> However, your wild plant might be my weed, and your wild animal
> might be the deer that regularly eat the outside several rows of my
> corn. I like a few deer, too, but I'm not going to pay for you to drive
> by the road once a year and see one in the fall. There are other ways
> that both you and I can enjoy the deer. So the point here is how do the
> various parties see an issue from a common perspective.
Three ways to go about this.
First, as a "civilian", I need to better
understand the ways in which weeds and deer and other pests affect
your ability as a farmer to stay on the land farming. I need you to
communicate more effectively with me. I (the public) need you (the farmer)
to do a better job of communicating the economic value system under
which you operate.
Secondly, you can try a little harder to learn what elements of rural
life are valuable to me. I value clean water, I don't want pesticide
residues on my food, I value a diverse landscape over a monocrop
of corn, I value a diversity of people in a rural community. You
(the farmer) need us (the public) to do a better job of communicating
the non-economic values we hold.
Third, you and I (farmer and non-farmer) need to create and campaign
for those farming policies that allow both of us to achieve the
goals of the value systems we hold.
> I just don't believe that 98% of the American public are intolerant of
> agriculture.
That's not what I said. The public is becoming increasingly sensitive
to environmental degredation. Agriculture is not the only agent
degrading the environment, but it is prominently in the news.
Oil spills, EPA Superfund sites, Non-point source pollution, depleted
fisheries, clearcut forests, acid rain, etc., etc., etc.
..... and now Alar on Apples from Washington State, and bst-labled milk.
> I agree with this if you mean that you will take the point of view of the
> farmer and show him how his situation will be better by changing his
> practices.
That is what I prefer. I hope that is why you and I (farmer and nonfarmer)
are participating on this listserver discussion group.
_________________________________________________________________
Bob Wilson
Fayetteville, Arkansas USA
bobw@ncatfyv.uark.edu
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