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Show UTAH May, 1971 Page 3 FARM BUREAU Pruett Named To Hartley Manage Marketing Assoc. by Jake Fuhriman AAIC The other side of die coin on the DDT use is beginning to be heard. More and more responsible people are beginning to speak out in defense of this, the safest pesticide yet developed. Two William H. Pruett has been namrecent statements have come to our attention. The first one is ed manager of the Ameriby Ralph W. Sherman, who for forty years was employed by cangeneral Agricultural Insurance ComUSDAin insect control activity. He is a member of die Govern- pany. The action was taken at ing' Board of the Entomological Society of America. His state- a recent meeting of the board of directors of the company. ment was made before the Committee on Agriculture House of Representatives, on a hearing held on the Federal EnvironAAIC, an affiliate of the American Farm Bureau Federation, mental Pesticide Control act of 1970. Farm One paragraph of his statement is of particular interest and serves state and multi-staBureau affiliated Insurance comwe quote. "There are now abundant scientific data to prove that panies as a reinsurance carrier standard tests now in use of DDT can sometimes yield false for casualty and property risks. positive results from extraneous substances occurring in nature Pruett has served as acting and from certain widely distributed commercial products. For manager since the retiresoil has dis- general example, gas chromatography analysis of ment of Frank V. Wilcox February closed that an undetermined material exists in nature that gives 1st, 1971. Pruett was named asidentical peaks as those of DDT. These results were obtained sistant general manager October USDA scientists when 1970. of soil that had been 1st, by twenty gallons collected, sterilized and sealed in a tight container in 1940 was analyzed in 1963. Also, when scientists of the Department of Pruett joined the AAIC staff Soils at the University of Wisconsin analyzed thirty-fou- r soil as assistant claims superintendent samples taken in Wisconsin between 1909 and 1911 - thirty October 11, 1965, and became two of tiie samples showed some "apparent chlorinated hydro- claim manager in 1966. Beginning he served as carbon residues. The soil samples had been stored continuously in Januaryofofthe1968, claims and conmanager in tightly sealed glass jars." tracts division of the company. What this means in simple terms, is that soil put into sealed containers five to 35 years before DDT was first made, gave the He is a member of the Amerisame readings when tested, as those that contained DDT. So can Bar Association and the Alawhat we have been told was world wide DDT contamination was bama, Florida, and Illinois State only a natural, unknown, something that had always been in Bar Associations, the International Association of Insurance the soil and the Defense ReThe other article to come to our attention was a statement Counsel, search Institute. He is a member by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards before the same House Committee of the property and reinsurmentioned above. Dr. Edwards has been a member of the faculty ance committees of the national of San Jose State College since 1949 and has been associated associaton of independent insurwith the principals of chemical pest control for thirty years, and ers. A graduate of Northern Michhas taught college courses dealing with the subject for twenty igan University where he majored Manager te pre-DD- Harold J. Hartley Harold J. Hartley, manager of the American Agricultural Mark-etlAssoclatons fruit and vegetable division since January 1, 1962, has been named general manager of the A AMA, according to an announcement today by William J. Kuhfuss, president of the A AMA. The AAMA is an affiliate of the American Farm Bureau Federng ation. Hartley succeeds Kenneth Hood who has been named secretary of development and research for the Federation. Hartley joined the American Farm Bureau Federation staff on May 1, 1959, as assistant director of the Federations commodity division, specializing in the fruit and vegetable phases of Farm Bureaus commodity programs, and served in this position until 1962. He came to the Federation staff from Carbondale, Illinois, where he served as executive secretary-treasur- er of both the Illinois Fruit Council and the National Peach Council. market Hartley was born and reared on a farm south of Centralia, Illinois. His father, Harold E. Hartley, is a fruit and dairy farmer and former vice president of the Hlinois the Agricultural Association, Farm Bureau In Illinois. A 1950 graduate of Southern Illlnos University at Carbondale, with a bachelor of science degree in agriculture, he was emthat year by the Iowa ployed Farm Bureau Federation as a county fieldman at Manchester, Iowa. In July, 1952, he accepted a position as executive secretary-treasur- er of the Illinois Fruit Council. In 1956, he became promotions director of the National Peach Council and became execuof the tive secretary-treasure- r, Council in February, 1957. Hartley and his wife, Virginia, have four children, a daughter, Mrs. William Graham, Decatur, Illinois, and three sons, Jay, Tim, and Scott. They live in Western Springs, a Chicago suburb. Hood Named Marketing Secretary tors of the American Manage- ment Board, Inc., a corporate affiliate of the Federation, which