When do we start the push for change?

GetTothePoint said:
I think we're getting at different points, I agree with your above statement. My issue is the state/kdwp poor allocation of resources or even if all funds are being allocated. If they would not lease spots with little to no value for wildlife or if the farmer has to hay it or graze it then they don't get there payment for the year so those funds can be used elsewhere. They're are a lot of farmers that laugh as they cash those kdwp checks knowing that the wildlife is poor on their places and have no intention of improving the overall habitat.
Click to expand...
If what you say it true then we agree. I have no first hand knowledge, only speaking for the programs I have participated in here in IOWA.
 
It comes down to money every time. Not many people are going to put in CRP for a lot less of what cash rent pays. Our government spends trillions on bullshit, a drop in the bucket to save our wildlife, water and soil!! In my neck of the woods every inch that can be farmed is farmed! I literally get sick thinking about all those coveys that I was so careful to not shoot down. Carried sacks of cracked corn through deep snow to feed them. I don't know if it helped but made me feel better. Then see them get wiped out in one afternoon. Our local corporate farmers offer more rent money than the small farmer can afford. Pull in with dozers and track hoes and it is OVER. Sorry for the rant, To much coffee..
 
birddude said:
It comes down to money every time. Not many people are going to put in CRP for a lot less of what cash rent pays. Our government spends trillions on bullshit, a drop in the bucket to save our wildlife, water and soil!! In my neck of the woods every inch that can be farmed is farmed! I literally get sick thinking about all those coveys that I was so careful to not shoot down. Carried sacks of cracked corn through deep snow to feed them. I don't know if it helped but made me feel better. Then see them get wiped out in one afternoon. Our local corporate farmers offer more rent money than the small farmer can afford. Pull in with dozers and track hoes and it is OVER. Sorry for the rant, To much coffee..
Click to expand...
That’s pretty much what the current economic system has done to small businesses throughout the economy.

I’m in agreement with you.
 
McFarmer said:
That’s pretty much what the current economic system has done to small businesses throughout the economy.

I’m in agreement with you.
Click to expand...
it's everywhere, NE, KS, SD, IA. just drive around and you see these conditions.
640 acre fields of soy bean stubble, looks like the moon. they even burn the ditches.
 
Hunters and environmentalists don't usually see eye to eye on issues but it's going to take a joint effort to get these farming practices reeled back in. Just look at the dust storms out west recently and the topsoil losses. Now I wonder how much some buffers of grass and hedge rows would help a situation like that? I'd think quite a bit. I would like to see the state and county road departments leave the right of ways unmowed for a few years and just see what something little like that would do for habitat. I see some cover crops in our area but it's a handful of farmers even with some incentive programs they could use. As others have said it's not just our (the hunters) birds that are disappearing but also numerous other species that the environmentalists recognize as well.
 
GetTothePoint said:
Hunters and environmentalists don't usually see eye to eye on issues but it's going to take a joint effort to get these farming practices reeled back in. Just look at the dust storms out west recently and the topsoil losses. Now I wonder how much some buffers of grass and hedge rows would help a situation like that? I'd think quite a bit. I would like to see the state and county road departments leave the right of ways unmowed for a few years and just see what something little like that would do for habitat. I see some cover crops in our area but it's a handful of farmers even with some incentive programs they could use. As others have said it's not just our (the hunters) birds that are disappearing but also numerous other species that the environmentalists recognize as well.
Click to expand...
My guess is, like so many times through history, it will take a slap in the face before anything happens. Someone asked me just yesterday if I thought the rabbits and quail would ever come back here. I think if they do, we all will have bigger things than them to worry about because I think for farming to Slow it will take a disaster like the dust bowl or worse!!
 
Federal crop insurance would be the place I would start. Many of those large operations couldn’t get the funding if crop insurance didn’t guarantee a certain level of income. There would be too much risk for lenders.

Sorry if that steps on toes, just my opinion.
 
KsHusker said:
Nothing will happen until there is a focus on soil health and bio diversity -- Until companies like Monsanto, Bayer AG, Pioneer et al can find a way to make money on soil health you're fighting an uphill battle -

We previously had it - how quickly it's went away since the 90s -- it's not just gamebirds, prairie birds, butterflies, insects, reptiles etc etc. List goes on --

You want to see what a micro environmental disaster looks like from modern farming - drive about 15 miles south on River Rd south out of Holcomb - once you cross the river bridge make a left turn on Holcomb Ln and continue south instead of following the curve west -- about 7 miles the road will veer west for a mile or half mile then head back south again where it will T at Parallel Rd -- Look south -- and to the west -- drive in there on the roads - about 30 square miles the @KDWP likely the NRCS office, FDA and whomever else was involved in 2012 made the absolute dumbest decision known to man when they tried to convert the raped farm land back to native grass -- luckily from what I'm told by my buddy who is a land manager near Kinsley the City of Hays has not made the same mistake on their many square miles of owned land.

