people everyday. Value systems are changing across our country and not for the better.
fsentkilr
Active member
A few points to make before I go get in the tractor. Myself my dad and brother own 7000 acres. Our of that, 800 is in filter strip and upland bird buffers. We are collecting about 60 bucks per acre on them, when we could make over 100 and 300 or more per acre the last few years. I own 640 acres in Finney County. Of this I enrolled 240 in WRP which will be a permanent wetland easement forever. There is also 130 acres of pasture which I leave for the pheasants and quail. There are also 2 newly established windbreaks which I spent all summer watering. I also ran a windmill all summer so the birds and deer had water. I have planted thousands of shrubs in the corners of our fields and along waterway berms and fence rows. All of our waterways I have seeded to native grass not fescue like most. Over the years we have built several watershed lakes and ponds all without any government help. So you can see why I get frustrated when I come on here and listen to guys talk about how farmers are out to do all they can to destroy habitat. At least in our area, that couldn't be farther from the truth. I do get reminded on here every so often why I don't let city slickers hunt however and it is because that attitude prevails among to many of them.
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moellermd
Super Moderator
I will go with the low figures here.
Making 60 could make 100 means donating $40 an acre to wildlife.
$40 x 800 = $32000
Your share of that is $10666 given to wildlife.
THANKS that is making a sacrifice theat most hunters are not making.
Maybe if everyone took your lead and gave 10000 to PF we would not be in the habitat decline we are in. Heck if all the active members gave that PF it would be over 8 million. I do not know why everyone has not given that much money, surely they could spare it and sacrifice other things they have.
Thanks again.
well now, if i had 5K acres to farm and provide a steady stream of income from corn, beans or wheat, donating $10k might not be a big deal....unfortunately since i work for a company and get a small take home check twice a month, i am not quite able to help PF out in such a generous way....guess this is one city slicker who just doesn't measure up..
moellermd
Super Moderator
well now, if i had 5K acres to farm and provide a steady stream of income from corn, beans or wheat, donating $10k might not be a big deal....unfortunately since i work for a company and get a small take home check twice a month, i am not quite able to help PF out in such a generous way....guess this is one city slicker who just doesn't measure up..
My comment was more tongue in cheek, but your reaction illustrates the problem. It is easy to spend other peoples money, it is easy to say they should be doing something else with their money and they have plenty to spare. But all that does is piss people off. The current tone of why we are loosing habitat does just that pits to sides against each other.
i fully get your comment and "tongue in cheek" or not i am here to say it is as inflamatory as those who suggest farmer's donate land to wlidlife habitat at their own expense.......so with that said, did you accomplish your mission?
I'm perplexed by your animosity. First of all nobody here asked you to let them hunt,or suggested you should let anybody. You seem to be as bound up in preconcieved notions and generalities as those you accuse. By your definition, and to clarify You essentially sold 240@ of marginal wetland to the government and get to keep it anyway, you planted shrubs presumably with equip assistance, shrubs probably provided by the state, put in watershed lakes at your own expense, which you don't allow "city slickers" to fish ,(who asked you to put in watersheds anyway?), you get paid 60.00 per acre for buffers on other ground which are in warm season grass, probably mandated anyway now, on approximately 800@, of about 7000 acres. So your contribution, is approximately 8-9% of the total acreage. Better defined 57.6 acres of each section. That would be the 57.6 acres which is problematic to farm, and you get paid for this way anyway? Right? For this we should laud the effort and give thanks? You might be misjudging us "city slickers" and our capacity for understanding, you act like the only guy in the world who's trying to make a living, and struggling to strike a balance in life between need and want. Us "city slickers", will someday pull our head out, and vote in our own best interest, narrowly interpreted as what works best for us right now, you in the ag minority might not like it. Since the slickers outnumber the ags about 25-1, might want to keep us friendly, if not down right cordial.
Do we get a credit or do you get a debit for the habitat destruction we do in the name of agriculture or don't do, as an offset to our contribution? If so, there are a heck of a lot of small contributors who stack up on the balance sheet favorably, And a lot of back payments due to be paid in some cases.
moellermd
Super Moderator
I suppose we all get credit for habitat destruction everytime we go the grocery store and enjoy one of the lowest cost of food in the world or enjoy paying less of a percent of our income now than we did 30 years ago or 10 years ago.
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/US-usda-Warns-Quickly/2011/01/26/id/383983
evidently you don't do much grocery shopping..........
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SDJIM
New member
As an ex-city slicker who now has a say in what happens on about a thousand acres of farmland I sure see both sides of this debate.
I do what I can without hurting the bottom line to much and we don't charge anyone to hunt. This year we had several nice thank-yous and thats real nice. But in 7 years I've only had 2 people kick in a little help with the cost of doing all of this. The notable execption being the dozen or so young guys from Ellsworth AFB that came down last spring and helped with the clean-up of the old farmstead and did some fence work and planted some shrubs.
