B) To control noxious weeds the CDD will 

 provide funds for demonstrating the effectiveness 

 of TORDON in controlling leafy spurge. Thirty 

 dervonstration plots will be set up throughout 

 Montana: $1,000 is available from the Renewable 

 Resource Development Funds for each plot; pro- 

 jects will run for 5 to 10 years. See Part A, Objec- 

 tive 6 of the Work Plan. 



Rationale: Many farmers and ranchers are 

 unaware that TORDON will, with proper applica- 

 tion and management, eradicate leafy spurge. 



C) To increase the amount of information 

 available on weed control the CDD will support 

 funding of the Montana Experiment Station for 

 research and education projects on weed control 

 for Montana, with special emphasis on biological 



controls. See Part B, Objective 33 of the Work 

 Plan. 



Rationale: Research on weed control must 

 be accelerated. Research is especially needed on 

 biological controls in order to control weeds on 

 rangeland and in areas where water pollution may 

 occur if herbicides are used. 



D) To increase efficiency of local weed con- 

 trol programs the CDD will encourage CDs to 

 coordinate weed control activities with their local 

 weed districts. See Part B, Objective 34 of the 

 Work Plan. 



Rationale: With districts and the weed con- 

 trol boards working more closely together, noxious 

 weed control programs will be more effective and 

 better accepted. 



CHANGES IN LAND USE 



Situation 



Changes in land use are happening every day in Mon- 

 tana. Those that particularly concern farmers, ranchers, 

 foresters, and the people who use their products are the 

 changes that take agricultural and commercial forest land 

 out of production permanently. Probably no one is more 

 aware of the consequences of converting agricultural land 

 and commercial forest to other uses than is the farmer, 

 rancher, or forester (see Forestry section). 



This problem has received national attention. 

 (Farmlands Preservation 1980). With a ready reserve of 40 

 million acres of cropland in the U.S. that is dwindling at 

 the rate of 3 million acres a year, it should be apparent 

 that it will not be long before we reach a point when we 

 will have no reserve land. It will then be too late for 

 remedial measures. Although American agriculturalists 

 are respected worldwide for their skill at producing max- 

 imum yields per acre, there is a limit to how much a given 

 piece of land can produce, even with the most advanced 

 and intensive methods. Production cannot be forced up- 

 ward indefinitely on a limited land base. 



Most of Montana's land-use change has occurred in 

 Flathead, Missoula, Ravalli, Gallatin, Yellowstone, 

 Cascade, Lewis and Clark, and Lake counties. Taking 

 Missoula County as an example, nearly half of the 

 county's best agricultural land has been subdivided and is 

 no longer in production, according to the Missoula Coun- 

 ty Subdivision Report by the Environmental Information 



Center (EIC 1980). Since mid-1974, 37,182 acres in the 

 county have been subdivided. Forty-eight percent of the 

 7,552 acres of land in Missoula County classified by SCS as 

 prime agricultural land has been subdivided. Of the 4,672 

 acres of the county classified as important agricultural 

 land, 33 percent has been subdivided. A total of 42 per- 

 cent of Missoula County's 12,353 acres of prime and im- 

 portant farmland has been lost to residential develop- 

 ment. 



The National Agricultural Lands Study released in 

 January 1981 warned that the U.S. is facing a land crisis in 

 the next decade, unless policies are changed to stop the 

 sprawl of suburbia, shopping centers, highways, and 

 other development over productive croplands. In a 

 speech at the National Agricultural Lands conference in 

 Chicago in February 1981, Agriculture Secretary John R. 

 Block urged state and local governments, with federal 

 support, to begin steps to stop farmland conversions. "In 

 the next 20 years we cannot realize a 60-85 percent in- 

 crease in demand for U.S. agricultural products while ur- 

 banizing 3 million acres of productive land each year and 

 maintaining current low productivity rates." 



Montana farmers and ranchers need to join with 

 others nationwide to recognize and work for solutions to 

 the problem of loss of productive land. Several potential 

 solutions are available: land banking, agricultural zoning, 



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