You can go over into the flint hills of KS where we've let trees encroach and take over - to ranchers spraying their damn pastures - to ranchers overgrazing etc etc -- list goes on -- We dont work with mother nature - we continue to fight it to an extreme to line pockets of the big ag companies who could give 2 shxts what happens to the landscape --

The US outlawed a lot of stuff from the 60s to I think the 80s - they need to go on another banning spree so they can reinvent the wheel and use other solutions that are beneficial to mother nature and future generations - if they dont make changes people will keep raping things until nothing is left but wasteland. I will continue to beat the dead horse but the Ogallallah Aquifer in Western KS that stretches from TX, NM, OK, CO, to NE and maybe SD (unsure about SD) -- anyways they're sucking it dry - day of recockoning is sneaking up on us. Just not quick enough for anyone to be motivated to do anythig about it. But I dont know about you - I was in HS in the mid to later 90s and loved the outdoors - even from my childhood in the 80s it's amazing the amount of bio diversity that has went away in such a short time - especially in the 90s when spray EVERYTHING seemed to become the mantra along with GMO crops meant to literally destroy any biodiversity.

My buddy that I mentioned is a land manager and is 9 yrs younger than me - I met him when I was 2 yrs out of college with my first adult job in western KS and he lived next door and was in HS - we visited a bunch and had hunting and wildlife in common so have stayed friends -- anyways his job now is to manage lands for wealthy guys that invest from out of state and are well versed in govt programs and they task him with restoring raped properties they buy -- the stories he tells me about how the neighboring farmers get so mad at him for some of the practices he does to restore things and the asinine things some of the farmers do is really beyond belief.

***I am not anti farmer - frankly like people there are many dumb ones, and MANY MANY more just simply ignorant or have been brainwashed for lack of a better term by a keep up with the joneses mentality or by other corporate interests that tell them they have to do things a certain way.

Until we can move mountains there - it will only continue to get worse - I hate to say it. With the Bill Gates of the world becoming even larger landowners and pushing the little guy out the prospects seem slimmer by the minute. There's a son of some Russian Oligarch buying up western KS - he bought a chunk of land that borders an area I hunt out west just this past year or so that he bought from a NY hedge fund family - I'm curious to see what he has up his sleeve for the land and how it changes.
Click to expand...
Great post! I've hunted some of the same ground for years and the farms have all kinds of cover that used to hold 5-6 coveys and now have 2. cover matters, spring weather matters, but there is more in play here and it points to farming practices and chemical.
 
Even with the huge loss of crp, Kansas still has more habitat and cover than other states yet fails to capitalize. I seen signs in that read "Organic No Spraying" in Iowa but in Kansas only greedy "leased" signs and the hidious purple paint. I have watched my neighbor spray his field 3 or 4 different times in the summer on top of crop dusting in the spring and fall. I live on the edge of a town of 300 people and one summer the crop dusters killed off every garden in town.
 
birddude said:
My guess is, like so many times through history, it will take a slap in the face before anything happens. Someone asked me just yesterday if I thought the rabbits and quail would ever come back here. I think if they do, we all will have bigger things than them to worry about because I think for farming to Slow it will take a disaster like the dust bowl or worse!!
Click to expand...
Tons of rabbits in town where there is no spraying.
 
Crop insurance is the worst thing to ever happen to pheasant.
On top of that we have cotton and now parquet
 
Last edited:
We've had a decline in turkeys in our area which had turkeys everywhere 10 yrs ago. But I've really noticed a hard decline the last 4-5 yrs that coincides with the heavy switch to dicamba based herbicides for soybeans which is predominant through here. Now there was a lot of roundup being sprayed before then that didn't seem to affect the turkeys so maybe just coincidence but the timing makes me wonder.
 
GetTothePoint said:
We've had a decline in turkeys in our area which had turkeys everywhere 10 yrs ago. But I've really noticed a hard decline the last 4-5 yrs that coincides with the heavy switch to dicamba based herbicides for soybeans which is predominant through here. Now there was a lot of roundup being sprayed before then that didn't seem to affect the turkeys so maybe just coincidence but the timing makes me wonder.
Click to expand...
I agree with the dicamba thing. That wasn’t thought out very well. This coming year will be my first for planting GMO soybeans. I just can no longer withstand getting dinged by the neighbor’s drift, They all do it according to label, I’m pretty certain of that. But it just can’t be predicted how it will move.
 
McFarmer said:
I agree with the dicamba thing. That wasn’t thought out very well. This coming year will be my first for planting GMO soybeans. I just can no longer withstand getting dinged by the neighbor’s drift, They all do it according to label, I’m pretty certain of that. But it just can’t be predicted how it will move.
Click to expand...
They were either genius or ass backwardsed into a perfect marketing scheme because it forced everyone to go that way or get damaged every yr. We had drift damage around here that would go for miles because of volitization and breezes.
 
GetTothePoint said:
They were either genius or ass backwardsed into a perfect marketing scheme because it forced everyone to go that way or get damaged every yr. We had drift damage around here that would go for miles because of volitization and breezes.
Click to expand...
Need to fight fire with fire and class action lawsuit -- cuz you know them seed bastard companies would sure as hell sue you the farmer if you saved your own seeds and God Forbid a bird took a shit in your field and a volunteer GMO came up -
 
KsHusker said:
Need to fight fire with fire and class action lawsuit -- cuz you know them seed bastard companies would sure as hell sue you the farmer if you saved your own seeds and God Forbid a bird took a shit in your field and a volunteer GMO came up -
Click to expand...
This is where I reluctantly say we (hunters) will need environmental groups help. Both for money/research and a larger voice that they have with the government. It going to take proof of this environmental damage that these farming practices are causing for a lawsuit to stick and get changes made. These ag companies have good lawyers and limitless money to fight this or just pay settlements, i.e. roundup, and just keep rolling. There were lawsuits galore first year of these dicamba beans but proving who caused it became difficult. And any lawsuits against the manufacturer were then blamed on the farmer for not following labels.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top