Page 5 - Flathead Beacon // 2.26.14

FLATHEADBEACON.COM
FEBRUARY 26, 2014 | 5

NEWS

WORDS
••••
of the Week

Wheat is seen
AN INDEX OF against a back-
RECENT drop of bins east
NEWSMAKERS
of Kalispell.

UKRAINE
BEACON FILE PHOTO
Relentless protests aimed
at the country’s leadership

led to the deadliest violence
in 22 years ago but ushered
in a change in parliament
and ouster of the country’s
president.

MEDICAID

The state attorney general’s
oice approved a proposed
ballot initiative seeking to
expand Medicaid coverage
to the working poor, leaving
sponsors to hurry and
inalize their petition for inal
approval before collecting
signatures for the November
election. They need 24,175
signatures by June 20.

‘Exciting Time’ in Montana Agriculture
SPECIAL OLYMPICS

More than 300 athletes from
across Montana came to Amid boom times, agricultural products skyrockets to re- vides more opportunity to current and po-
Whiteish to compete in the
19th annual Winter Games at farmers and ranchers cord levels, and the director of Montana’s tential farmers, Obama said at the signing
Whiteish Mountain Resort, largest industry hopes it will spur a new ceremony.
Feb. 23-25.
outperformed the nation in youth movement into farming.
A new government census released
“There are kids who are coming out last week punctuated the optimism, show-
ive-year earnings growth
of college and coming back to the family ing that the market values of crops, live-
KEYSTONE
farm and ready to jump in with both feet,” stock and total agricultural products hit
de Yong said. “This is the most exciting record highs in 2012.
The long-awaited fate of the By DILLON TABISH of the Beacon
time of my lifetime. Things have changed. U.S. farms sold nearly $395 billion in
Keystone XL oil pipeline is
expected to arrive in the next Looking across the agricultural land- It’s like when I came in, but a little bit dif- products, 33 percent more than in 2007,
couple of months, President scape, Ron de Yong is reminded of when he ferent. They’ve got more options. And according to preliminary data from the
Barack Obama said. The was a young farmer tilling his irst plot of they’ve got technology.”
government agriculture census, which
1,100-mile pipeline has land near Creston.
Indeed, these are high times in Amer- surveys America’s farms and ranches ev-
become a high-proile symbol There was a strong movement in the ican agriculture. Earlier this month, the ery ive years and was released Feb. 20.
of the political debate over 1970s as the nation’s agriculture industry lingering uncertainty surrounding the na- Data also indicated that the trend of di-
climate change.
boomed and attracted a new generation of tion’s sprawling farm policy ended with minishing farmland that erupted in the

young adults who either invested in their President Barack Obama signing a $956 early 1980s has slowed signiicantly. Since
own land or took over family farms and billion Farm Bill, ending four years of 1982, 72 million acres of farmland have
ranches.
legislative bickering that cast a pall over been lost, but the most recent period saw
Forty years later, glimmers of another American farming. The new Farm Bill
golden age are appearing as the value of
“lifts up rural communities,” and pro-
See Agriculture PAGE 18

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