People Are Forgetting Rights of the Farmers

* Re: Man’s oldest profession.

You guess wrong! Right after hunting and gathering for food, farming is man’s and woman’s oldest profession.

We are doing again a disservice to ourselves by forcing a local farming operation to cease growing crops. Montalvo Ranch will leave the large acreage barren because adjacent home occupiers revolt against unproven “danger” of methyl bromide soil treatment.

Do we all realize that California is losing millions of acres of valuable farmland, that we have the most fertile soil in the world, and that the rampant construction of shopping centers and cheap spec housing is contributing to drastic food shortages in the next century?

How are we going to feed the hungry masses that will be rioting in the streets demanding their “right to be fed”?

They demand an additional safety barrier to protect them against the unhealthy gases. Why don’t they move and let the cracker-box homes be the barrier? The farmer was there first. Nobody forced the house occupants to go to the bank and get a 30-year loan so they could live next to a long-established strawberry patch!

We are cutting off the branch on which we are sitting. We need laws that put a permanent stop to the selfish destruction of valuable farmland.

We have zoning laws, which control the character and living conditions for residential and other areas. Therefore there should be nothing wrong having zoning laws preserving farmland for eternity.

We have a growing world population and farmland is a nonrenewable asset. Let’s wake up and protect the future generations by assuring food through farming for everybody!

HORST FUNFSTUCK, Ph.D.

Camarillo