Winter/Spring 2002

President's Message

I am old enough to have witnessed Mississippi's move from a one-crop economy to multi-crop production. Now, it is impressive to note how quickly farmers shift from crop to crop to meet market demands. And Mississippi landowners, the entrepreneurs they are, don't resist making the changes sound economics dictate, like restoring their less productive land to wetlands, bottomland hardwoods, mixed hardwoods/pine or longleaf pine and maximizing production on their more productive land.

I am proud to note that farmers and landowners in Mississippi have already restored over 100,000 acres of wetlands and bottomland hardwoods through the Wetland Reserve Program. Through its partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, your Foundation is making superb gains in restoring stands of bottomland hardwoods, mixed hardwoods/pine and longleaf pine.

The world economy is shifting toward free trade more than it has in perhaps two centuries. In this fast-moving, free-trade environment, sacrificing production on good land shifts the market to other parts of the world, such as the rain forests of South America. There it takes three to four acres to produce the high yields of U.S. agriculture. The answer to our economic woes is already evident: increased yields and production on lands that are best suited for agriculture.

On the forestry side, we have seen a shift in the timber industry from the Pacific Northwest to the South, mainly because of the spotted owl. On a Sunday afternoon drive you can notice the many small tracts of bottomland and upland hardwoods that have been cut. Have we actually created a problem for species such as the black bear, the red-cockaded woodpecker or the prothonotary warbler? It doesn't do much good if they win their battles and lose the war!

Mississippi is a leader in the conservation, forestry and agricultural arenas. Many of us accept the proposition that high-production agriculture plays a role in preventing the use of less productive farmland at home and abroad. Yes, decisions made right here in Mississippi can, and do, impact the world.

Leila Clark Wynn
President