06/25/07 Keeping the Down on the Farm

Keeping them down on the farm. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Kids have this way of leaving home. They want to strike out on their own and make their own path through life. But for the family farmer or rancher, that can mean the end of the family business. Oregon Senator Gordon Smith has seen this happening more and more so he decided to raise the awareness of this growing concern. They held a hearing last Thursday on the issue with a number of speakers talking about how to fix the problem. One program that has been developing new farmers for years is the FFA. SMITH: We had a witness from Ohio State who spoke to the FFA issue and he had a lot of suggestions for what we can do in terms of enhancing agricultural education; making sure the right emphasis is given to agricultural studies so that young people who may want to stay on the farm but do want to go to college do have legitimate kinds of studies they can engage in and enhance their productivity when they go back to the farm. The FFA is a wonderful program but he had a number of suggestions. We're going to take his testimony and see if we can include some of his ideas in the bill. Smith is the Ranking Member of the Senates Special Commission on Aging and he says there are many ways that can be utilized to help young farmers. SMITH: Well you can eliminate estate taxes so that farms can be passed on without redistribution as penalties placed on the heirs. We can do a number of things obviously the many new opportunities related to food versus fuel is going to create new crops and places for farmers to go with what they would choose to grow. The small business community has been using mentoring programs for years to help new business owners through the experience of the mentors. SMITH: Well I think that's an absolutely essential thing. You know often moms and dads tell their kids the future looks bleak so look elsewhere but the farm and yet I continue to believe that there's a certain magic to being on the land and in being close to nature, but mentoring programs with farmers are a wonderful thing. And that's one thing that our OSU witness, his name was Derek Godwin, had suggested. That we need to enhance programs like FFA and mentoring. There are a number of pieces to the puzzle that include the cost of fuel, feed and of course the immigration issue. Senator Smith promises to work hard towards getting something accomplished. SMITH: But I also think we've got a broken system. We need to fix it but we ought to ere on the side of conservative as we go forward to trying to fix it. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.