A WATERFOWLER'S MUST-READ!!!

[TylerS]

I don't think it can be said enough, so I'll say it three times: habitat, habitat, habitat! Strib's Dennis Anderson gets it...do you?

Contributions needed to keep ducks flying

[Farley]

"Fewer hunters means fewer duck habitat projects."

No kidding Dennis. Quit scaring hunters away with your doom and gloom articles in the Strib every sunday during the season.

[brittman]

Money spent wisely can help (although little help is needed this year).

Money spent foolishly is worse than money not spent at all.

Anderson then sends you off to 3 or more conservation groups and asks that you send them money. Research any charity before you donate your time or hard earned money to make sure it is going where you want it to go or believe it is going.

[B. Amish]

perhaps the biggest factor affecting the conversion of pasture and grasslands to row crops is federally subsidized crop insurance. anderson doesn't mention this.

crop insurance is exempt from the conservation rules of the farm bill. so, in other words, you can drain wetlands left and right, plow prairie, and still participate in federally subsidized crop insurance.

it's a very interesting topic and i am far from an expert. but crop insurance will be under huge debate during the next farm bill.

[creepworm]

Farley, I am with you on this. I am sick of him all but saying duck hunting is pointless. I do not even read his articles any more because they are nothing but negative.

B. Amish, you are correct except that it is illegal to drain a wetland in any situation. However, crop insurance is set up to reward people for farming marginal to terrible land and it still be profitable for the grower. It usually goes by the growers average yield so if the rest of their land averages 150 bushels of corn, they use that average for the land that should not have been planted in the first place and they get paid for that.

I worked for a crop consulting company the last couple of years and we had a few growers that planted land specifically to collect crop insurance. They did not fertilize or spray weeds or maintain their crop in any way, they simply put the seed in the ground and watched it burn up in July-August because the soil was pure sand and it was not irrigated.

[BobT]

Money spent wisely can help (although little help is needed this year).

Money spent foolishly is worse than money not spent at all.

Anderson then sends you off to 3 or more conservation groups and asks that you send them money. Research any charity before you donate your time or hard earned money to make sure it is going where you want it to go or believe it is going.

It's too bad that all these conservation groups couldn't somehow ban together into one large group encompassing all the benefit targets of them all. The advantage would be reduced overhead expenses leaving more money available for projects and improved lobby power to sway government. Instead we have hundreds of smaller organizations along with hundreds of managers and their overhead costs and less power to influence government.