Focus; Agricultures Social Contract

Currently around the world agriculture is rethinking its place in society and at the same time society is thinking about what it is that it expects from agriculture. One expectation that has always been there and probably won't change is the expectation that that agriculture is going to provide an abundant source of high quality food and fiber and that people will be able to afford that. But it is always been the case that that agricultural policy has involved more than just agriculture it is involved social policy as well economic policy and more and more it's becoming environmental and conservation policy as well. I will see if we can talk about some of these issues how people are thinking about them this morning with Peter bloom he is one of the assistant directors of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service. It's something that I know he has thought about it a good deal and has written about as well. And as we talk we've certainly wanted Vaal for people who are listening we'd And we'd like to get your thoughts and your comments to our telephone number here locally 3 3

3 9 4 5 5. We also have a toll free line and that is good anywhere you can hear us. So it would be a long distance call for you. Use that number that's 800. 2 2 2 9 4 5 5 3 3 3 W I L L eight hundred two to two W while. Well thank you very much for coming over to talk with us. It's my pleasure David. Why is it that this is something and I know it's something that has occupied a lot of your thoughts. Why is it that it's something that you have found yourself thinking about more and more. I suppose I began thinking most deeply about this. A topic about 1905 with the 85 Food Security Act. You know first of all thinking of there the concept of there being a social contract for agriculture I think is a very useful way of trying to understand things like the Food Security Act of 1905 or

trying to understand why the EEC is so difficult to negotiate with over the GATT agreement or why Japan is so intransient in protecting their rice industry. So I think thinking broadly about what is the agreement that each country has with its agriculture is is helpful and it's long been true in the United States that is as farm numbers have declined farmers themselves talk about their loss of political power. And so every five years or so when at the national level we write a new farm bill. We understand that it takes a coalition of interests to pass a farm bill farmers just don't have the political power farmers particularly in agriculture more generally just doesn't have the political power to write a farm bill by itself. In 1985 some new members joined an alliance. Conservationists and environmentalists were very much involved in the writing of

the 85 farm bill. And it was a farm bill that was terribly terribly important to farmers You may recall that we were in the midst of a farm crisis at that time. We had a great deal of excess debt in agriculture that we had to deal with somehow. And that farm bill over the five years between 85 and 90 and and the payments that came to farmers that totaled over 77 billion dollars during that period were terribly important to agriculture. Now those new members of that alliance I'm sure came to the alliance with expectations and agriculture generally the farmers that I was talking to. Generally didn't look at the farm bill as being a contract with society. And the reason that it's important to raise that issue now is is to ask the question that in 1905 when we're trying to write a new farm bill who will be in the Alliance who will

vote with agriculture and why will they vote with agriculture. We I think we have to take the contract as it's represented in those farm bills terribly seriously and. Think about the perspective of those other members of the Alliance who were helpful in and in creating that FarmVille. I like to talk a little bit more about this idea of the social contract and why you see that being a force in in agriculture because it's if if you say Well agriculture is an industry and then you ask the question Are there other industries that you want to invoke a social contract with. I don't know that we necessarily have that same sort of expectation other than yes it's certainly true that with that with other industries we expect that they're going to make useful products that we can afford that they will employ.

People and that they will lead would do so as exercising some care for their impact on the environment but it's not. Somehow we don't say have the same mix expectations of the auto industry for example that we do of Agriculture. What is it that makes farming different that makes us feel like we have the we have the right in a sense to us to say to people in agriculture we have certain expectations that we want you to fulfill and it seems like we were not. We're not that way with other sorts of industries. Oh I think you're picking up on a very important point David. I think agriculture is unique in how the public relates to it perhaps for historic reasons. We we all still carry within ourselves some appreciation for that agrarian value system if you will. But let me suggest that the public is relating to agriculture in a special way in that it

