# Jamestown Sun Article



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

One of our Own Dick Monson has a letter in Todays Jamestown Sun Newspaper! It is a MUST READ! If someone knows how to post it please do

Thank You Dick!!!


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## 870 XPRS (Mar 12, 2003)

Thursday, June 03, 2004

*Satrom's outdoor program is right for residents*

_Dick Monson Valley City, N.D._

The May 10 article detailing gubernatorial candidate Joe Satrom's position on hunting issues was right on the money. As a North Dakota farmer and hunter, I believe Satrom is outlining an outdoor program that has fairness to all parties concerned with hunting issues. At the same time, he supports the Public Trust Doctrine of public ownership and management of state-owned wildlife resources.

I read with dismay Cory Fong's statement that, "Satrom is completely wrong in terms of his understanding of this issue." As Gov. John Hoeven's campaign manager, he knows better.

In early 2001, Hoeven attempted to sell an extra week of pheasant season to the outfitters and commercial hunting interests of North Dakota. In return Cannonball Co., one of North Dakota's largest outfitters, threw a "hunting" fund-raiser for the governor - 24 people at $1,500 a crack. He said the new season was a North Dakota Game and Fish Department plan when in fact it was dollars for dollars, to him. (Bismarck Tribune, Nov. 7, '01-Dakota Country, March, '02.) Under pressure, he caved on the early season but kept the money. At the same time under his direction, the North Dakota Department of Commerce was attempting to absorb the Game and Fish Department. Pat Candrian, manager of Cannonball, said that extra week was worth $100,000 to Cannonball alone. Hoeven has championed commercial hunting to the detriment of farmers, ranchers, businesses and hunters all over North Dakota.

A rancher from western North Dakota wrote me that the land on three sides of his ranch has been bought up at outrageous prices by nonresident hunters, who chain the section lines shut, monitor their land with solar-powered cameras, post it and hunt everyone else's property. His neighbors were forced to rent pasture 120 miles away in South Dakota because of this nonresident land grab for hunting. Another farmer west of the river said the best thing that could happen for farming out there would be a three-day March blizzard that would kill the pheasants. Young farmers in any high use hunting area across the state are being outbid or saddled with high-cost, long-term mortgages. And this is Hoeven's economic development through hunting. Good for outfitters that are big contributors, bad for everybody else.

Pheasantgate should have taught the governor a lesson, but he was not content to grab this ******** just once. When Pheasantgate was exposed, Hoeven directed the Game and Fish Department to design a biologically based plan to resolve the hunting controversy, which the department did. Just before the 2003 legislative session, Hoeven slapped a gag order, which still stands today, on the Game and Fish Department, forbidding the professionals from that department from testifying on behalf of that bill. The commercial hunting lobby didn't want that bill to see the light of day.

Hoeven's hunting non-policy has given the state more posted land than ever before, hijacked farmer land purchases by nonresident hunters, inundated the Legislature with 76 hunting bills last session, pitted neighbor against neighbor and split communities apart with hard feelings. And I voted for Hoeven -- once. I thank Satrom for standing up.


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## 870 XPRS (Mar 12, 2003)

good article Dick :thumb:


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## nilsmaster (Sep 26, 2003)

Diddo


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## KEN W (Feb 22, 2002)

Nice job Dick


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## stoeger (Aug 20, 2003)

Good work Dick! :beer:


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## HUNTNFISHND (Mar 16, 2004)

Excellent letter!

Thanks, Dick. :beer:


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## 4CurlRedleg (Aug 31, 2003)

Well done!! It is about time a spade is called a spade in the public forum!! :beer:


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## MResner (Mar 14, 2002)

Thanks for saying it, Dick!


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## NDMALLARD (Mar 9, 2002)

Dick,

I don't know where you live, but I am going to find out and stop by some time to thank you for all your hard work and constant deligence on behalf of all hunters, resident and non resident, who want to preserve true sportsmanship and the BIG picture; the future of hunting. THANKS!


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## northdakotakid (May 12, 2004)

This is what non-resident hunters/landowners do not understand, the fragility of the farm economy and the consequences of overpricing land. Our rural economy cannot be corrected by short-term thinkers.... including an executive branch in the state out of touch with these concepts.

Great reporting, now get that article published in the Trib!!!


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## zack (Oct 17, 2003)

Not all NR landowners are in that mix. Please understand, that just maybe the farmers or ranchers that sold that property were asking those outragous prices. Do you honestly think that anyone would go in and say, golly that's too low an asking price, I think I'll double it just to throw off the land valuation and taxes in your county. There is blame to be put on the resident seller as much as the NR buyer. My land out there is still farmed the same way it always was and the hunting land is just being improved. As a matter of fact, my renter pays the same he always has.
Trust me, some of us NRs do understand.
zack


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## Dan Bueide (Jul 1, 2002)

Zack,

Do you put your phone number on the signs and regularly allow others (R and NR) who contact you to hunt the land? If so, thanks.

