May 22, 2012

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Legislature asked to block land value increase (AUDIO)

February 13, 2012 By

Proposed increases in the productive value of the est 35 percent of Missouri’s farmland appear likely to be rejected by the legislature for another two years.

Agriculture land is assessed on the basis of its productive value, unlike regular property valuations. Every two years the state tax commission recommends values on eight grades of soils. But the legislature can pass resolutions blocking the increses.

The commission has recommended eight percent increases in the top four categories of farmland. The valuations are still below what they were thirty years ago.

Opponents say this is a bad time to increase taxes by 29-cents an acre on the state’s most productive land.

The legislature has to act to deny the increases within sixty calendar days after the start of the legislative session. The resolutions have to be passed by March 4th or the higher rates go into effect for the tax years 2013 and 2014.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Featured, News, Taxes

McCaskill gets unsatisfactory answers from Corps. (AUDIO)

February 10, 2012 By

Senator McCaskill tells the General in line to become commander of the Corps of Engineers she wants some answers from him before she votes on whether he should get the job. McCaskill has used a meeting of the Senate Armed Services committee to ask Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick a basic question…    

                                   AUDIO: McCaskill :18

She notes the Corps budget includes $5 million for flood management and more than $70 million for habitat work on the Missouri River…

                                   AUDIO: McCaskill :13

But when she asked Bostick he thinks the disparity between flood management and habitat work, she didn’t get a satisfactory answer.

                                  AUDIO: Bostick & McCaskill :31

North east Missouri also is recovering from 2011 flooding, the most severe part of it affecting land behind the Bird’s Point Levee that was blasted open to relieve river threats to Cairo, Illinois. 

                                        AUDIO: McCaskill & Bostick :31

She says she need sto know from Bostick before she votes on his confirmation “that what the Army Corps blew up they will put back to the way it was before they blew it up.”  

 AUDIO: entire exchange 13:42

Filed Under: Agriculture, Environment & Conservation, Featured, Flooding, Human Interest, News

Global food demand leading to vertical farming (AUDIO / VIDEO)

January 30, 2012 By

Imagine tall buildings in City Central full of crops — and perhaps livestock — instead of people. The Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture hears about where and how it’s happening.

Dickson Despommier — a professor at Columbia University in New York — is one of the world’s foremost experts on vertical farming. He tells the Joint Committee on Urban Agriculture the idea has mushroomed since his team of researchers started working on the idea. Despommier says vertical farming is happening in countries that have run out of arable land to feed its people — South Korea, Japan, Holland, England, Singapore. (Holland is building theirs underground with grow lights.) Japan got serious about vertical farming in a sterile environment after contamiation concerns from the Fukushima nuclear incident.

Stateside, in addition to Chicago, there are projects in Milwaukee and Seattle.

The world population is expected to grow by another 3 billion people — that’s 3 billion more mouths to feed, so this is an idea that is going to continue to grow, Despommier says. He says Missouri has the research institutions, the farming interest and the legislative drive to make vertical farming projects successful in this state.

His presentation on vertical farming shows how crops can be grown in industrial buildings amid dense population. “Just Google ‘vertical farming’,” he says. “It’s a really big deal.”

The committee also heard about initiatives in urban aquaculture and community gardening projects. A bill to push such initiatives in the state is expected to come forward soon.

Despommier says to one member of the committee who asked whether it can grow jobs, yes, so long as farmers are displaced by floods, drought and production moving overseas. He says Missouri, one of several states, can certainly identify how Mother Nature has wrecked so many crops.

By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth’s population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices. What can be done to avoid this impending disaster? — From www.verticalfarm.com

AUDIO: Jessica Machetta reports (1:10)

 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Economy, Flooding, Human Interest, Legislature, News, Politics & Government

Rabies vaccinations bill raises questions (AUDIO)

January 13, 2012 By

One critic says it’s like “aiming a bazooka at an ant.”  But supporters say the proposed law strengthens the wall between rabies and humans.  

Rolla veterinarian Dan Brown is a state senator who wants a law enacted requiring all dog and cat owners to make sure the animals are vaccinated against rabies.  His bill says anyone who feeds or shelters an animal for three or more days would commit a misdemeanor if the animals don’t get their shots.

He says rabies most often is in wild animals.  But domesticated animals are the usual link between the rabid wild animals and humans. 

Some critics read his bill to mean farmers would have to inoculate their barn cats and people feeding feral cats in their neighborhoods would have to have them vaccinated.

St. Louis lawyer Dave Roland is the one who thinks the proposal is overkill. He cites numbers from the Bureau of Communicable Disease and Prevention for the last decade that there have been only about ten cases of domestic animal rabies  in the last ten years.  And he says Missouri has had only two rabies fatalities in the last 53 years. 

Brown says most communities already have rabies vaccination ordinances.  His bill targets rural areas. The Senate Agriculture Committee is studying it.

AUDIO: Listen to the committee hearing 47:45 

 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Health & Medicine, Human Interest, News

Conservation groups oppose commission change (AUDIO)

January 12, 2012 By

Representatives of at least ten wildlife and outdoors organizations tell state senators to leave the conservation department alone. Senator Brian Munzlinger of Williamstown wants to double the size of the conservation commission with one commissioner from each of the eight conservation districts.  He says the change, which will require voter adoption of a constitutional amendment, would improve communications with the public.”. 

Munzlinger also says some production agriculture people should be on the commission, a position voiced by the Farm Bureau which wants at least half of the commissioners to be people directly involved with or knowledgeable about farming.

Executive Director Dave Murphy of the Conservation Federation of Missouri says 75 years of success by the department proves the commission needs no changes. He says it would be wrong for regional commissioners giving deference to constituents to people in the region instead of making statewide management of forest, fish, and wildlife as a top priority. Another federation official says the proposal is a Farm Bureau power grab. 

Other opponents of Munzlinger’s bill say the Missouri conservation department is the envy of many states—because a four person commission with a statewide view avoids political manipulation that an eight-member regions-based board would face.

Listen to the committee hearing 54 mins mp3

 

 

 

Filed Under: Agriculture, Environment & Conservation, Politics & Government
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