is expressing its desires to agriculture and using the carrot approach to try to achieve those goals. With other industries we tend to use the stick. We have expectations that we express and laws Clean Air Act the Clean Water Act and we enforce those expectations with a stick with. With regulations. In agriculture those expectations are coming more with the carrot. If you want to continue to have the benefits of the agricultural agricultural benefits then you have to comply with the conservation provisions of the 1905 act. It's that which I think we need to give specific attention to. So you know in my judgment Agriculture wants to maintain the relationship with society that society continues to use a carrot approach and if you will a

voluntary approach to to to implement its wishes to set the parameters if you will within which agriculture will operate. If on the other hand the groups that have joined in that alliance that draft the farm bills come to believe that agriculture is really not going to carry out those expectations then it's going to be very difficult for us to maintain the commodity programs of the farm bills in the future. If that's true I don't think society is going to drop its expectations or its interests in agriculture. We might very well in the future then see more of the stick approach. But let me let me address the other part of your comment. Why is agriculture special. Well agriculture is special because it uses so many of the natural resources upon which we all collectively must depend for ourselves for the future and for all future generations. So society has a very very vital interest in how these essential

natural resources are used and in fact I think we are beginning to view our producers as much as caretakers of those essential community resources as we are viewing them as producers. And I think that's also represented in if you look closely at the 85 or the 90 farm bills. And I think that many farmers will feel that somehow they're they have gotten a bad rap these this very issue this sort of stewardship issue and will say that they are just as concerned and perhaps even more concerned with maintaining the quality of the land and the air in the water and that that is something that they have always that has always been a high priority and that there's I think some sort of maybe a little bit of resentment out there. The resentment of the implication that they are

careless and begin to sort of to go back to the to the analogy about how we think of different industries and I think farmers are sort of saying you know you don't mean you don't you don't go to Lee Iacocca and look over his shoulder and tell him how he ought to be building cars you sort of figure that that he knows what he's doing and that he'll go out of business if he doesn't. And at the same time people who I think probably some farmers would say people who don't know anything about farming are doing that they're going in there looking over farmers shoulders and they're trying to tell them what you know what they should be doing that they ought to be doing this or that or use less chemicals or you know that they're not worried enough about soil conservation or you know whatever. And you know what. How is it. Maybe again it goes back to the question of the resource question. How is it that we sort of feel that we have the right to do that. Again you've you've touched on a very very important point.

I enjoy working with foreign audiences talking about this very topic. As you say farmers tend to be to feel very much put upon people who don't understand agriculture are expressing expectations of Agriculture are actively pursuing setting some standards for agriculture that makes farmers very very concerned and very nervous. I suggest to the farm audiences that I interact with that we're probably not all that far apart with these people who are expressing these thoughts and the way to to illustrate that is to change the timeframe that we're talking about. Farmers very rightly are concerned about income this year and next year they're very rightly concerned about how they're going to meet the challenges this growing season. In fact I think we who work closely with farmers have also taken on that kind of a short term. Focus I

suggest that in the public interest all of us need to think more long term. And if instead of talking about this year next year we begin to think in terms of decades or maybe even centuries and ask this basic question. Are there are there production practices are there production systems that we're using today that we obviously can't be using say 50 years from now two generations from now when our grandchildren are farming that same land. And in fact you come up with a fairly long list. Any soil erosion beyond the replacement level beyond ti is not sustainable long term in many parts of the United States in the world where mining ground water supplies. In fact there's a planned depletion schemes on aquifers which by definition is not sustainable. The many of the pest control practices that we've used in the past that are based on chemistry that

the insects have the biological capacity to defeat those strategies. And so the strategies that we've developed are all short term kinds of things. Today we put 10 calories of fossil energy in every calorie that we put on our plates. How are we going to do that for five. How are we going to do that for two. You know those are the kinds of questions that we must face and we must deal with over the next 50 years. Now when are we going to start thinking about them and when are we going to start doing something about them. Now in that context that is what I think we should be. That's the context with which we should be talking about sustainable agriculture for example and their farmers interests and your and my interests are all the same. I mean we've got these very very important. And that says nothing you know that that doesn't cast any aspersions on how we've met our challenges in the past. It just simply says that we have

