RACINE – Either Ronald Behounek is the smartest dairy farmer or .

Tuesday, June 06, 2000

RACINE – Either Ronald Behounek is the smartest dairy farmer or … well … "so dumb I don’t know enough to get out."

Behounek is, for certain, the last dairy farmer in Hayfield Township and milks 70 head of Holstein cows, following in his father’s footsteps.

There are less than 20 farming families remaining in Hayfield Township, according to Behounek.

Behounek and his son, Kyle, were among a roomful of farmers who told their sad stories to a panel of politicians Monday morning.

The 7th Rib Restaurant, where Dick Walters’ popular supper club was voted the best restaurant in Minnesota in 1994 by the Minnesota Pork Producers Association, became a sounding board for farmers’ woes Monday.

However, before farmers and agribusinessmen could question the panelists, the politicians spoke.

Congressman Gil Gutknecht and state Sen. Kenric Scheevel (R-Preston) hosted the farm forum. State Rep. Greg Davids (R-Harmony) and state Rep. William Kuisle (R-Stewartville) were panelists as well as Sharon Clark, Minnesota Department of Agriculture assistant commissioner.

Only last week, Gutknecht went to bat for farmers when he urged U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman to release oil-seed assistance payments.

Gutknecht told Glickman: "Remember that 10 years ago, the Pentagon was able to airlift 533,000 troops, deploy 176 ships and transport over nine million tons of cargo into the Persian Gulf area of operations in just six months."

"I simply cannot understand why delivering $475 million in emergency farm payments is requiring such an inordinate amount of time," the congressman said.

Gutknecht reiterated his efforts on behalf of farmers and judging by the nods of agreement from audience members, he has bipartisan support from the Fillmore, Olmsted and Mower counties farmers at Monday’s forum.

Gutknecht also struck a nerve positively when he marveled at the silence that is not golden.

Pointing to the recent uproar over Cuba, in part caused by the Elian Gonzales incident, Gutknecht said U.S. embargoes "don’t hurt the countries they were intended to hurt as much as they do our own farmers."

He said he has been telling the Bush campaign people "embargoes don’t work" and urged the presidential hopeful to adopt this stance in his platform.

On another subject, Gutknecht said Americans have allowed mergers to "go too far."

Citing oil company and grain company mergers, the congressman said, "We have just not asked enough questions" and "we have allowed these big mergers to happen."

He said the Justice Department’s 400 anti-trust lawyers aren’t doing their job and their silence is imperiling American farmers, who don’t see commodity prices increasing.

Gutknecht learned recently, "Tiger Woods makes 10 cents a box for every Wheaties box with his picture on it. That’s more than the price paid our grain farmers."

Scheevel, Davids and Kuisle told the producers what the 2000 legislative session meant for Minnesota farmers. They included $64 million in permanent property tax reductions on ag land, $78 million for ethanol producer payments for the biennium and $70 million in one-time $4-per-acre rebates on ag land.

Kuisle spoke of the modifications of the feedlot bill, including regulations on grazing in pastures, exemptions of operations with less than 50 animal units and cost share money from the state to pay 75 percent of feedlot improvement costs over $3,000 for facilities with less than 300 animal units, plus changes in the limited liability corporation law to allow more flexibility.

Davids retraced a biennium of legislative changes on behalf of farmers, but recalling the flooding of late last week, the Republican made his biggest pitch to residents of Fillmore County to help township and county officials have the county declared a disaster area to be able to qualify for assistance.

Scheevel told the audience a study will be done this summer in southeast Minnesota where the karst region’s vulnerability will be examined to determine what, if any, changes must be made in permitting feedlot operations and governing manure management.

Scheevel had one of the best lines of the forum, when he credited the session’s success with "tripartisan" politics.

"We had the DFL, the GOP and the WWF working together," Scheevel said, referring to Democrats, Republicans and Gov. Jesse Ventura’s former World Wrestling Federation career.

But the question-and-answer session didn’t hold many humorous moments.

The questions came fast and furious about possible incentives to grow other biofuel crops besides corn; biotechnology, the Clean Water Act, dairy pricing, allowing townships to impose more restrictive zoning laws than counties or the state, the Freedom to Farm Act and again dairy pricing.

The latter’s answers from the politicians left the Hayfield Township father and son dairy duo perplexed.

"I think the whole dairy industry is somewhat out of control," observed Ronald Behounek, "and I wonder sometimes if dairy farmers aren’t their own worst enemy. Look what happened with BST and milk production.

"Every neighbor of mine who farmed is gone. There were only two of us farming in the township for the last five years and for the last three years I’m the only one.

"I’m not bitter, but I’m frustrated. We don’t know if we will continue to dairy farm much longer either."