has the primary function to coordinate and correlate the activities of business affiliates of the Federation. Appointment of Hood to his new position is designed to bring greater coordination and increased efficiency in programs relating to market development and research T years. His statement is long and well documented and contains many proofs of the erroneous and deliberate falsehoods thathave been spread about DDT. There is much more information than we can begin to cover in this short article, but his comments about the charge that DDT cause soft shell eggs in wild birds is especially pertinent He tells of three experiments in which DDT was 'added to the diet of finches, quail and pheasants. In the finches, the shells were heavier instead of thinner. In the quail, there was no effect on egg laying ability or shell thickness, even after feeding them through four generations. With the pheasants, the more hatchable eggs than the fed DDT produced 23 one Two weeks after hatching, 100 of the control birds did. DDT chicks were alive, compared with 94.8 of the controls and after six weeks the DDT chicks survival rate was still 4 higher than that of the controls. He also points out that other experiments that are used by foes of DDT to prove that it did effect the thickness of the hells had other factors in them besides DDT such as severly limiting the calcium in the diet and adding other materials such as in economics and accounting, his law degree from the University of Miami. Prior to joining AAIC, Pruett was associated with the American Liberty Insurance Company in Birmingham, Alabama, for eight years as vice president and Pruett received diel-dri- n. In none of these tests was only DDT added. This bears out what we have repeatedly said, thatfarmers have been the victims of some very sloppy research on the effects of presticides on the environment We are glad that respected, responsible scientists are beginning to speak up. Better punch Quingleys time card out for him! Kuhfuss said. Hood, a native of Pennsylvania, was graduated from Pennsylvania State College in 1930 with a bachelor of science degree in agricultural economics. He received his Dr. Kenneth Hood Kenneth Hood, general manager of the American Agricultural Marketing Association since 1966, has been named secretary of market development and research for the American Farm Bureau Federation, according to an announcement by Federation president William J. Kuhfuss. Hood also was named to the board of direc doctors degree in agricultural economics from Cornell in 1934. After teaching marketing and farm management for a time at Cornell, r he became professor of agricultur- al economics extension at Penn State where he served until 1952 when he joined the Federation staff as assistant director of its commodity department. He became director of the Federations commodity division early in 1957 and was appointed the first general manager of the AAMA on March 15, 1966. He also served for a time as assistant secretary of the Federation. Hood served in the Special Services Division of the U.S. Army in World War n. Hood and his wife, Lois, have two children, Mrs. Jo Ann Gould of Missouri, and Florissant, Charles Frank Hood, lieutenant junior grade in the U.S. Navy the USS Coral Sea. Mr. and Mrs. Hood live in Arlington Heights, a northwest suburb of Chicago. ard An invader who first crawled ashore at Mobile, Alabama in 1918 and has claimed upwards of 120 million acres of United States land since, may be on its way out. After 13 years of research, scientists say they may have a pesticide to control the South American fire ant which has spread across nine Southern states and is still going strong. The pesticide is a mixture of mlrex and corncob grits sprayed by airplane over infested areas. The ants drag the bait into their mounds and In a matter of weeks the mound population dies from poisoning. Each mound houses about 100,000 ants. Fire ant damage to livestock and pastures costs millions of dollars annually and the ants venomous bite causes painful, scarring injuries to millions of men and beasts each year. A 1970 survey showed the pests have infested 126 million acres in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. They take over an Georgia, Louisiana, additional several million acres each year. of started research on control-eradicatiThe Agriculture Department, urged by Congress, a now about million $15.2 the fire ant in 1957. The federal-sta- te year. spends program Fire ants usually erect their mounds on cleared land. The mounds are six to eight Inches high, a couple feet wide and, in a badly infested area, only a few feet apart. The ants spread five to six miles a year. A single female fire ant can reproduce an entire future on colony. Like many other Insect control programs, fire ant control has been challenged in some quarters on ecology grounds. Conservationists argue pesticide residue wash into streams and harm fresh- water life. The Agriculture Departments answer is that a study has shown the program to have minimal that and benefits to man and animals far outweigh the adverse effects. adverse environmental impact; an The department said following application of mlrex bait, the only non-tarorganisms of affected were a few other species ants, and poison levels found in birds and fish were consistently less than fatal. get oil-lovi- ng iooooooooooooi looooooeeeoei |