Here's some ACTUAL good news.
USDA has published an "action plan":
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd/ccd_actionplan.pdf
Its more than a day late, and it is lots of dollars
short, but it is "a plan", which is better than where
we were before, which was "no plan".
Randy said:
> Folks, I don't know how it fell upon me to sort fact from opinion
A lot of opinions have presented AS "facts", but few
of them have been documented to support your contentions.
As it is, you've presented a pretty garbled version,
in a laudable attempt to explain away what can only
be the worst example of "working together" since
the Soviets and the rest of the Allies liberated
Berlin into a city divided.
> It's been suggested to me by a major player
Funny how these "major players" never seem to have names.
Alex Rodriguez is a major player in the major leagues, but
then some people would give Barry Bonds that title. (Me,
I'm a Mets fan, a Red Sox fan, or rooting for anyone playing
the Yankees. Remember, it is not enough for the Mets to win,
the Yankees must also loose!)
> that our best course of action right now would be to flood our
> congresspersons with letters to get them to sign on to support
> immediate funding to analyze the CCD samples before they degrade,
While that sounds nice, it (once again) evinces a naivete
so profound that it contradicts the basic notion of a
"major player".
Support WHAT? Some new bill? Nothing said to either
the House or Senate has even mentioned ANY KIND of
"immediate funding". And neither bill calls for any
sort of "immediate funding". The "major players" didn't
just drop the ball, they forgot to BRING the ball altogether!
But how does one actually get any "immediate funding"?
I'll tell you, because this is a list for "informed
discussion".
The USDA has to be directed to take money away from
something else, don't they? They only have so much
money, and all of it is allocated for specific purposes.
They have to re-allocate money they already have NOW,
if we want funding any time in 2007.
I wonder what existing, funded programs could be "borrowed from"
to provide some short term cash... wait... I've got it!
The HONEY BOARD!!!!
They are a "commodity marketing board", so they are under
the control of the Secretary of Agriculture, and they are
overseen by a branch of the USDA. They must have a few
dollars that would otherwise be turned over to the
"packer-importer board", so let's put that money to some
actual worthwhile use, rather than spending it on printing
up more recipe cards and running ads in the Women's Magazines
about "Honey" (meaning, for the most part, imported honey
from places like Canada, Argentina, and China rather than
Honey from the USofA).
Now, the honey board will not have nearly enough money to
do the job, so the USDA is going to have to scrape up some
money from other places. But offering "our money" as the
first dollars to be re-tasked would be fitting and proper.
Beekeepers have had the "honey board assessments" deducted
from the price they are paid by packers for years, so it
certainly is "our money", and the first money to be offered
should be "our money".
When you go "all in", you slide all YOUR chips to the center
of the table, you don't grab from someone else's pile of
chips, now do you?
So, that's how we get some money - by asking Congress to
direct the USDA to "take it from OTHER less pressing projects".
> and to support SB1694--The Pollinator Protection Act of 2007, for
> long-term funding. Congress needs to hear from the rank and file,
> as well as our industry leaders.
Well, if you are going to write to Congress (your congressperson)
then you should NOT talk about S1694, as that is a SENATE bill.
You want to talk about HR1709, the HOUSE bill, but it does not
request any short-term funding, does it?
If you write to your Senator, then you can talk about S1694,
if you want to, but it has no mention of any short-term funding
either.
Once again, if you want to presume to argue, learn the basics.
Like the difference between a Congressperson and a Senator,
and the difference between a House Bill and a Senate bill.
But don't bother to mention anything but the short-term funding.
S1694 is not likely to even get out of committee before the August
recess. As it is now worded, it won't do anything for anyone until
at least the 2008 Farm Bill is enacted, if not later, which means
we are talking about actual money that becomes tangible in the 2009
timeframe, maybe later. There's lots of time to "support" the bills,
but for now, we need to focus on the short-term need for short-fuse
cash.
As for the term "rank and file", I find the implications
more than "rank".
It presumes that the "major players" and "industry leaders" are
representing any significant percentage of US beekeepers, or
that they have bothered to ask what the membership they represent
thinks.
As for "organized" I am happy to report that after YEARS of
unrelenting harassment from folks like me, the AHPA and ABF
are (gasp!) having a joint meeting. If they keep it up,
they may just actually learn to work together rather than
against each other. Not to worry, they will see the light
someday...
Claims are made by each of two different organizations that they
represent "US beekeeping". These claims are false. The AHPA
represents a group of larger beekeepers, and the ABF represents
a mixed bag of a few commercial beekeepers, honey packers, and
hobby beekeepers. Neither can claim to represent more than a
fraction of the total of either hives or beekeepers.
So, sure write your Congressperson. Or write your Senator.
But DON'T e-mail them, go for broke and buy a darn stamp, so
someone has to handle a sheet of paper rather than letting a
computer system automatically send you a canned reply,
ignoring you and your plea at nearly the speed of light.
Or call them. Call your local office, not the DC office.
Or send them a fax. If the pen is mightier than the sword,
and a picture is worth a thousand words, then truly the
fax machine is the most powerful weapon ever.
But mention THE USDA-ARS PLAN!!
And offer up your own money (which the Honey Board took) to start.
But don't bother mentioning the bills, as they will only "help"
in the event that CCD turns out to be not so serious a problem,
and we can hold out for the next few years.
> This is a historic moment in the bee industry-
Uh, some of us are trying to make sure that we STILL HAVE
a "bee industry" left standing when, at long last, the
funding from the current Senate and House bills appear
sometime in the murky future.
You may call that "bickering", and you may call that
"criticism", but if not for voices pointing out the
lack of quick funding, do you think any of these
"major players" would suddenly be drafting letters
to ask for quick funding?
Oh no, of course not. They all waited until AFTER the
hearings on purpose to ask for quick funding. No one
said anything about the need for short-fuse funding
in the hearings on purpose. It is so much more effective that way. :)
And puh-leeze... don't anybody try to claim that we have been
helped at all by groups that CONTINUE to try to make Honey Bees
look like optional, easy to get along without, perhaps even scary
and undesirable insects. One need look no further than today's
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118428490685465247.html
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB118428490685465247.html
To read the happy story of how "the plight of the honey bee"
can be solved by putting up "bee boxes" (drilled with 7mm
or so holes) to attract "native" bees. Read the article,
and see if you detect any sense of urgency to address the
problems that honey bees face. (Naw, let's just use these
OTHER bees, never mind that we have no clue if they can be
used in agriculture, and lots of clues telling us that
they are nowhere near ready for prime time.)
And please guys, no reason to send me any more "fan mail",
I wouldn't be taking the time to type this stuff if I wasn't
dead-certain of the facts, and dead-certain that my annoyance
at all this is shared by the overwhelming majority of both
"beekeepers" and "hives", the two ways to count "shares" of
"stakeholders".
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