Wednesday, August 3, 1983/The Battalion/Page 7
farmers’ president cuts
igriculture secretary
Warped
by Scott McCullar
dominatj
'idamentalisiir
-known
3 Object to M United Press International
°ver-eniph DENVER — Agriculture Sec-
non-tradit ^ tar v John Block’s announce-
the theoi ? enl he will lower the 1984 loan
ate for wheat to $3.30 per
haptersofitl^hel was a “disastrous” deci-
zation for! i on 'hat will hurt both farmers
kvhat thevi Pt* taxpayers, National Far-
sexist lan; i ers Union President George
s. includiniT ^ tone sai<:1 Tu esday.
111 Inan ‘ nsif '®Lowering the loan will mean
imply one tiring for farmers —
rwer prices,” Stone said.
• Stone said because of a re-
H wheat carry-over, prices
dlll-emain at or near the loan
-| :vel for the marketing year. He
L-k ^^Ithe proposal for taxpayers
I I Hi mean the potential for
A Vinbther round of unnecessarily
irge deficiency payments next
ear.
ehee said. Hal.. ,
reach tlMT the secreta t'y follows
t’s shoaled irou §h a nd lowers the loan
lillion ton ) r[ the I wlaeat deficiency pay-
mally uxsM \ n , 1984 eouh run as high
sjil lo per bushel, Stone said.
nteeyouth ( B ock .[ ast Frida y announced
ill be just a! v0 P ossl hle versions ol the 1984
uners iftheW 1 P ro g rams — one if ' Co ”-
/etedT P asses the target price
freeze legislation and the other
if target prices are maintained as
currently scheduled.
In either case, Stone said, the
wheat loan rate will be dropped
35 cents to $3.30 per bushel.
Stone said if the legislation is
passed, the wheat program will
include a 25 percent non-paid
base acreage reduction and an
optional further 10 to 25 per
cent Payment in Kind (PIK)
acreage reduction with an 80
percent of yield PIK compensa
tion.
If the legislation is not
approved, farmers in the wheat
program will be required to cut
their planted acreage by 30 per
cent with no payment and have
the option to reduce their
acreage with an additional 10 to
20 percent with a 75 percent of
yield PIK compensation.
The NFU leader said he was
extremely dismayed with the en
tire wheat program.
“For wheat producers, the in
centives in the ’84 program are
so much poorer and the sacri
fices so much greater than this
year’s program, there simply
won’t be enough participation,”
Stone said.
Stone urged the Secretary to
review his decision in light of the
USDA’s prediction earlier that
wheat supplies for 1983-84
could total four billion bushels.
“The secretary should review
his decision and offer producers
an effective supply management
program for 1984. He is wrong
if he thinks this type of program
is going to help bring about a
balance between supply and de
mand in wheat. The secretary
still has until Aug. 15 to correct
this mistake,” he said.
Stone did commend Block,
however, on the new long-term
grain agreement with the Soviet
Union announced last week.
“The announcement came as
a relief to us,” Stone said. “We
were afraid we might have lost
our chance for a new grain
agreement, following a good
Soviet crop year and their suc
cess in purchasing grain else
where. This will provide some
degree of market stability in an
area where it is greatly needed.”
Ranchers ‘roundup’, learn
United Press International
SAN ANGELO — Ranchers
in the Southwest faced with
barns full of manure have
learned not to look a gift horse
in the mouth.
Selling manure to people
willing to shovel and haul it
themselves was one of several
new ranch income sources dis
cussed Monday by an interna
tional gathering of 500 ranchers
at the International Ranchers
Roundup.
“How about a good manure
clean-out job?” Texas A&M ex
tension service agent Ralph
Ward told the ranchers Mon
day. “People will come to your
ranch, clean out the barns and
goat sheds and pay for the
manure they haul away.
“It must be cleaned regularly
anyway, so why not get paid for
it and let someone else do the
work?” he asked.