So just a thought that if you hunt somewhere for free you might ask if there is anything you can help with or at least offer a few bucks to "help with the habitat work", equipment,chemicals,seed,time or hired out custom work is expensive-so isn't it nice that you can show up opening day and hunt land that someone else has spent time,money and love on.
I do what I can without hurting the bottom line to much and we don't charge anyone to hunt. This year we had several nice thank-yous and thats real nice. But in 7 years I've only had 2 people kick in a little help with the cost of doing all of this. The notable execption being the dozen or so young guys from Ellsworth AFB that came down last spring and helped with the clean-up of the old farmstead and did some fence work and planted some shrubs.
So just a thought that if you hunt somewhere for free you might ask if there is anything you can help with or at least offer a few bucks to "help with the habitat work", equipment,chemicals,seed,time or hired out custom work is expensive-so isn't it nice that you can show up opening day and hunt land that someone else has spent time,money and love on.
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moellermd
Super Moderator
Actually I do all the grocery shopping. Yes food prices are higher this year than last but we still pay less for food as a percent of income than we did 10, 20 and 30 years ago. We still pay much less than the rest of the world.
As an ex-city slicker who now has a say in what happens on about a thousand acres of farmland I sure see both sides of this debate.
I do what I can without hurting the bottom line to much and we don't charge anyone to hunt. This year we had several nice thank-yous and thats real nice. But in 7 years I've only had 2 people kick in a little help with the cost of doing all of this. The notable execption being the dozen or so young guys from Ellsworth AFB that came down last spring and helped with the clean-up of the old farmstead and did some fence work and planted some shrubs.
So just a thought that if you hunt somewhere for free you might ask if there is anything you can help with or at least offer a few bucks to "help with the habitat work", equipment,chemicals,seed,time or hired out custom work is expensive-so isn't it nice that you can show up opening day and hunt land that someone else has spent time,money and love on.
send me a PM, i usually hunt by myself when i hunt SD, would be glad to chip in and help some way for a couple days hunting.....:thumbsup:
some years ago, i drove a grain truck to the elevator during wheat harvest for a farmer in western NE. for hunting privledges.....
i get it.
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Inflation has continued in food costs almost in a direct line. Go buy beef at the supermarket. First you get some vodoo designation called select, which used to be cutter and canner beef, then the premium cuts are normally 7.00 to 12.00 per pound. My folks ran the whole household in the late 50's on approximately 650.00 per month, that included the debt service on a $10,000 mortgage, we ate really well, paid the utilities, had health insurance, and drove a newer car. I laugh when I here about how we are so much better off! I pay more monthly in health insurance than that now. I have no idea if we get a great deal on food. I doubt it, I'll do some research on cost based on percentage of avg. income world wide, and repost. I do know this, before the giant movement to consolidate agriculture, market ever increasing input costs, corner commodity markets, invent subsidized long haul trucking to replace the regulated railroad, and closed the open cry central livestock markets. We ate better, had better food safety, it was cheaper, and the producer actually recieved a fair and honest price. Now a lot of our farmers are virtual sharecroppers, they buy seed and inputs from the company store, which finances it, at harvest the same people buy it, and tell you what they will pay you after they collect the inputs and interest, all at pricing determined by them. Oh they pay the commodity board price minus the "dirty" and "short weight" discounts they can get away with. They just use other tactics, higher interest,by a small percent, markup on seed. fertilizer a little more, collude with the neighboring and supposedly independent competitors. This goes on in the southeast every season on hundreds of thousands of acres. It's better than slavery. It doesn't stop with ag. It's endemic in all things, a simple review of such items as cost of phone service since deregulation is a classic. Breakup ma bell, now you pay 4-5 times the cost for the same service. Mark Twain said "man is elevated above all other animals, by his ability to recognize right from wrong, but his willingness to do wrong, in spite of knowing the difference, makes him inferior to all other species".
O.K. based upon the actual cash value, as expressed by percentage of income, the U.S. has one of the lowest food costs in the world. And it's there in that simple truth resides the big lie! Not factored are the hidden costs of modern agriculture, which if figured in, push the cost of food and raise questions of the value of what we get as well. A couple of citations if they work. http://www.divinecaroline.com/22353/82480-which-country-spends-most-food/2 ; http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1917726,00.html.
moellermd
Super Moderator
Your always a bundle of joy with your half full glass.
onpoint
Active member
Kudos to you, Not everybody does what you have. Thank You !
fsentkilr
Active member
Oldandnew I'm done wasting my time responding to you. I have never recieved one dollar from equip. The WRP was already enrolled before I bought it, so I didn't benefit financially from it. The watersheds we built help water quality by filtering out sediments, and provide a place for thousands of waterfowl and they are full of fish, I have never recieved any money from equip, if you want to come help plant plums this spring you are more than welcome, but leave the attitude before you show up. I would guess I have let at least 5 dozen hunters hunt deer, waterfowl, and quail on our farm this year, can you say the same? Lastly I will say, I can take a couple of guys out tomorrow morning and shoot our limit of quail on my own farm, can you do the same?