Meeting with the President
Greg and Lei Gunthorp (hey4hogs@kuntrynet.com)
Fri, 19 Dec 97 22:01:38 PST
The meeting with the President on the 17th was a once in a lifetime experience.
I am a strong republican. That makes this next sentance hard to type. I was very impressed
with the President's knowledge of the issues. He was too informed to gather the
knowledge in a breifing before the meeting! The meeting was scheduled for one hour. He stayed
for over 2.5 hours. He acted concerned.
I'm not sure much of anything concrete came out of the meeting. Everybody that emailed me can
be assured that all the issues were presented. Market access, discrimination of small farms, organic
rules, regulations, taxes, and research. Our government knows our concerns. The ball is in their
court now!
I wouldn't hold your breath on the government bailing out small farms. Small farms can survive, but
I think we should do it on our own just as we have in the past. Lets not let the government take credit for our hard work. This whole agricultural system is going to change, but its going to be because of the individuals in the sustainable agricultural movement, not the government. Keep up
the good work everybody. We are making a difference.
I can never say I didn't try to make the US a better place. Thanks for everybody's emails. I sure would have felt good in having any one of you take my place.
One big problem we have with our democracy is one that Michele pointed out so well. The laws
and input for them are done by the wrong people. I probably had the worst attendance of any
member of the commission. They told me that it would be one day meetings. I could fly in the night
before and leave the night of the meeting. That would have been fine. After the first meeting the commission decided two day meetings would be better. That meant four day meetings counting travel. How many farmers do you know of that can just drop everything for four days? My wife
doesn't mind doing chores for one day. After saying all that, I still beleive the report coming from the
Small Farm Commission is going to be very good. The only issue I would have liked to seen is requiring country of origin on all food products. I think customers have the right to know if their food
is local or not. They can find out on anything they buy at Wal-Mart. Why don't farmers get the
same respect?
Thanks again for all the emails. I hope I didn't let anybody down.
Best wishes,
Greg Gunthorp
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