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Show 160 acre limit 'giant hoax' on Country's Farmers By Parley Jensen Ricidulous, silly, totally asinine, unrealistic, senseless, sense-less, immoral if not illegal, a cruel hoax, frustrating, demoralizing, disruptive, a real " bummer that's a sample of the language used by farmers around the West to describe the proposed "160 acre limitation." In August 1977, Secretary of Interior Cecil Andrus of Idaho exploded a -blockbuster when he announced that he proposed to enforce the Reclamation Act of 1902. This law, among other things limits individual ownership to 160 acres on farmland that receives irrigation water from a Bureau of Reclamation Rec-lamation (BOR) project. Other provisions of An-drus's An-drus's proposals would require re-quire owners to live within 50 miles of the land getting the water, severely limit the amount of land a farmer could lease, prohibit multiple mul-tiple ownership of land unless un-less a direct lineal family relationship exists, and subject sub-ject the sale of such farm -land in excess of the limitations limit-ations to a lottery or other random selection of a buyer. Since that first announcement announce-ment and later District Kenji and Junior Okada, two of four brothers who operate a family corporation farm of about 550 acres near Tremonton, Utah, maintain that an efficient irrigated ir-rigated row crop operation would require a minimum of 350 to 400 acres. "I don't think acreage limitation is constitutional," constitu-tional," says Lloyd Huber, who farms 600 acres near Corlnne, Utah. "It's another step In the direction of socialistic so-cialistic government." Says a California farmer, "If the government were to tell me this is all the land all I can ever lease, and where I have to live, it wouldn't be long before the government would also be telling me when I can and can't grow. Frank Nlshlguchl, president presi-dent of the Utah Farm bu-. reau said, "Acreage limi-taion limi-taion is a completely antiquated anti-quated concept in today's agriculture. It is regressive regres-sive and would stifle agriculture's agri-culture's progress." Court rulings and public "hearing the BOR had considerably con-siderably modified its stance. While proposing to increase the number of acres that can be owned or leased in a BOR project, officials insist on limitations, limita-tions, residency require -. ments and the lottery provision, pro-vision, all in the name of "preserving the family farm." The timetable calls for publication of revised regu-court regu-court ordered draft environ- mental impact statement in September 1979. After more public hearings, the final rules are expected to be published in early 1980. Meanwhile, legislation has been proposed to repeal the 160 acre limitation of the 1902 Reclamation Act. Utah Senators Gam and Hatch are co -sponsors of Senate Bill 654, while Representative Dan Marriott is a co-sponsor of the House version. Although land irrigated by BOR water totals only 1 of all UJ3. farmland all such land is in 17 western states, and produces about 8 percent of the gross value of all major U.S. farm crops. ! Farmers who do not use BOR water, as well as those who do, are understandably disturbed by Andrus's stance. Some of their comments com-ments follow. "I think a lot of people have a misconception about what a family farm is any more," said a Coloradofar-mer. Coloradofar-mer. "As far as I'm con-- cerned, a family farm is . one operated by a family J and can be whatever size J that family can efficiently, operate." |
