First water, then labor, then methane, now pesticides…where does the red tape stop? DPR has now released the proposed regulations on the use of agricultural pesticides, and we need to once again take action! There is a 7-week window for the comment period, and I want to urge everyone to take the time to review the regulations, and submit a comment. I have been told that DPR does take careful consideration when reviewing all comment letters.
On the local front Madera Farm Bureau staff have been plugging away to prepare for our Ag United Harvest Celebration and Annual Meeting to be held on October 23rd at the Chowchilla Fairgrounds. Doors open at 3:30 p.m., presentations will begin at 5:00 p.m., a Prime Rib Dinner will be served at 6:00 p.m., and the keynote speaker will begin at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $60 in advance and $75 at the door.
This year’s keynote speaker Dan Walters has been a journalist for more than a half-century, spending all but a few of those years working for California newspapers. At one point in his career, at age 22, he was the nation’s youngest daily newspaper editor.
Mr. Walters joined The Sacramento Union’s Capitol bureau in 1975, just as Jerry Brown began his governorship, and later became the Union’s Capitol bureau chief. In 1981, he began writing the state’s only daily newspaper column devoted to California political, economic, and social events and in 1984, he and the column moved to The Sacramento Bee. He has written more than 7,500 columns about California and its politics and his column now appears in more than 50 California newspapers.
Dan Walters has written about California and its politics for a number of other publications, including The Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor. In 1986, his book, The New California: Facing the 21st Century, was published in its first edition. He is also the founding editor of the California Political Almanac; the co-author of a book on lobbying entitled The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento, and contributed chapters to two other books, Remaking California and The New Political Geography of California. He is also a frequent guest on national television news shows, commenting on California politics.
MCFB also has a gun raffle underway…For $100 you can purchase a calendar that enters you into a weekly gun drawing. We will be giving away one gun a week for the entire 2017 year. That’s 52 weeks of guns! So please come out and support your local farm bureau and buy a gun raffle calendar. For more information and/or tickets for either the Ag United Harvest Celebration and Annual Meeting or the gun raffle, please contact the MCFB office.