Ward, of Uvalde, detailed a
list of ventures available to ran
chers who want to market more
than cattle.
“Some innovative ranchers
are marketing artifacts, rocks,
bird watching, photographic
tours, manure, squirrels, var
mint hunting, trapping, horse
back riding, camping and quail
and dove hunting,” he said.
Some central Texas landown
ers are leasing the rights to dig
for artifacts. Rocks, including
building stones and gravel for
landscaping, also are increasing
in value, Ward said.
Dallas residents have paid up
to $75 each for limestone rocks
to decorate their front yards, he
said.
In addition to the nontradi-
tional ranching possibilities, the
ranchers from Oklahoma, New
Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas,
Wyoming, California, Washing
ton and as far away as South
Africa have converged to share
and discover better ranching
methods.
Those innovation include the
use of computers, grazing sys
tems and breeding programs.
“There’s a give and take from
the speakers and the partici
pants,” Ward said. “They’re
each learning from each other.”
Loss of $10,000
claimed embezzled
United Press International
OKLAHOMA CITY — State
Treasurer Leo Winters
announced Tuesday that a for
mer employee through a “clever
and diabolical” scheme had
embezzled $10,000 from his
office.
Winters said the employee,
Johnny Ann Unsworth, had
confessed to the Oklahoma
Bureau of Investigation.
Winters said the loss was disc
overed through his office’s own
internal audit system. He said
charges will be filed against the
woman.
Winters said Unsworth
embezzled the money by forging
a check for $10,000 last Oct. 29.
He said she took an un
announced leave the next week
and went to work for the State
Health Department.
“It was a clever and diabolical
scheme,” Winters said.
A health official expressed
shock at the news and said Un
sworth was still employed in the
Health Department’s fiscal
office.
Winters said the loss was disc
overed on June 27. He said new
auditing procedures will make it
possible to discover such a trans
action immediately should it
occur again.
It was the second embezzle
ment reported in the treasurer’s
office in the past two years. In
the previous case, former em
ployee Betty Kimes confessed to
embezzling $80,000.
That loss also was covered by
the office’s bonding firm.
Accused murderer
testifies he lied
United Press International
LONOKE, Ark. — In the last
day of testimony in his capital
murder trial, defendant Barry
Lee Fairchild of North Little
Rock said he lied in two
videotaped statements made af
ter he was arrested on murder
charges.
Fairchild, 29, testified Mon
day in circuit court at Lonoke
that he made the two statements
March 5 after he was beaten by
Pulaski County Sheriff Tommy
Robinson and deputy Maj. Lar
ry Dill. Fairchild said Robinson
struck him with a shotgun barrel
in the head.
The case was scheduled to go
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to the jury Tuesday.
Fairchild also said Dill wrote a
script outlining the circumst
ances of the Feb. 26 death of an
Air Force nurse, 2nd Lt. Mar
jorie L. “Greta” Mason, 22, and
had him rehearse it several
times. Prosecutor Chris Raff was
skeptical about that testimony,
since testimony has said Fair-
child is nearly illiterate, but the
defendant said Dill read over
the statement with him.
The videotaped statements
included confessions that he
helped rape, but not kill, Mason,
who was from Gainesville, Fla.
The statement also implicated
Harold Lee Green, who was
arrested but later released in the
case for lack of evidence linking
him to the slaying.
Fairchild said in the tapes that
he was standing outside a farm
house, with Green and Mason
inside, when he heard two gun
shots fired. He retracted that
statement Monday.
Raff had jurors view the
second videotape Monday, then
called Mason’s mother, Sandra
Breckur of Hurst, Texas, to tes
tify. She identified a watch taken
from Fairchild’s sister by de
puties as one given to her
daughter as a 22nd birthday
present.
Fairchild said he had given
the watch to his sister in Decem
ber, after buying it at a “gamb
ling house” in McAlmont from a
man named Ham for $15.
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