It is not anyone's business or prerogative to tell landowners who can or can't hunt the land or who may or may not buy/lease it at that price or the other. Landowners do and always will hold all the cards on access, and it should be so. But, neither do we need to continue with hunting formats that encourage a rush to commercialization and exclusivity to the detriment of most others in the State.. The State need not facilitate inflated sale/rent rates through what amounts to the sale of game owned by the State.

Landowners must make a choice. Participate in the exclusivity process and maximize their profits or regularly allow broader access to help local main street. Access = "traffic" = main street profits. Exclusivity = under use = less traffic = less main street purchases = more pressure/competition on remaining ground = greater exclusivity pursuits = even less traffic = even less main street purchases, and so on. Not to mention the effect on quality hunting opportunities for the vast majority of R's who can't/won't participate in the exclusivity game and what that means for residency retention and the economy of the State as a whole.

So too with landowner support or opposition of NR restrictions. If they support, not all will be able to MAXIMIZE hunting related revenue, but they will help preserve all that hunting has meant to main street and the rest of the State for several past decades.

Hunting will never "save" main street, but can always represent an important "boost" in many of the years. We need to look for ways other than a resource that ebbs and flows and is headed for domination by a few to help keep rural cities alive. Commercialized hunting and exclusivity will help drive the last nail in the coffin.

As with most other things, to see whether a trend is truly beneficial, you need to look at its effect on all those affected in years 11-50, not just years 1-10. There are no long term benefits to a State like ND for condoning a system that will trade a reasonable number of R and NR hunters in perpetuity for visiting landowners/lessees and/or o/g clients. The current system is fueling exclusivity and is a bad long term plan for everyone in the the State other than those landowners who desire to maximize hunting related profits.


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## SiouxperDave25 (Oct 6, 2002)

870 XPRS said:


> Thursday, June 03, 2004
> 
> A rancher from western North Dakota wrote me that the land on three sides of his ranch has been bought up at outrageous prices by nonresident hunters


Good for those ranchers. Their land is an investment and they deserve every dime they get when they sell it.


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## zack (Oct 17, 2003)

Dan,
As a matter of fact I do put a phone number on those signs, not mine but my brother-in law in Bismarck. With the change in the time I can spend out there, I have decided that I will not allow access the first 2 weeks so that my family and I can get in the second weekend of hunting. After that we allow 2 groups per week. I feel that is reasonable for the amount of huntable land we have. 
The main reason I put my bro-in-laws # is it seems I was getting a lot of signs shot up with my MN phone #. Hard to say who shot them, but there are bad apples everywhere. My land is NW of Bismarck, so I really didn't buy for the pheasant belt, but it has gotten better.
Dave, I agree 100% with you. I just can't agree that land values increasing the way they are is the NR buyers fault completely.
Have a great weekend.
zack


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## Dan Bueide (Jul 1, 2002)

Zack, that sounds like a great, appropriate management plan. Thank you for sharing with other hunters. :beer:


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

Land being sold at those high levels is not the fault of the NR. Its just the market at work.

Land prices in ND went up the most in 25 years this last year. Part of this is the sale of land for recreation and part of it is a result of higher grain prices.

My thesis is actually on land values so I have been spending an ungodly amount of time looking at land prices.

As I see it there are actually two markets working at the same time. If that makes sense. Usually the land will be listed for recreational purposes first. The southwest is by far the most prevalent and they usually get the inflated prices, these prices will not support agriculture. It is fairly apparent that the highest and best use of this land is not agriculture. This is not good for rural ND's economy unless the land can be rented at a reasonable rate. Even then much of the productivity of the land is leaving the state through rents if the land is owned by a nonresident. However this is good for conservation. I make no judgement about nonresidents buying land so please don't think this.

The other market is the ag market and the ag market doesn't kick in untill the land cannot be sold to some one with recreational interests. If the demand for recreational land continues into the future the Southwest part of the state will eventually be farmed completely by farmers who no longer own land. With only about 3% of land in ND changing hands each year this will take a very long time but you get the idea.

Can you blame the landowner for selling at the highest price? No, I surely can't. However overall this is not really a very good situation for rural ND. But its pretty difficult to beat the invisible hand.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Hey ggrind...good idea for your thesis maybe we can all read it when you are done with it. Along with other factors around here CRP has helped cause an increase in land value. People are not afraid to pay 10 times what the CRP rate is, if the rate is $35.00/acre/year you can pay $350.00 an acre and have the land paid for in 10 years time. I suppose this would only hold true in areas that have alot of CRP.

What are the benefits of recreational land if any concerning tax and tax rates?


