Sunday, July 08, 2007

Today in FSA County Office

This piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offers a refreshing change from the usual run of stories on farming and farm programs. Barb Burns is the county executive director (CED) in St. Clair county, and has her concerns: Land values, land being taken out of ag use, farmers signing up by computer versus the office (they're not), and handling pigheaded farmers.

(I remember visiting a county office in NC with a district director (responsible for oversight of about 10 county offices) way back in 1969 (tell it grandpa). After a week or so he decided he could trust me, even though I was a Yankee, presumably liberal and a troublemaker, as witness my long hair. He admitted to me he didn't really think that women should be in such positions as CED, because some of the farmers got pretty profane in the office. He resisted the idea of southern womenfolk being forced to deal with vulgarity. (He did admit, however, that the one woman in his district had no problem handling her farmers.)

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