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EJB
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Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
01/02/03 09:48 AM
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http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/4855777.htm
Comments?...I'll reserve mine for now....
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egon
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/02/03 10:43 AM
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The Farmer:
When he is gone where do we get our food from?
It would seem the Farmer is an endangered species looked upon by urbal development proponents [ spell someone makes big bucks ] as an impiediment to thier operation.
Even worse is the conversion of very viable agricultural soil to asphalt,concrete and manicured lawn requireing a preponderance of chemicals detrimental to the enviroment.
Perhaps our numbers are outstripping our resourses.
Perhaps a major change is inevitable to introduce proper functioning public transportation and eliminating the thousands of square miles of concrete and asphalt covering the surface of the earth.
The answer I do not have for a wise man I am not.
Egon
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Argee
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/02/03 04:27 PM
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He said his neighbors should have considered more carefully where they were going to live.
Her we go again!
That sums it up. People move out to the country to "get away from it all" and the want to change the country environment to suit them. They want to edict new laws for this and that and end up right back where they started, wanting to "get away from it all".
I think it was "beenthere" who posted this quote in part from the infamous Yard Lights thread between a farmer and a newcomer:
"Did you really like this area when you first came here?" Answer "yes". Comment "Then leave it that way."
That pretty well applies here.
Argee 
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EJB
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: Argee]
01/03/03 05:53 AM
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Well thats pretty much how I see it too...some people are awfully naive about what living in the country is really like...its happening where I live too and I expect that its only going to get progressively worse. 
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cowboydoc
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/03/03 08:23 AM
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I deal with this on an almost daily basis. What the heck do these people think the country is? It happens everywhere. The farmers, ranchers, etc. do their jobs the way it's been done for a thousand years. Then some city jerks come in and want to change everything so it is just like the city. I can't believe the nerve of these people. It's the country darnit it's not Beverly Hills!!!! Pack up your bags and your fancy cars and houses and put them on a corner lot in the city. Don't come out here to the country and try and change everything to be sterile because it's not!!
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fenneran
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: cowboydoc]
01/03/03 01:38 PM
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They just want everything to look like an issue of "Country Living" magazine. You know: A beautiful yard filled with flowers, a small dog or cat on the wrought-iron chair, a gentle breeze blowing in off of the meadow, a babbling brook in the background.
Then they move in and all of the sudden its: "golly, what in the world is that smell?" and "I thought those cows we saw when we bought the place were very picturesque, now they just smell bad." or "I wish that rooster wouldn't crow at 5:00." 
-Frank
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gws
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/03/03 03:08 PM
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City people forget. Fresh country air sometimes smells like manure.....
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Hayseed
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/04/03 01:34 AM
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We are getting very close to building a house on our three acres in the "country." I emphasize the word country because it has always been the country until the last decade or so, when it started getting more and more populated by the year. In another five or ten years it will be just another extension of suburbia. Until then I look forward to living across the road from a 160 acre pasture, complete with cows. It has been for sale for years and has so far not sold and if I could have my way it would never sell. I much prefer the company of cows to that of a lot of humans I have known in my life. I love to watch cows, I love to listen to them and I don't find their smells at all unpleasant. Who ever owns that pasture and cows can sleep well at night knowing that at least one neighbor won't give them grief for doing what it is that country folks do the best - be country folks, cows and all. I may have lived in the city for the past 26 years but I never stopped missing the country life I enjoyed the first 20 years of my life. As far as I am concerned clueless folks from the city should do the world a favor and stay there if the best they can offer is trying to make country folks conform to their idea of how the world should be.
Chris
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Hydraman
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/04/03 02:49 PM
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Mebe we need a new law-- in order to buy a "nice place out in the country" ya gotta be able to train the farmers' cows to flush!!! 
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RichZ
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/06/03 08:21 AM
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I'm quite sure the farm was there long before the suburban houses were built. What did they expect?
As someone said earlier, you have to plan where you move. We want to farm, and moved to an agricultural district. Our neighbors are thrilled that we're putting our farm back into active farming. I guess we're lucky!
Rich
"What a long strange trip it's been."
