Ducks Unlimited

[bgmb]

Great article. Du is buying land with government money competing against farmers, taking it out of production and in some cases paying lower property taxes on it because it is now considered recreational. Why is this money not going to healthcare, schools, roads? anything but this group.

If you were against the CWB you should be screaming 10 times as loud at this tricky little venture DU has going. Unfortunately it just takes a small amount of money to buy the complacency of many famrers.

[Sheepwheat]

Great article. Du is buying land with government money competing against farmers, taking it out of production and in some cases paying lower property taxes on it because it is now considered recreational. Why is this money not going to healthcare, schools, roads? anything but this group.

If you were against the CWB you should be screaming 10 times as loud at this tricky little venture DU has going. Unfortunately it just takes a small amount of money to buy the complacency of many famrers.

A few thoughts.

Any of the land I have driven by that is DU land, is crap land. Land that is hardly productive. Land covered in water and so on. So I do not see the competition in that way.

Two. Every farmer whining and moaning about grain movement, should be more than glad when someone takes land out of production.

Three. Not all of us farmers are wealthy, and think that six or eight, or ten bucks an acre is insignificant.

Finally. I was seeding the land down whether they helped with seed costs or not.

As far as tax dollars? Find a group that does not get tax dollars. Sad but true.

[bgmb]

You can try and spin it however you want but they are heavily funded by the government. Here as well as other areas they are directly competing against grain and cattle farmers for land. And they are willing to pay top dollar to take land out of production, plug up all the sloughs and turn it into a big weedy mess. Who knows what the ultimate end goal is but I personally see a government funded "conservation" group buying good productive farmland with tax dollars and wasting its potential for food production as a huge problem especially when our country is so far in debt and getting worse by the minute.

[grassfarmer]

You can try and spin it however you want but they are heavily funded by the government. Here as well as other areas they are directly competing against grain and cattle farmers for land. And they are willing to pay top dollar to take land out of production, plug up all the sloughs and turn it into a big weedy mess. Who knows what the ultimate end goal is but I personally see a government funded "conservation" group buying good productive farmland with tax dollars and wasting its potential for food production as a huge problem especially when our country is so far in debt and getting worse by the minute.

Time to move on, it's no longer the 1940s. There has been plenty Government (taxpayers) money put into agriculture over the decades. Society has different priorities for land use this century - expect more Government (taxpayer) money to go towards funding green initiatives - carbon capture through forage, creating more habitat for wildlife, tree planting, restoring wetlands. Rightly so too in my opinion as we must protect the environment as the first priority for continued human existence on this planet - land uses like agriculture or resource extraction are secondary once we realised we already have the ability to feed the world's population but aren't achieving it due to distribution/political challenges.

[farmaholic]

I see the RRs have joined the chorus. ..not mowing their right of ways and trees growing on them obscuring traffic's view of on coming trains. And reducing their use of fossil fuels by choosing not to work.

[the big wheel]

I found it funny that no one even came on my land to see if I had established a forage. Must watch via satellite?

Crop insurance inspectors!

[bgmb]

Time to move on, it's no longer the 1940s. There has been plenty Government (taxpayers) money put into agriculture over the decades. Society has different priorities for land use this century - expect more Government (taxpayer) money to go towards funding green initiatives - carbon capture through forage, creating more habitat for wildlife, tree planting, restoring wetlands. Rightly so too in my opinion as we must protect the environment as the first priority for continued human existence on this planet - land uses like agriculture or resource extraction are secondary once we realised we already have the ability to feed the world's population but aren't achieving it due to distribution/political challenges.

yeah you're right, we dont have nearly enough untouched unusable land up north for water, ducks and so on. Lets make it harder for farmers by having important tax dollars that could be put to good use in health and education used to buy farmland and screw it up for ever.