EMERSON: PLANS THREATEN FARMERS

LAKE OF THE OZARKS -- Proposals coming before Congress next year threaten the family farm and "could make every Department of Natural Resources agent and any agricultural department employee a KGB agent of sorts," U.S. Rep. Bill Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, was to tell members of the Missouri Farm Bureau today.

Emerson is today's keynote speaker at the organization's annual convention, being held this year at Tan-Tar-A.

"In the next year we will probably see action on clean water legislation, Endangered Species Act, FIFRA (Federal Insecticide Fungicide Rodenticide Act), and the 1995 Farm Bill," the text of Emerson's speech says.

"Intertwined in each of these will be the private property rights issue. The forces who stand prepared to destroy the family farm are loaded and ready..."

While applauding its "good common sense advice -- and values," Emerson said its grassroots policies and strength will be tested again.

"For example, there are those in Congress and this administration who would like to see the entire Bootheel revert to a swamp, under the guise of clean water legislation," Emerson's speech read.

"There are those in Congress and this administration who would declare any barn lot, indeed every cow patty, as a source of non-point discharge pollution. They would require environmental permits for every farm operation in the nation.

"...There are those in Congress and this administration who believe levees are the cause of floods, rather than preventing them."