we must have a broader perspective a more long term perspective keeping in mind that yes it has to work in the short term farmers have to be profitable. They have to work with them. With the tools and with the inputs that they have today. But all of us need to be carrying around this commitment to meet these challenges head on in the next in the next 50 years and generally you know environmentalists and conservationists and and consumer advocates are fairly impatient. You know they want to they want to see. They want to see evidence that we're getting on about these these larger challenges. And so again I I suggest that that we're not all that far apart. It's it may be a matter of reaction. You know I think society has stepped up before agriculture if you will farmers right now and said look we're very we're very concerned about the environmental impacts of Agriculture and we're very concerned about food safety. Now there are a whole host of reactions that could be given to that sort of thing.

One of the reactions might be you don't know what you're talking about. You weren't raised on a farm you didn't study agricultural science you don't understand how agriculture operates so you're talking now about something you don't understand anything about and because you're talking about it you're dangerous. And so we're going to fence you off or we're going to haul you off or we're going to deal with you as a dangerous opponent of agricultural interest. There's another possible way to respond to those statements from the public. Another way to respond would be to say look we understand that. About 2 percent of us are actively engaged in in farming now that we need. We need to find common ground with other groups in society who have political power and influence. What are the handles that we can use what are the topics that we can use in conversation with these other important groups in society that can lead to long term alliances where we develop that

those common interests and are able to build that into an alliance. I suggest that the public has stepped up and offered those those particular handles those topics that we can. That we can grab on to long term farmers have the same interest in the environmental impacts of agriculture that consumers have. Long term farmers have the same interest in food safety that consumers have. And so I would suggest that the response we ought to try to be called evading is well so are we. You're interested in the environmental impacts of Agriculture my goodness so are we let's sit down and talk about these and what might be accomplished short term and long term. You're interested in food safety. Goodness so who are we. So let's sit down and see where we can find our common interest and build those into long term alliances. I'm suggesting to you and here I'm pointing the finger at me as well as anyone. I grew up on a farm I studied ag science. I tend to have that kind of knee jerk first reaction and I think

that reaction where we build fences around ourselves as though agriculture were the center of the universe may have been a reasonable posture to have in the past but it just doesn't service very well now and I think we have to work very hard at knocking down those fences and thinking very deeply about where does agriculture fit in with the rest of society and how can we connect with the rest of society rather than defend ourselves against the rest of society. Will we have somebody to talk with your hope will get some other callers to wed. Let's take this caller on our line number one. Hello good morning I'm very sensitive to this idea of the having the standing to be able to talk about this. I guess I should get my credentials first I'm a son of a roast and Purina dealer and a farming community so I haven't studied I have been sensitive to these issues for quite a long time. So I think one thing to do is to hold other industries to the same sort of concept of stewardship

that we're asking farmers to and I think there's it's very it's illustrated very clearly in this community that the industry you know has to be held to not counting landfills and it's externalities that they don't have to worry about not counting you know how to just waste disposal. I mean it really should go for all industries and some industries have better lobbyists and better hands on the controls like that's my contention. Sure but talking to farmers. They are not all negative about it. DC they have seen and I've heard about people in my home community losing their farms in the family farm being you know bought up and agribusiness being called the best thing that could be done. But I've heard arguments from some farmers that you know they don't understand that the ECB and Japan have both experienced famine and they do not want to rely on

imports of basic food goods and not. And it it seems more it's like Carpio and the exporters here and those large industrial organizations that are the ones that are really pushing the subsidies down. And this is illustrated in that some I think something like seven of our God negotiators over time have been some people vice presidents or some such from Carville and other. Our job or businesses. So I just think that. There's a lot of there are a lot of people trying to speak for our farmers as well as a lot of people trying to speak to farmers. And it just it seems that. We need to hear here's some more of those issues are some actual farmers to call up cause I've heard some call him in various times and be very strong advocates for sustainability et cetera. It isn't. It isn't being composed entirely from the outside. So I just like to hear some comments on some of those ideas I'm sure you've heard some of them before.

