BY SUSANNAH PATTON NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TIMES

Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business_Matters/198416/

In an effort to highlight the success and bring attention to the hardships of the local farming community, U. S. Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark., toured farms in Washington County on Tuesday.

“What we’re trying to do is highlight the agricultural community and how important it is,” Boozman said. “We take for granted the ability to go into the supermarket or sit down at the table and the food be plentiful.”

The annual summer tour of farms in the 3 rd Congressional District is also an opportunity to visit with local farmers about some of the problems they face with energy costs and the regulations they are concerned about, he said.

The country is in a position where it is dependent on foreign oil, Boozman said.

“What we don’t want to do is get into the same situation with food,” he said.

Boozman also attended the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce’s Rural Friendship Development Day at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, where members heard a presentation on the butterflies and toured the gardens.

Boozman was accompanied by a delegation of legislators from Liberia who have been traveling with him.

Their visit has been an opportunity for them to interact with producers in Arkansas and see what goes on in the agricultural community, Boozman said.

The tour included a stop at County Judge Jerry Hunton’s 600-acre farm near Prairie Grove.

Hunton said his parents bought the land in the early 1940 s for $ 3 an acre.

They started with about 10 cows and grew cucumbers that his father peddled in Oklahoma, he said. His parents eventually added more land and expanded the farming operation.

Today, Hunton has several poultry houses and 150 head of cattle. The poultry houses are his main source of revenue.

It is tough being a poultry farmer today, Hunton said. Electric and natural-gas bills have increased and the revenue has stayed the same, he said.

If things continue as they are, he said, the farmers will be forced to give up and there won’t be any food in the grocery stores.

“Everybody laughs when you bring up the idea that someday we’ll be out of food,” he said. “It’s a hard point to get across to people when their bellies are full.”

People who just say “sell the farm” have a different mentality, Hunton said.

“My family has spent 60-plus years on this farm,” he said. “It’s like part of our bodies.”

The words “give up” and “sell” are not in his vocabulary, he said.

“You stay until the banker, the sheriff and six or eight deputies show up,” he said.

It has gotten so tough for farmers to make a profit that there are fewer of them around, Hunton said.

“It’s getting harder and harder to talk young people into farming,” he said.