Ducks Unlimited

[grassfarmer]

You've crossed over to the dark side sheepwheat not that you've animals and some grass LOL. We'll have the last laugh though when "conventional" farmers finally realise they can't beat mother nature despite killing all the wildlife, the trees, the grass, the soil biology and the water.

I think the concern is more with the conservation easements that DU likes farmers to sign up for - they put restrictions on land use in perpetuity and although they offer reasonable money I'm not convinced it's anything like enough given how long perpetuity is, plus you are getting it in today's $ which might look small 10 years from now. We have grass/bush quarters that we will never break or cultivate that would easily earn us $50,000 to put in a "no break, no drain" easement - on the face of it money for nothing but that perpetuity clause is the deal breaker. I think within 10-20 years there will be programs paying annual management fees to farmers to manage their land and they will be a better deal for farmers. Land with conservation easements on it can be tough to sell to a future buyer if you decide to sell the property some day - I know some people that have done that and found it cost them many times what their DU payments had been.
What Partners did with his quarter makes sense, probably better than putting it into a conservation agreement in the circumstances.

[bgmb]

Guys be very careful who you let onto you land. All I will say is read any contracts very closely and then take to a lawyer and get them to read it.

Grass nobody cares what you farm we are all farmers it's all great no matter how big or small or what you grow. Seems like you think you are the salt of the earth because you grow grass instead of grain I really dont see it that way I would say both have their pros and cons, some like grain some like cattle. Either way I wont lower myself to signing rights away on my property to a tricky tax payer funded American duck hunting group for a few pennies.

[Sheepwheat]

Guys be very careful who you let onto you land. All I will say is read any contracts very closely and then take to a lawyer and get them to read it.

Grass nobody cares what you farm we are all farmers it's all great no matter how big or small or what you grow. Seems like you think you are the salt of the earth because you grow grass instead of grain I really dont see it that way I would say both have their pros and cons, some like grain some like cattle. Either way I wont lower myself to signing rights away on my property to a tricky tax payer funded American duck hunting group for a few pennies.

I found it funny that no one even came on my land to see if I had established a forage. Must watch via satellite?

[burnt]

I found it funny that no one even came on my land to see if I had established a forage. Must watch via satellite?

Yup. You can run but you can't hide...

Bwahahahaaa!

[redleaf]

Interesting article from North Dakota.
Sorry you’ll have to copy and paste cause I don’t know how to make it a live link.


https://www.sayanythingblog.com/entry/ducks-unlimited-north-dakota/

[grassfarmer]

The comments after the article are more interesting.

[bgmb]

Great article. Du is buying land with government money competing against farmers, taking it out of production and in some cases paying lower property taxes on it because it is now considered recreational. Why is this money not going to healthcare, schools, roads? anything but this group.

If you were against the CWB you should be screaming 10 times as loud at this tricky little venture DU has going. Unfortunately it just takes a small amount of money to buy the complacency of many famrers.

[Sheepwheat]

Great article. Du is buying land with government money competing against farmers, taking it out of production and in some cases paying lower property taxes on it because it is now considered recreational. Why is this money not going to healthcare, schools, roads? anything but this group.

If you were against the CWB you should be screaming 10 times as loud at this tricky little venture DU has going. Unfortunately it just takes a small amount of money to buy the complacency of many famrers.

A few thoughts.

Any of the land I have driven by that is DU land, is crap land. Land that is hardly productive. Land covered in water and so on. So I do not see the competition in that way.

Two. Every farmer whining and moaning about grain movement, should be more than glad when someone takes land out of production.

Three. Not all of us farmers are wealthy, and think that six or eight, or ten bucks an acre is insignificant.

Finally. I was seeding the land down whether they helped with seed costs or not.

As far as tax dollars? Find a group that does not get tax dollars. Sad but true.

[bgmb]

You can try and spin it however you want but they are heavily funded by the government. Here as well as other areas they are directly competing against grain and cattle farmers for land. And they are willing to pay top dollar to take land out of production, plug up all the sloughs and turn it into a big weedy mess. Who knows what the ultimate end goal is but I personally see a government funded "conservation" group buying good productive farmland with tax dollars and wasting its potential for food production as a huge problem especially when our country is so far in debt and getting worse by the minute.

[grassfarmer]

You can try and spin it however you want but they are heavily funded by the government. Here as well as other areas they are directly competing against grain and cattle farmers for land. And they are willing to pay top dollar to take land out of production, plug up all the sloughs and turn it into a big weedy mess. Who knows what the ultimate end goal is but I personally see a government funded "conservation" group buying good productive farmland with tax dollars and wasting its potential for food production as a huge problem especially when our country is so far in debt and getting worse by the minute.

Time to move on, it's no longer the 1940s. There has been plenty Government (taxpayers) money put into agriculture over the decades. Society has different priorities for land use this century - expect more Government (taxpayer) money to go towards funding green initiatives - carbon capture through forage, creating more habitat for wildlife, tree planting, restoring wetlands. Rightly so too in my opinion as we must protect the environment as the first priority for continued human existence on this planet - land uses like agriculture or resource extraction are secondary once we realised we already have the ability to feed the world's population but aren't achieving it due to distribution/political challenges.

[farmaholic]

I see the RRs have joined the chorus. ..not mowing their right of ways and trees growing on them obscuring traffic's view of on coming trains. And reducing their use of fossil fuels by choosing not to work.

[the big wheel]

I found it funny that no one even came on my land to see if I had established a forage. Must watch via satellite?

Crop insurance inspectors!

[bgmb]

Time to move on, it's no longer the 1940s. There has been plenty Government (taxpayers) money put into agriculture over the decades. Society has different priorities for land use this century - expect more Government (taxpayer) money to go towards funding green initiatives - carbon capture through forage, creating more habitat for wildlife, tree planting, restoring wetlands. Rightly so too in my opinion as we must protect the environment as the first priority for continued human existence on this planet - land uses like agriculture or resource extraction are secondary once we realised we already have the ability to feed the world's population but aren't achieving it due to distribution/political challenges.

yeah you're right, we dont have nearly enough untouched unusable land up north for water, ducks and so on. Lets make it harder for farmers by having important tax dollars that could be put to good use in health and education used to buy farmland and screw it up for ever.