Those are two those are excellent ideas coming out on the EEC. You often hear the notion that it's because the U.S. was hungry during that European countries were hungry during the Second World War that they have that policy. I'm not sure that that's as true today as it was then because frankly just as that is true in this country most of the people in the EEC just the second world war was history. But having traveled in Europe it became apparent to me that the E.C. governments are subsidizing agriculture to keep some small non-viable farmers on the farm just so they don't add to the unemployment rolls in the city. They are also putting some fairly strict restrictions on how they can farm. For example there are architectural standards for barns so that they look traditional and historic. There are limitations

on on how silos can be built again so they look traditional. So they're how they deal with agriculture is very much involved in what they want the countryside to look like. It's almost as though they're paying those small farmers to be the caretakers of their national park system. And as you drive across much of Europe it does look like a national park. Well that's that's fascinating that says something about the social contract in those European countries and far be it from us to tell another country what their social contract for agriculture ought to be. Now where we have our disagreements with the European community is primarily over how they go about how they go about conducting that social. Contract. For example we would argue please don't pay those farmers to produce commodities that you don't need that you then dump on world markets at a highly subsidized price. In other words be sensitive to what the

impact of how you implement your policy in your country impacts other countries. And I think that's the main disagreement and by the way I don't suggest that we're innocent we're far from we're far from from innocent in that so you raise that marvelous point of we need to and it's one of the places where it's very useful to be thinking in terms of a social contract. Now you're also very right in suggesting that our guest negotiators are very very very committed to free trade free world trade and. It's something that I've given a lot of thought to. I would simply I remind myself and I would remind others that in all countries agricultural policy is also social policy. And so I'm not hopeful that in the short run and maybe even the long run we will see that completely completely open trade. Let me return though to the first very first comment you made that we need to hold other industries to the

same standards that we do for agriculture. While I have not studied what the environmental requirements are for other industries I guess I had the perception that we are holding all of our industries. Lee Iacocca for example we're looking pretty carefully at a smokestack and we're looking pretty carefully at what the effluence are from his plants and we're holding him to standards on those and we're imposing financial penalties if those standards aren't met. And again that's a little bit different way than we're dealing with agriculture. I like frankly the way we're dealing with agriculture because it says a society has an important stake in agriculture and is willing to provide benefits to agriculture. We also have these expectations of agriculture but we're not going to tell farmers how to meet those expectations. We're going to let them find the very best way for them under their

circumstances to meet those requirements. You know what I'm speaking of here is is a conservation compliance. We're really not telling farmers how to do that. There are a number of options and I think it's terribly important that we allow farmers the freedom to determine how it is that in their own circumstances what's the best way for them to meet those expectations that society has. Gee that was a you know a good set of thoughts there. Again our guest this morning Peter Blum he is one of the assistant directors of the Illinois cooperate extension service. We're talking about agriculture and its place in society and if you have questions give us a call. Yeah. There was yet another point that that the caller made and that was the number of people who speak for agriculture as well as to agriculture. It's another important thing to think about. I think that the. One of the relationships that I've reflected on is the relationship between farmers and their input industries. I

think it's unique in agriculture that farmers have tended to identify more closely with their input industries than they have with their with their customers with the consumers. And I wonder why that is. I suppose it could be because they live more closely to their input industries the consumers are really distant whereas the local suppliers input suppliers are neighbors and friends also farmers have banded together and formed cooperatives and integrated vertically by owning some of those input industries so they have a tendency to identify very closely with their input industries. Now for their part the input industries have a tendency to speak for agriculture. Whenever there is a Whenever there's a question about the Veyron mentally impacts of agricultural chemicals for example their chemical companies tend to run up and throw their arms around farmers and say Here let us let us speak for you in this issue. They also tend to

