Clean tech seen as way for family farms to survive

12/22/2017

CNBC on December 21 carried this commentary on the role of clean tech in helping our family farms survive. This is one thing that farmers have been saying for some time to those anti-farm activists who are trying through regulations to push them out of business. Farms are making tremendous progress in addressing legitimate environmental concerns. But give us time, help us, support us, don’t destroy us with massive and unproductive regulations.

This article makes a few important points worth noting:
– 97% of our nation’s farms are family farms–please note the USDA definition of a family farm. It is where the family owns and operates it. That’s the definition we use, not an arbitrary size number.
– family farm income has dropped 45% since a high in 2013. It’s something we have been trying to tell Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and RE Sources who are fighting to impose the dairy farm killing regulations: give us a break! We’re losing our farm shirts here and you want to pile on regulations that would cost us over $1100 per cow! That would destroy our family farms.

There are a great many examples of innovative farmers employing new technologies to improve operations and reduce environmental risks. We know where most environmentalists stand– solidly behind our farmers who are working hard to do it right. We just need to have them tell their environmental activist groups like Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and RE Sources to work with us instead of working for the end of our family farms.