Farm Bureau needs to wake up and smell the compost

Editor:

Senate Bill 115 is another example of the “control without investment” school of government.

It is a further erosion of the rights of property owners and its possible affects have not be explored sufficiently. Even supporters admit that the 20 acre size limit was arbitrarily arrived at.

This law, regardless of the assurances of its supporters, will make it more difficult for larger landowners to market their property to maximize its sale value.

It will become one more layer of bureaucracy, one more layer of hoops that must be jumped through before a person can dispose of property that he has worked for, paid for and paid taxes on for years.

Not all landowners are farmers, but a great many are. No farmer wants to see his farm cut up into smaller pieces and sold, but the value of land, especially in eastern Ohio, compared to the money that that can be made farming that often marginal farmland, dictates that this will be a continuing trend.

My own farm is what we call a hill farm and I can see few ways in the future that anyone can buy it, the machinery and everything else needed to farm it full time and make it.

Land in my area will largely become “hobby farms” and building sites. I don’t like it, but that is the trend.

Senate Bill 115 will not stop this, only make it more difficult. It will make “rural living” an option only available to the wealthy. While making it less expensive for those few who can afford it, it will put the dream of living in the country out of the reach of many.

I am a Farm Bureau member, but I have to disagree with them on this issue. They need to wake up and smell the compost.

Agriculture will continue in Ohio with or without this new law. It will change as it must and always has.

More government intervention is not the answer.

Dick Ladrach

Ragersville, Ohio