Farmers
Last week, I attended a public meeting where I had a chance to chat with some of the local elected officials. It turned out that they had known the previous owners of Higglety Pigglety Farm, two retired schoolteachers in Bernalillo. One of them had had Mrs. Duran for fifth grade and she confirmed that indeed Mrs. Duran was mean.
One of the public officials likes to discuss irrigation, and he informed me of a program to assist farmers to improve the irrigation of their property. He said the government paid 80% of the cost of laser-leveling and irrigation pipe, all to conserve water.
Yesterday, I checked it out. The program is through the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the USDA. It requires that we register as farmers, promise to maintain the infrastructure they help us pay for, and that we produce a minimum of $1000 worth of goods each year. Since we are "new farmers" we need to compose a spreadsheet with an estimate production for each crop we intend to grow and sell. Also, the match is now 50%. Before we put ourselves on the hook for any or all of this, we need to obtain a few estimates from the laser-leveling and irrigation experts.
The implication is that in 2007 we may be filing a Schedule F if for no other reason that we are making use of this government program.
Last week, I attended a public meeting where I had a chance to chat with some of the local elected officials. It turned out that they had known the previous owners of Higglety Pigglety Farm, two retired schoolteachers in Bernalillo. One of them had had Mrs. Duran for fifth grade and she confirmed that indeed Mrs. Duran was mean.
One of the public officials likes to discuss irrigation, and he informed me of a program to assist farmers to improve the irrigation of their property. He said the government paid 80% of the cost of laser-leveling and irrigation pipe, all to conserve water.
Yesterday, I checked it out. The program is through the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the USDA. It requires that we register as farmers, promise to maintain the infrastructure they help us pay for, and that we produce a minimum of $1000 worth of goods each year. Since we are "new farmers" we need to compose a spreadsheet with an estimate production for each crop we intend to grow and sell. Also, the match is now 50%. Before we put ourselves on the hook for any or all of this, we need to obtain a few estimates from the laser-leveling and irrigation experts.
The implication is that in 2007 we may be filing a Schedule F if for no other reason that we are making use of this government program.