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

As far as I know ND makes no distinction in the taxation of land between land purchased for recreation, ag or investment as long as it is agricultural land. Which almost all land purchased for hunting is. There are four classes of land for tax purposes, only agricultural land is valued differently from market value.
Go to this paper and read and it explains how land is valued for tax purposes in ND.

http://agecon.lib.umn.edu/cgi-bin/pdf_v ... ftype=.pdf


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

Very interesting..it looks like land is taxed at a rate compiled from production records and the value of what is produced, crop, noncrop. I see what is happening now, some people are calling land recreational and if it produces no income they will have a lower tax rate.


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## Dan Bueide (Jul 1, 2002)

CRP and higher cash rents and relatively low interest rates and relatively poor performance of other traditional investments. Just in the last year I'm seeing land increasingly marketed to and purchased by non-producing, non-hunting, and quite often NR investors, with pretty low ror's by most standards. With interest rates likely to rise soon and the market and other investments likely to better perform soon, I would guess this will be a fairly short-lived phenomenon.


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

buckseye,
I don't know if they can do that or not. I don't think so but I'm not positive. I will find out.

Dan,
That is exactly what is happening. Not only in ND but also in other agricultural areas. Shifting of assets. We could see land take a huge drop in value if we have low commodity prices and increased interest rates.

The red river valley may see some changes depending on what happens with tariffs on sugar. The US is definetely not the low cost producer of sugar in the world.


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## Dan Bueide (Jul 1, 2002)

...or ND's crp gets scaled back....or we go dry again....or we have some really tough winters.

The current ag land pricing and buying situation feels a lot like the paradigm of the late 70's, which ended up rough for many procucers.


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

There are more than a few people concerned about that. However the high of $530 an acre in ND back in 1981 is still almost twice the average value per acre today in constant dollars. However that number really means nothing because there about 5 billion other factors at work that aren't accounted for.


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## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

> The current ag land pricing and buying situation feels a lot like the paradigm of the late 70's, which ended up rough for many procucers


. And it certainly will again because people who don't remember histroy repeat it. And that is when it is a good time to buy land. 

gg, I'd be very interested to know if there ever was a projection of what would have happened without farm program payments. My gut feeling is that we would have been better off in rural society without them. I think it accelerated consolidation of farms. So many operators farmed the program for maximum return, rather than farming the land for the same. And the so called "safety net" was a disincentive to sharpen our skills.

Anyway my original point was that NR land purchse for hunting is driven by the liberal game law in ND. It accelerates the trend. gg, how can you calculate the amount of CRP payments, farm program payments, and cash rent flowing out of the state? If an average farm is 1380 acres in ND, and a 1/4 is sold here and there for hunting, some farms are going to fall below cost of production and return for family living. As these farms fall, consolidation is accelerated, is it not? For every 7 farms that retire, one more business closes, so we are told. Everyone would like to sell land for max price, but a hunting law that encourages it will diminish the state's interest.


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

Dick,
I think we are seeing an exceleration of consolidation. I still think corporate farming will be on the scene fairly soon in ND. In the short term it will be in the form of very very large individual farmers but eventually it will be here. Economies of scale tell us its gonna happen. The little guy is in deep trouble.

Every industry has periodic cleanouts where it gets tough and only the really strong survive. I'm afraid ND is gonna have one pretty soon or is already in the process. There was a three year period in the late 90's where land values in ND increased while farm profits dropped. There were more than a few studies done at NDSU and there is still no rational explanation for why it happened. Irrational decisions usually result in bad things happening in the future. As you know farming is not like it used to be the idea of the family farm is a thing of the past. Farming is big business now.

It would be interesting to know how much of the govt payments flow out of the state. It could be calculated but it would be a fairly difficult task. What the answer to all this is I don't know. I'm afraid it may be impossible to stop.


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## buckseye (Dec 8, 2003)

The family farm is still there in some cases, they are three or more generation farm operations. It seems that some families are more successfull at either labor or management, sometimes it was the number of children involved for cheap labor decided how successfull you would be.

I agree I think we will see the return of corporate farms and ranches like back in the middle 1800's. Cargil will be in here buying farmland like crazy to supply their Caprock feedlots with grains. Unless you have seen the size of Caprock feedlots, a subsidery of Cargil, you can't imagine how much land that could be. They will do this to cut out the producer and elavator.


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## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

GG
Corporate farms are here in ND now. American Crystal Sugar, RDO, and many more on a smaller scale in the valley. Nothin that is as big as Cargill or ADM yet but I am sure one way or another they too have connections in ND.

There was one that just got busted in Jamestown ND wasn't his name Huber?


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

I think he got busted for "creative finance".


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## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

I don't think that was the term the Fed's used but I like it!!!!!


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