By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

Tis the Season to write and tell President-Elect Obama what you’d like.   From various places we’re hearing of how, various interests sending in their lists of things they’d like to see placed on the incoming administration’s To-do Lists.

My first exposure to this idea of reaching out to the President-to-be, came when I attended my fifth grader’s school’s Christmas program.  In song and recited dissertations, my son and his fellow 10/11 year-olds shared the important priorities that their music teacher had put together for them to demonstrate their awareness of the world around them.  Each corner-stone of what we’re supposed to understand as fundamental principles got mentioned – the involvement of the U.S. in current wars, the environment (including opposition to Yucca Mountain), our troubled economy and full appreciation for other cultures were all incorporated into an extremely politically-correct Yule-tide presentation.

Shortly after being made aware of this campaign to get in touch with President-Elect Obama, other information blurbs caught my eye, reporting on this coalition or that interests block assembling their agendas into a publicly-presented priority list of things to get done.

I haven’t heard of Nevada farmers and ranchers coming up with their ideas, but based on what we know of the most important things on the minds of Silver State agricultural producers, these items might be able to be worked into an e-mail to President-Elect Obama… http://lettersforobama.org/index.php?page=submit

ü  Protect our water from being taken away from agricultural production – (be it by big pipelines http://www.greatbasinwater.net/  or by our University System’s use of the federal checkbook http://www.nevada.edu/walker/research/Resident_Responses_at_Nevada_Community_Meetings.pdf )

ü  Help us take action to deal with invasive weeds – (is it okay, to ask for help and still accept a role of responsibility to be involved in a solution?)

ü  Don’t lock us out of using renewable resources on federally-managed lands that cover 90-plus percent of our state’s land area – (because grass and other forms of forage, which we pay for our livestock to graze without doing damage, grow back)

ü  Put as much attention and resources for proactively managing fuel loads before wild land fires get started as has been spent to fight fires after the lighting strikes

ü  Conservation efforts to protect and enhance the well-being of species like Sage Grouse shouldn’t be political tools for driving natural resource users off the land  http://www.ndow.org/wild/conservation/sg/resources/ElkoDaily102505.pdf

Sincerely,

Nevada Agricultural Producers

p.s.  President-Elect Obama, we’re looking forward to working with you and your administration in making a difference.