A recent article in the New York Times, "Farm Bureau Aims to Kill Climate Bill," takes issue with the Farm Bureau for opposing “Cap and Trade” legislation with the “Don’t CAP Our Future!” campaign. The comments posted online for this article claim that Farm Bureau is out of touch with the family farms and only concerned about large “factory farms.” I was surprised to see how many comments had been posted and that most of them were very negative towards Farm Bureau and agriculture in general. Where are the farmers and ranchers telling our story? There were a few very good comments, but not nearly enough. The following is the response that I posted. My thanks to Chris Chinn for alerting me to the article through Facebook (I don’t usually read the New York Times).

Cap and trade will harm all farms, not just the so called "factory farms." As the owner of a small family dairy farm I understand that the current cap and trade legislation would most likely force my family out of business. If we run farms out of the U.S., the millions of people who depend on American farmers for food, will be forced to get food grown in other countries, countries that do not meet the rigorous environmental standards we as American farmers meet. The end result will be to increase, not decrease the "carbon footprint" of the food we eat.

I applaud the Farm Bureau for standing up and fighting for all U.S. farms. Cap and trade is not only bad for farmers, it is bad for our environment and bad for America.