As stewards of the land, farmers often debate the best methods and practices for healthy production. As business people, farmers also debate our national food system. That includes how their products are distributed as well as the role of government regulations and subsidies. With a keen ear to the farm bill deliberations and to contribute to tomorrow’s Farmer\u2019s Under 40 call-in at 11 a.m., here are three farmers talking about the national issues they are concerned about.<\/p>\n
Travis McKnight on King Corn<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of other methods to get ethanol that have been tested and are successful. It\u2019s just going to take a few years probably to get that going. I think ethanol is here to stay but they might have to cut the production back a little bit,\u201d McKnight said.<\/p>\n \u201cEthanol drives up all grains. Farmers don\u2019t want to grow soybeans or cotton anymore, even tobacco, because now they can get more money growing corn.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout a third of the United States corn production is exported. 30 to 40 percent of what\u2019s left here in the United States is going to ethanol.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think you are going to see that possibly come to a head here maybe in the next five to ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n Travis McKnight is the next generation of McKnight’s to run his family’s River Breeze Dairy, a CAFO of 1,100 dairy cows. He was interviewed for a story on farming economics. <\/a><\/p>\n Todd Asselin on Government Regulation<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe need to loosen the belt of regulation. I don\u2019t want to sound negative, but there are so many laws out there that are driven by corporate industry and it takes away from the small farmer because you can\u2019t afford to meet those requirements,\u201d Asselin said.<\/p>\n \u201cOn-farm processing is a prime example. The amount of money that we would have to put in to have a state-inspected on-farm processing facility here is pretty high. Not only that, let\u2019s say I would want to do a value added product. Everything has to be USDA inspected. Now once I take that next step to USDA it\u2019s out of my league, I can never afford that. I can never produce enough to justify the government sending a USDA inspector to my farm. It won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n \u201cI realize that those rules and those laws are out there for safety purpose and that but how many articles are in the newspapers or on the nightly news about a local farmer that tainted his community with salmonella or e. coli? You don\u2019t hear it. It\u2019s always these large massive producers.\u201d<\/p>\n