Re: Farm Bureau is no friend of Sust. Ag.
Steve Lovejoy (LOVEJOY@agecon.purdue.edu)
Tue, 5 Dec 1995 15:26:13 EST
I certainly hope that people on this bullentin board do not take the
opinions of an Environmental Working Group staff member as gospel.
While Farm Bureau or any other organization may , at times, behave in
ways that I would not, characterizing them as the DEVIL is extremely
unproductive. I do not believe that Farm Bureau has come out with
policy statements advocating pollution or that they disagrre with
goals of clean water, wildlife habitat, etc. In fact, they have
assisted the development of some types of policieis and programs
(e.g. CRP, WRP) and have consistently stressed the need to consider
both environment and food production and the needs of both producers
and consumers(food and amenties). While they may weight things
differently than you or I, that doesn't imply that the organization
and its members don't care about the environment. Mr. Davies
comments leave the impression that Farm Bureau, its officers and
members get some type of positive utility from pollution; that could
not be further from the truth.
While I value diversity of opinions, they should be well grounded in
fact and not unreasonably inflamatory. In our search for our vision
of utopia, let us not forget that others have views and only time
will tell which is closer to the elusive truth.
Stephen B. Lovejoy
Department of Agricultural Economics
Purdue University
1145 Krannert Building
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1145
phone: (317) 494-4244
fax: (317) 494-9176