There was an article in the local paper saying all 88 counties have to have a DWART — dangerous wild animal response team.

I went to the Coshocton County EMA director’s office to speak with him. He is busy, he is in training and not there, and the best office closed when I was told he would be there and I could speak with him then.

I have a Savannah, she is excluded on the ban list. I have a “Bengal cat.”

I wanted to inform the uneducated of Coshocton DWART that my cat is not related nor a hybrid of a tiger, and it is not on the ban list. Period. Went through the same thing with ODNR.

So who is going to educate the uneducated before they are brainwashed and paid for by the animal rights. Labels are going to get twisted, just as they keep stating a “Bengal cat” is a “tiger.” Where does the education start? Since I keep getting harassed by them, a class action lawsuit against stupid sounds good.

B.J. McDowell

Plainfield, Ohio

The post Reader: People need educated about ‘wild’ animals appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

I wasn’t going to write a response to Susan Crowell’s last editorial (“HSUS creates its own Ohio ag council to try and gain farming ‘street cred’,” May 9, 2013). But then, I thought, if the editor of the Farm and Dairy won’t be governed by her better angels, why should I?

I guess the point when I caved was when you said, “How dare they? How dare HSUS wrap itself in the cloak of “traditional family farmers…?” Well, apparently this is a one-size-fits-all cloak because the Farm Bureau, USDA, and every politician tries it on every time they want something. But somehow you managed to single out HSUS with your indignation.

Let’s deal with something right up front, i.e., industrial agriculture’s phobia about vegetarians. Less than 3% of the population is vegetarian, and if the vegetarians who eat at my kitchen table are a representative sample, at least half of them are not quite as committed to the vegetarian ideal as one might think.

That means there are fewer vegetarians than there are farmers and the U.S. Census Bureau and the popular press have already decided farmers are “statistically insignificant”.

If you want to talk about “reducing the consumption of meat and other animal-based foods; and replacing the meat and other animal-based foods in the diet with plant-based foods,” you might better target the USDA food pyramid. The USDA has been trying to get us to eat less meat since the 1970s. Forty years of public policy may have helped make us fatter and sicker, but it didn’t turn us into the dreaded vegetarians.

OK, there are members of HSUS who don’t understand the relationship between humans and domesticated animals. Most people today are disconnected from farms, farm life, and the natural world in general.

By the same token, being a farmer doesn’t make you an expert on livestock. Many farms today are a generation away from having any animals on the farm at all. And many other farmers have forgotten the responsibility they bear when they care for livestock.

Some of this forgetting is driven by economic forces beyond the control of farmers, but that doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of care for our animals. Hens crammed five to a cage, gestation crates for sows, feedlots knee-deep in mud — they all violate our obligation to treat our livestock well.

Michael Pollan is quoted as saying you shouldn’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. Maybe those of us who keep animals should only keep them in ways that would make our great-grandfathers proud.

One final note: If you load your meat or milk or eggs on a truck and send it to market, you’re anonymous to the eaters of that food, as they are to you. I look my customers in the eye and they ask me what I feed my animals and how do I treat them. Customers — eaters — are asking these questions of us. They are trying to break down the wall of anonymity. We need to meet them halfway and tell them how their food is raised.

This is no time to just circle the wagons.

Bruce Rickard
Fredericktown, Ohio

(The author, who farms in Knox County, is one of five founding members of the HSUS Agriculture Advisory Council for Ohio.)

The post LETTER: Editorial unfairly singled out HSUS appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

Gov. Kasich just signed house bill (HB) 51, the transportation budget, into state law. Many Ohioans are unaware of a provision the Ohio House of Representatives had inserted as an amendment to the bill, which would have raised truck weight limits up to 90,000 pounds.

County Engineers Association of Ohio led the fight to keep state law at 80,000 pounds. One of our biggest concerns is the traveling safety of Ohio citizens, especially as they get ready to hit the roads this spring and summer for their vacations.

Secondly, to increase truck weights, in civil engineering terms, there is an exponential relationship, not a linear relationship, when you talk about the additional damage of adding more weight to our county roads and bridges that are load-rated for 80,000 pounds.

Bigger, longer, heavier trucks barreling down Ohio’s two-lane highways are accidents waiting to happen. Do we really want to put the safety of Ohio’s families in the middle of this argument?

