MORGAN, MINN. – Here at Farmfest on Wednesday, the five candidates for governor distinguished themselves not a bit on the conservation front. Politicians each, they instead played to the crowd, displaying, variably, a lack of knowledge about proper stewardship of land and water, an indifference to same or, in certain instances, a seemingly cynical regard for requirements intended to clean up the state's many polluted farmland waterways.
Those who doubt this can watch the debate for themselves online at http://alturl.com/du8x4.
An interesting and worthwhile event that attracts interesting and hard-working people, Farmfest each summer provides opportunities for the review and discussion of farming issues — particularly, farming problems. This year, there are plenty of the latter, beginning with tariffs imposed by China on soybeans and ending with a lack of affordable health care for farmers and farm employees.
In between, putting a squeeze on producers' bottom lines are high input costs and low commodity prices.
So, yes, conservation took a back seat on Wednesday, and perhaps rightly so.
Yet a similar forum will be held Saturday at Game Fair, with gubernatorial candidates who survive Tuesday's primary scheduled to appear and answer questions that have plenty to do with conservation of land and water. Especially interesting will be responses to questions about Gov. Mark Dayton's buffer initiative and its requirement to shield many of the state's creeks, streams and ditches with grass strips to mitigate farmland runoff and pollution.
At Farmfest on Wednesday, buffers seemed about as popular as soybean cyst nematodes and northern corn leaf blight. This is odd, because even a little research reveals that many farmers signed up for buffers willingly, in some instances well in advance of Dayton's move to mandate them. Also, a subset of farmers already benefits from certain types of buffers that retain water to slow runoff, while simultaneously retaining moisture needed by crops, especially during dry periods.
Yet Minnesota natural resource issues are far more encompassing — and far more dire — than mere support, or lack thereof, of stream and ditch buffers. Water is the main issue. But water can't be conserved without a proportionate concern for land, a truism that underscores the depth and breadth of the state's environmental concerns.
Equally problematic is the obvious lack of knowledge among state leaders about the seriousness of the issues confronting us.