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Argee
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: RichZ]
01/06/03 09:58 AM
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My warranty deed for my property contains the following clause:
"The above-described premises may be located within the vicinity of farmland or a farm operation. Generally accepted agricultural and management practices which may generate noise, dust, odors, and other associated conditions may be used and are protected by the Michigan Right to Farm Act."
I believe this clause and the Right to Farm Act gives the farmer some legal footing. I hope I never have to test it, but inasmuch as I will be raising pigs this year, it's nice to know I have it just in case I'm challenged.
Argee
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earthmother
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/06/03 12:08 PM
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Yep- it's yuppies complaining again! This reminds me of living on Long Island. We had a famous fireworks factory there (Gruchi), and some idiot decided to put a housing development across the street. Of course, even bigger idiots bought these houses. About 25 years ago, there was an explosion at the fireworks factory that killed 3 family members. Of course there was damage at this development, such as broken windows, etc. The owners of these houses complained and WON!!! Now who in their right mind would move across the street from a business that has tons of gunpowder!!?? This is the same issue.If these people are so upset by having fly "poo-poo" on their deck- oh excuse me-Veranda- screen it in. This way you would have no flies or any other insect. The country has insects, whether there are cows or not. We don't have the car exhaust here to kill them. I wish this kind of people would just go away and hide under a rock somewhere.
Martha Steward does not live in the country- she's on Long Island and Connecticut.
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cowboydoc
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: earthmother]
01/06/03 02:16 PM
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Hey Hey  We finally agree earthmother. LOL
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Stoneheartfarm
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: earthmother]
01/06/03 06:13 PM
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Actually, I remember 60 minutes doing a special on a Florida farmer who was fighting with the Golf Course that had been built next door (and apparently down wind). Naturally, the GC guys complained about the smell. So, the farmer began playing Country music real loud to keep his critters happy. (It's a "Country Club", right? ) Never did find out how it ended. Anybody know?
Steve
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AndyF
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/07/03 08:27 AM
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Here's another interesting article: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0102/p14s01-lihc.html
Regarding the yuppie/farmer conflicts, it is unfortunate that these occur, but many of them are just natural consequences of a farmer selling off his frontage or changing his farming practices. If the frontage hadn't been sold and the township hadn't allowed residential construction the problem would not exist because the complainers wouldn't live there. Or, if the farmer had kept his dairy at 200 cows rather than expanding to 1,000 with a huge manure lagoon, or put in a pork or poultry CAFO the neighbors wouldn't be complaining because the smells and sounds from a general farm or smaller dairy are a lot less potent than an industrial scale one.
I could go on, but you get the idea. Encouraging residential development in a farming area or implementing industrial style and scale animal farming practices in an area with many non-farmers are recipes for confrontation and conflict.
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cowboydoc
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: AndyF]
01/07/03 08:50 AM
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What it all comes down to is greed. The local counties and state want more revenue from taxes. One of the best ways they do this is through property taxes. They take good farmland and set appraisal high because this is what the ground would make as developed ground. This forces up the taxes. The farmer complains and takes it before the board. Then the land is converted to residential use. Now the farmer sells the land for a huge profit, the land is developed, and now the county has a huge tax base. From 250 acres that was bringing in less than a $1000 a year in taxes they've just created 2,000,000 or better in property taxes.
Don't think this happens. Just come to where I live. It happened to the best farmground in this area and it's happening to some of my ground right now. If you don't want to sell they drive up the taxes. Then you still don't want to sell they take it anyway by domain laws. Not fair at all but it's happening. Awhile back I posted on this at TBN. They jacked my taxes way up on a 250 acre parcel. I took them to court and so they changed the ag to residential zoning. I pretty much am left with the choice of paying a huge tax bill or selling the ground. There were three developers at the county hearing that put in offers to the board for the property to determine it's value. I will probably wind up selling this ground and it will be turned into houses. It's going to make me a tremendous amount of money but it still doesn't make it right and I've got a pit in my stomach thinking about doing it. It's all greed pure and simple and that is why you are seeing the farmer and the farmland become an extinct breed.
The family farmer anymore is very rare. Most farming now is being done by big corporations and it will continue to be that way.
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Stoneheartfarm
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: cowboydoc]
01/07/03 11:32 AM
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If you don't want to sell, they drive up the taxes
CBD,
That sounds familliar... but not from what is happening today. Didn't something similar happen in the 1800's? Water rights, railroad rights, something like that (I'm afraid my history is a bit rusty.) 