On top of it all, this provision would have cost taxpayers an estimated $45 million to re-evaluate more than 26,000 county bridges.

Thanks goes to the Ohio Senate for their leadership for removing this provision. A special thanks to Senate Transportation Committee Chair Gayle Manning and Vice Chair Tom Patton, and Senate President Keith Faber for their work and listening to our concerns.

CEAO was joined in its opposition to this provision by the Coalition Against Bigger Trucks, Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, County Commissioners Association of Ohio, Ohio Township Association, Ohio Conference of AAA Clubs, Ohio Municipal League, Owner-Operator Independent Driver Association and several railroad associations.

Let’s all continue working together to keep Ohio roads safe for the traveling public.

Fredrick B. Pausch

Columbus, Ohio

(The author is executive director of County Engineers Association of Ohio.)

The post Reader concerned about safety of truck weight limits appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

Oh, no! Tell me it isn’t so! The editor and (I guess) publisher of Farm and Dairy have gone over to the nut side of the global warming debate, as witnessed by their publishing a full page feature article (“Scientists study ice and sediment cores to reveal Earth’s climate history,” ) reporting on a study by Oregon State University’s Shaun Marcott, a johnny-come-lately hysterical, hyper-fanatic, man-induced global warming fraud.

It is not the first pro-global warming article published by Farm and Dairy, but it’s certainly the most cockeyed of the lot, Marcott claiming to have found in an Antarctic ice core a record of earth temperatures going back to the time of Adam and Eve (11,000 years).

I wonder if either the editor or publisher checked into the many articles debunking the conclusions of the ‘study’ published within days of the huffin‘n puffin out-of-breath press release publicizing this latest man-induced global warming sell-all-your-goods-and-head-for-the-mountain-top flimflam.

Here are just two articles, and I can assure you there will be more in the days ahead.

And I’m wondering: Has Farm and Dairy ever published articles on global warming from men like Richard S. Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? Not that I know of.

Or from men like Vaclav Klaus, former president of the Czech Republic? Not that I know of. How about articles by men like Tom Harper? Not that I know of.

It seems, then, that the editor and publisher of Farm and Dairy have made a rational decision to join the ranks of those journalists who pander to the man-made global warming alarmists, a journalistic group that fits Comrade Lenin’s description of the Western industrialists who pandered to the Soviets, to wit: useful idiots.

Clyde Nehrenz,
Huntington, Ohio

The post Letter: Climate change article irrational appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

I am writing in response to an ongoing debate in the state of Missouri. As a beef producer myself, I feel that it is imperative we, as an agricultural community, address the issue. In Missouri currently, there is a proposed constitutional amendment to ensure the right to utilize modern practices.

Our industry is coming under ever-increasing scrutiny. Though some have worked to get out and spread the news of our industry, many of us have continued on about our daily lives, willing to talk, but not wanting to be in the spotlight.

Should we continue down this path, we will inevitably wind up far enough down the road that there is no return to having any say in what we do. Potentially, we could end up being at the mercy of others. In some senses, we are at the mercy of society, but we have freedoms yet too.

The aim of this constitutional amendment in Missouri is to ensure that we, as an agricultural community, are protected. This, however, will not be the end all, be all protection of agriculture. There will be continually more scrutiny.

When facing this, we must remember to be their friend and show them why we do what we do, acknowledge their concerns, and work to find middle ground. The more we engage them, the more we will educate them, rather than the other way around.

I challenge all of us involved in agriculture to utilize our resources to the best that we can so we can work better ourselves.

Zach Frazier

Butler, Pa.

The post Letter: Agriculture needs to engage more consumers appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

Thank you for sponsoring our Ag Comm contest, and for also sponsoring the plaque our team will be receiving.

This was the first time that our team made it to the state contest, and we learned a lot! We feel like we will be more prepared for next year.

Miami East FFA

Casstown, Ohio

<br/>

<br/>

The post Letter: Thanks for supporting FFA appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

Thank you for your support of the 2013 Agricultural Communications Career Development Event.

We were fortunate enough to win state and qualify for the national contest that will be held at the 2013 National FFA Convention in Louisville, Ky.

Once again, we appreciate your support of this year’s contest, and hope for your continued support of the FFA organization.