project the public image for agriculture and I you know witness the the ads the television ads that we see so much of here in this part of the country during the winter. I wonder if if farmers are going to be able to continue to allow that to happen I wonder if farmers aren't going to have to assert themselves and speak for themselves and suggest to others that you shouldn't speak for us because in fact the long term interests of farmers in the long term interest of the input industries are not the same. And you know I think that's again something worth reflecting on who speaks who presumes to speak for farmers and do they do they accurately represent what farmers really believe and are farmers going to have to assert themselves a bit more in terms of speaking for themselves and their interests. Post up with someone else we have someone on our toll free line here. Hello. I have two questions one relate.

Decreasing political power farmers. My impression is that except for the Farm Bureau very few farmers belong to the organization that can lobby like we do around here. Why do you think that is. And is there anything that you think can be done about it. The second is I've heard over and over again that cliche that perception is reality so that there are no doubt millions of housewives who think that the corn in the beans that go into their cooking oil is still soaking with pesticides. You know when it goes into the factory and even though that's not true they think it is and so we have to deal politically with with their with their perceptions as if they were real. Do you think that that in the long run is really the way to go about it. OK again a couple of very very good questions. The first about the

decreasing political power and why farmers don't join groups that can speak for them. Perhaps more effectively than they can speak for themselves individually. Again I think there's this notion of independence. Farmers are very competitive and tend to view themselves as very independent. And for that reason I think probably don't join organizations that can speak for them perhaps as much as we would expect. I guess I would say this about farmers independents. I think farmers in in fact if they think deeply about it are very dependent and they're very dependent on all of the input industries to provide them with the wherewithal to to to farm. They're dependent upon the processing industries they're dependent upon exporters. They're dependent upon commodity program so in fact I think farmers are are very dependent and maybe I'm

using the war wrong words. For him talking about that maybe interdependency is the thing that we should be talking about. We're obviously dependent upon our farmers for for our food and they are dependent upon many others in society to be able to carry out their function so very very enter dependent. Also I think we have to recognize that farmers have political power well beyond their numbers and it's because of a thing that we've called a farm block in solidarity in terms of of farm interests. So really the the group in society that has a vital interest FirstLine interest in agriculture is almost 20 percent of our society. That's all of us who relate to agriculture in our work in how we make a living. The question about perceptions and the perceptions of the housewife is terribly terribly important and I think in the past we have wailed again to the

DU to ways in which we can respond to this sort of a of a question. You don't know what you're talking about. Kind of a response. Let me suggest a totally different response to it. Those housewives and attempt I'm not sure that I mean let me think for just a moment as to whether the pesticide residue is there. Let me let me turn to a bit of a different issue. Let me turn to the the incidence of agricultural chemicals in ground water and surface water and even rainwater. We have let's say an incidence of detection of agricultural chemicals in one or two percent of say our groundwater supplies that are in in excess of the health advisory level for a lifetime consumption. How do we talk about that with others who might use that water supply.

Well I suggest one way we might do it is to explain what a health advisory level is. To explain how that level is set. With all of the shortcomings and all of the assumptions that were using animal tests as a stand in for humans that were using high dosage rates to try to get a shorter response time because we really can't wait for lifetime effects that were translating then that to humans that were providing some some safety factors. There's the uncertainty of what the the dose response curve looks like in the in the low dosage levels so we're making some guesses about that. But when we put all of those things together that the bulk of the scientific judgment is that that is a safe level. Now after you've explained all of that you still can't say to that person you should consider that safe because that's a judgment that everybody has to make for themselves. What you can say is

