Guest guest Posted January 15, 2008 Report Share Posted January 15, 2008 Betsy, " Big " and " Small " are such relative terms. Here in NC I run 22 head of cattle, on 28 acres and I am small with about half the average number for the state. I just met Bob Cordova, Vice President of the National Association of Conservation Districts from Colorado, who runs 220 cow/calf pairs on 4000 acres and he is considered small out there. Today I was at a board meeting where we approved two applicatons and contracts. One was for 75% cost share on a manure spreader to help a young farmer do a better job of utilizing his poultry waste. The other was 75% to convert row crop land to grass land for water quality issues. This is a semi retired lady who has a small acreage that she wants to maintain and conserve. Here in NC about half our contracts are for less that $10,000.00 and are very effective. Very few of our contracts are for more than $25,000 in any year and most are for mortality disposal, something I think should be considered the cost of doing business. After all, if you are already borrowing $125,000 per house to build 4 large poultry houses, what is $10,000 for a spreader, $20,000 for a manure shed or $6500 for an incerator? A major land owner/operator in Eastern NC has converted over half his 8000 acres to conservation uses in the past 10 years. He has received payments of over half a million dollars to do so. BUT he has spent more than a million to make even more improvements. I have heard people critize Ted for taking almost a million in public money in 3 states to install conservation practices. He has spent $70 million buying land and about $130 million more restoring over 60 thousand acres of short grass prarie to as close to original as possible. I think the tax payers got a good deal there. Bill Dunlap Bill Dunlap --- Betsy Hultin wrote: > Just making an observation. (I also forgot there are > thin skins here > as well. :-) <relax, insert 'breathe and smile' > here.> > > But, really, how many small farmers can pull their > $10,000 matching > funds out right now without going into some debt? I > do not know any. A > few hundred dollars, yes. But not something to get > them ahead fast > like a big corp. Those big corps take advantage of > what was meant for > the small man. > > > Betsy > Cosby, TN > > ________________________________________________________________________________\ ____ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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