Montana McFarland, Sarah Johnson, Eli Earich

Westfall FFA, Williamsport, Ohio

<br/>

The post Letter: Thanks for sponsoring state FFA contest appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

As a landowner in the Brinker Storage Field, I would like to update everyone about our lawsuit against Columbia Gas/Nisource. We, as a group of hundreds of landowners, have filed a case against the gas company concerning the old Manufactures Light and Heat leases. The case has 110 plaintiffs.

Our particular lease was signed over 65 years ago, and to this date, there has been nothing done on our property, no wells or pipelines. Columbia Gas/Nisource claims a production clause in the old lease gives them the right to claim our deep drilling rights and to be able to claim the money from the gas and oil that is taken from our property, giving us only about $200 per year for anything that comes from our ground.

The lawsuit is moving along quite well in spite of Columbia Gas/Nisource’s efforts to end it. We hope to have this matter resolved in the near future, so we can receive the benefits from our property.

A while back, there was some confusion about what we were actually wanting from this lawsuit. We are aware of Columbia’s claimed storage lease, but that alone does not give them the right to profit from our minerals under the storage field. We own the minerals on our farm, not Columbia Gas.

Walter and Karen Hucko

Lisbon, Ohio

The post Letter: Reader frustrated over old mineral claims appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

President Obama urged “meaningful action” on gun control. And now we have it, and it will do nothing except fulfill the Progressive (code for Communism) agenda.

Why don’t we put the blame where it belongs? We are in a world that no longer believes in truth; we are in a new world formed by a school systems and a government that cares more about a teachers pay, unions and votes than the life and education of a child.

A world that has dumbed down students for the past 50 years in order to achieve their goals. Where everyone gets a trophy, where there is no longer right or wrong and the value of a life is no longer sacred.

Where American goodness is no longer proclaimed and its failures are expedited by those who would rather sit on their butts and say, “Poor me” than to get an education or a job, unless someone else does it for them.

Where a very simple Constitution that has protected “We The People” for more than 200 hundred years can no longer be understood. Where we can no longer display a cross without being sued. Where families are awarded for separation and paid well for each illegitimate child.

Where God and love of country have been removed from the public classroom and replaced with environmental worship, global warming, entitlement, civil rights, political correctness, multi-culturalism, and all other goals of Marxism in general.

Where we vote for a president that sheds a tear for the loss of 20 innocent lives but voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act several times, repealed the pro-life “Mexico City Policy,” spent half a billion dollars so American families are forced to pay tax dollars to the nation’s largest abortion provider (Planned Parenthood), which kills a child every 95 seconds, and gave us the HAS mandate that will force all Americans to fund abortion and contraception, with no exceptions for religious institutions or religious individuals who are vehemently against abortion and contraception.

Many of us still remember the life of yesterday where our fathers worked hard to provide for their families. Prior to the great society when family was more important than government hand-outs. When our mothers woke us in the morning with a hot breakfast, packed a good lunch, sent us off to school and we didn’t have to have the government tell us what we could and couldn’t eat.

We attended a school where we lost, won, failed, passed, had fights, became friends. When our heroes were Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and Sergeant York, not some dude with purple hair and tattoos. When our bus drivers, teachers and principals would jerk us up and maybe give us a few whacks, and when we got home Dad gave us a couple more for good measure. When our mothers and fathers tucked us into bed every night and we prayed “may God bless everybody” and we meant it.

Chuck White

Knoxville, Ohio

The post Reader: Meaningful action? Put the blame where it belongs appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.

I read the article by Tom G. Downing in the Jan. 10, 2013 issue titled Road trip in the good old days was a little bumpy. It reminded me of a story my grandfather told me when I was a boy — a story that just amazed me at the time and still amazes me.

He was born in 1896 and grew up in Jeannette, Pa. As a young boy of 10-15, he would get up Sunday morning and the family would attend church services and return home for a big family breakfast (think extended family of three generations).

When the weather was good, he and his cousins would walk to the Kings Highway (Route 30) to see the automobiles pass by. I remember him saying that, on a good day, they might see one. Hard to imagine.

William Joyce

Lackawaxen, Pa.

The post Reader: Hard to believe roads were empty not so long ago appeared first on Farm and Dairy - Agriculture News, Auctions, Classifieds.