knowing that I have decided that that is safe for me. Furthermore I have decided that that is safe for my family. But I really won't presume to tell you that it's safe for you I think that's a judgment that you have to make. So that's a very very different way. But again I think a way in which we're going to have to deal with these kinds of issues. What what are the scientific facts or the scientific facts are that at a certain we have a certain incidence level of this at certain detection amounts and relate those to what science has to say. But then we have to say we have to admit that we cannot presume to judge for individuals whether that's safe or not. They have to and I think we have to very much avoid making comparisons that will be challenged. We often talk about parts per billion in parts per million as the number of bananas it takes to reach the moon or the you know a drop of

gin in a tank car vermouth and you know silly things like that. That's really not a part per billion or part per million can be made to seem very large. Or it can be made to seem very small that's not the point. Also I think we have to be very careful in comparing risks that we voluntary risks from involuntary risks and Peter Sandman who's out at Rutgers University and who writes about these risky issues says you know I really don't know whether Bruce Ames who talks about natural carcinogens in our food supply versus artificial carcinogens whether Bruce is right or not he said I only know that anyone who compares what he put in my apple with what God put in my Apple is going to make a lot of people outraged. And so we have to be very careful that when we when we talk about risks and we compare risks that in fact we compare involuntary risks and we compare voluntary risks but we don't we don't mix them up.

You know it's well it's a long answer to your question. Your comment in fact. Perception is reality for a lot of people. How do we go about bringing their perceptions closer to reality. But I think we also have to honor everyone's right to make the final judgement for themselves as to whether the risks and risks are acceptable or not. Thank you thank you for the call. Let me you know we've been talking about the this notion of the Social Contract him. And I think that you know the the idea of contract doesn't imply that all parties do have rights obligations and so forth. And I would imagine that you know taking from from a farmers point of view taking a look at consumers one might be tempted to say you know you folks have had it pretty darn good for a long time now. You you have abundant supply of very high quality food products and at a quite a reasonable price. And until

recently you never really cared quite where it came from or what it took to produce it and would say things like you know people don't really appreciate the fact that it's that it's very hard work. There are some years it's very difficult to make a profit. It's a very dangerous occupation. You know people talk about problems with the chemicals Well you know who's who's at greatest risk for exposure problems or exposure to chemicals it's the people that are going to be handling the chemicals and once you get it way down the line into the food product the risk is is so low as almost maybe not worth worth worrying about from from a farmers point of view. Can they turn around and say to the consumers you know you're laying on us a lot of expectations. We have some of you and what might those be. Very good. Let's go back to 1985. Agriculture was in grave difficulty again as I mentioned before that we were dealing with a lot of excess debt in agriculture and we had a lot of farmers in deep financial

difficulty. And there was general understanding at that time that we needed to help farmers. That's the point. There was general understanding in society that we needed to help agriculture and society was willing in 1985 to enter into a farm bill that provided a great deal more direct benefit to farmers and as I mentioned 77 billion dollars of direct payments out of the 85 farm bill over a five year period to farmers that were terribly terribly important in helping us pay down that debt so that here in 1902 while there still are farmers who are in financial difficulty we are in a in a completely different financial world and we than farmers were in in 1905 now along with that understanding came the suggestion from environmentalists and conservationists look if we're going to provide those additional supports to farmers should we get serious about salt conservation. And as a

result of that everyone agreed that that would be a good idea. And so the conservation provisions of the 85 bill were written in Endace want buster and sod buster provisions were written in and there you have the if you will quid pro quo. So we have lots of evidence I think that society has a special feeling for farmers and is willing to do things. How does society know what farmers want done. The negotiations of the farm bill. Farmers Representatives farmers organizations are involved in those discussions that lead up to the writing of each farm bill so that's the mechanism. I say a primary not the only mechanism but a mechanism whereby agriculture presents to the rest of society what it really wants out of this contract. And then as I've suggested in 1905 in 1990 there were some new players on the public side stepping up and laying some some expectations on the table that were written into that that law. So I don't think it is all one sided.

