Montana Legislature (44th: 1975) records, 1975.

              :;y .,,,::■■;,., ir: i;,;ink Deschenes.  For the past ten years I've been a ranch
and land broker out of Missoula.  I'm here to voice total opposition
to H3 319 entitled the Agricultural Protection Act which as we knew
when stripped of its misleading title^ is nothing more than another
subdivision moratorium^
Since I very seldom get involved v;ith subdivision, I'm. not here
to plead for my loss of bread and butter although admittedly this' bill
could tend to lessen some of my potential earnings.
My concern is that this bill completely neglects the caretaker of
the land that its proponents claim the.v want so badly to protect and
in doing so defeat the alleged intention of this bill.
I submit to you that a great number of the backers of this bill
are not agriculturally oriented, nor do they have any knov/ledge of
or interest in agriculture and I also question their knowledge of
their fellow hum.an being.  This bill obviously reflects these observa¬
tions in that its passage constitutes another burden on  agriculture
as \;7eli as being a definite obstacle to mian's God given right of life,
liberty and the pursuit of hap^oiness.
When you tell a mian he can't do something and cause him econom.ic
hardship at the same time^ you take the heart out of him and also his
■incentive.  Eeart and incentive on the part of the American farmior,
have been the backbone of this country since its beginning and of this
state since its beginning.  We need only to read about Russian agricul¬
tural production to quickly learn the difference between having incen¬
tive and not havincr it.  This incentive is to make ends mseet and
il\J --• c
fully profit.  Most of these people are in agriculture because they
V,
chose It as their means of a living, v^ther born to it or after they