Steve
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AndyF
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: cowboydoc]
01/07/03 11:48 AM
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I'm sorry to hear that you are getting the short end of the stick regarding some land you would like to keep in production. It is unfortunate when local government is so short sighted. Too often the only recourse a person has is to vote with their feet and move. I remember reading about a Michigan Apple grower who had to sue his township to prevent forcible annexation of his orchards by a local town so that they could rezone his property residential and grow their community. After several years he finally won, but it almost bankrupted him.
I lived through what you are describing in, what for several years was the fastest growing city in Ohio. What had been a rural area when we purchased our 90 year old house on the edge of town in ten years was engulfed by golf course communities and SUVs. I sold, made a few dollars and am now in an agricultural area in upstate NY.
Unfortunately, even here the town government is on the "gotta increase the tax base" treadmill and encourages people to apply for variances so that they can set up their doublewide or build a home on 1-5 acres in the town's Agricultural Districts.
What amazes me about this is that for government as a whole, residential properties typically consume more in services than they pay in taxes. Without a substantial non-residential tax base, school taxes can quickly go through the roof.
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wingnut
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: cowboydoc]
01/07/03 12:27 PM
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Richard,
back in Alberta ... the Provincial government solved that problem by passing a law to make it difficult and/or illegal to convert farmland to residential. This was because too much of that was happening and the less-shortsighted people in government realized that food had to come from somewhere (and was easier to grow/raise) on ag land than scrub land.
Heck, even if you want to sll of some land ... you can only subdivide one 5 acres parcel off your (can't remember if it's 1.4 section or larger) land.
Emininet Domain is the most abused and undemocratic law on the books. Right behind it is the law that allows police forces, courts and governments to profit from seizing the (presumed but unproven) proceeds of "crime".
it's a shame that common sense isn't
http://www.dahlhausminiatures.com
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dsgsr
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/17/03 09:06 AM
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What happened to my post?
David
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MikePA
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: dsgsr]
01/18/03 05:20 AM
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What happened to my post?
Welcome to CBN, David!
I clicked on your userid and it shows that you've only made one post, the post asking what happened to your post.
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Gary_in_Indiana
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: MikePA]
01/18/03 11:25 PM
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Mike,
How could he be a 'Silver Member' with only one post? Or did you mean only one post on this thread??
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GaryM
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: Gary_in_Indiana]
01/18/03 11:32 PM
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dsgr is listed as a new member, not Silver.
Gary
----------------------------------------------
Hey! Aren't you supposed to be working?
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dsgsr
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: EJB]
01/20/03 05:43 PM
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Thank you for the Welcome. It was probably something I did to mess up the posting. Anyway I was just ranting about Outa-Staters moving to Maine and changing our way of life, driving up the price of land, etc. something I do too much of. Yes I'm a (New Member) I've been lurking around this and the Tractor By Net and other Forums since their conception about 5-years now. I don't post much, guess thats cause I'm NEW, inexperienced that sort of thing
David
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Argee
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Re: Suburban life pitting farmers vs. neighbors
[re: dsgsr]
01/20/03 06:17 PM
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Welcome dsgsr!!
Regretfully people moving into the countryside and driving up the price of land isn't happening in just Maine. It's happening everywhere. Many people have more disposable income now than they ever had and can afford two places. One in town and the other in the country as a future retirement home. That's the price we pay for progress What gripes me is when they move in and a few months or years down the road, they want to improve it by having similar services and government like they have in their city home. It proves that they didn't research the rural lifestyle well enough before they purchased that tranquil country setting. They didn't know that Farmer Jones next door raises pigs and cattle and uses the manure on his fields or that he has a yard light so he can find his way to the barn at night. They didn't realize that many rural folk take care of their garbage disposal by digging a hole in the back forty and create their own landfill complete with all the smells and pests that come with it. They don't realize that the tax base won't support trash pick-up or timely road plowing in the winter and dust control in the summer. All of a sudden their little Eden is not to their liking so they go about changing all that is wrong with it. They forgot what attracted them their in the first place was the simplicity of the lifestyle.
So don't feel alone. Your not the only one who gets worked up over it. 
Argee
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