I think that that agriculture get something from the contract. We are close to the end of the program we have maybe about 4 5 minutes left. Our guest this morning is Peter Bloom He's assistant director of the Illinois Cooperative Extension Service we're talking about agriculture and its place in society and we have another caller here I want to make sure we get in before we end up out of time here on line 1. Hello. Thank you. I appreciate this program it's been very interesting on an important subject. I want to make one comment about the movie the film which was produced the price of bounty to me that didn't do much to clarify my thinking regarding the role of agriculture and its response to society which is troll. I heard a lot of opinions of various people as to what the contamination may be from agriculture or what the price of bounty may be. But I heard very little data or LOT of going around the bush for example the fertilizer plant out of the western part

of the state. It was mentioned about the sad conditions around that fertilizer plant that it contributed to ground. Water pollution comment was also made but agriculture also contributed. I ended up with no clear feeling as to whether one was more important than the other whether either water was important and so on. So I just suggested it. Perhaps an improvement would show that you are a strictly scientific organization. University thank you. I think you know very good. The price of bounty certainly has been a bit of a lightning rod for the college and for extension and we've had a number of people express concern. We've had people from the agricultural industry we've had farmers we've also had by the way environmentalists who who are take a good deal of exception to the way AG environmentalists are pre-trade in the videotape. Yeah there are a

number of things that we would do differently if we were starting that project over. First of all the project should be and is part of a larger public policy education effort. And so one activity one event one product just doesn't make a program it's only part of it. Probably it was our intention that that videotape would show. Different perspectives on that issue and that probably should have been made plainer print that we're not talking here about only scientific data but we're trying to expose the viewer to a range of perceptions about these issues. That was not clearly done. There is a second video tape on best management practices that are being used in agriculture to address that. Unfortunately that's just not as interesting to general viewers as the topic of the price of bounty. So I think we're really we're sitting back and trying to understand all

that we've learned from that so that we one of the difficulties is that there were some red flags in the price of bounty that clause cause mines to shut and we need to do a better job of identifying those red flags because the whole thing is intended to be an educational effort. And if there are things within the product that detract from that educational impact then we need to try to identify those up front. But I think it will be one of the things that has been suggested is we need to wait about 10 years and then I put that videotape on again and have another look at it and see whether it's a good videotape because it's been suggested that it will be five or ten years before we really know whether that was a good videotape and of course it is a limited medium. You know even a 50 minute videotape is fairly limited in what it can really accomplish. But thank you very much for that for those comments. We could see one more call here a line for hello hello.

Got a comment. Most farmers belong to the Farm Bureau because that's the best insurance policy that you have a long barbaric get to ensure that what I had in mind. The government mandates that we do something and I've got to think said fine we can't do anything we can do well. We could bring it home. But if you wanted to do it. It's a hazardous material and we can't move it illegally and nobody wants to take it back. Same thing with you Daddy freak. What are you going to do with it. The government said we can't. We were willing to comply but the government hasn't done anything to help us get rid of it. You know your comment. Yeah I really have no you know I have no solution to that. I suggest that all of us have that same problem with our used oil in our in a freeze. Generally we're not changing those things ourselves in fact I think a lot of

people are now using the businesses that have sprung up to to do that and then the business has the responsibility of dealing with it but you know you're going to be take my tractors and Oh no certainly not. You know you're really you're really pointing out the challenges that all of all of us are going to face as we try to work out a way of living that is much more consistent with the environmental requirements of our surroundings. What are we going to do with our oil what are we going to do with our anniversaries what are we gonna do with our solid waste is as one of the earlier callers said these are our huge problems that we've got to we've got to find a way to to deal with them effectively all of us are in that together. Well unfortunately we're going to have to leave it there. We've having having raised maybe some large questions and not come up with answers for them but maybe they didn't we didn't really expect we could other than get people thinking about these things and and we

appreciate you coming by and I'm sure that they'll be the topics we'll be talking about a lot in the future and perhaps we'll have a chance to talk again on another day so we appreciate and thank you David. Our guest this morning Peter Blum is assistant director of Illinois's cooperate extension service.