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Voting the Boll Weevil Out
October 17, 2004
With Texas being cited for Bush in the November 2 elections, the Republicans AND Democrats have made the state a non-issue, choosing to campaign elsewhere. With this fact, the Rio Grande Valley is essentially voiceless concerning the nation's Presidential vote due to the electoral votes for Texas more than likely to cede victory in this state to Bush.
The most significant vote to be forthcoming this year regarding the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas is a referendum ending November 8, 2004, in which farmers and land-owners are voting whether to reinstate the Boll Weevil Eradication Program again. In 1995 when this particualr eradication program was implemented, the cotton crops in the Valley were seriously harmed due to secondary pest damage, and the Program was a miserable failure costing the farmers and landowners significant amounts of money in lost revenues. Now, with a change in the management of the program, a decade of errors and corrections, and with most of Texas involved in the program reaping significant benefits from it, the Rio Grande Valley's farmers have decided to vote on whether to reenter the program again, in hopes of competing more fully on the global market for cotton!
Sam Simmons, President of the Cotton & Grain Producers of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and Larry Wade, the President and Chief Executive Officer for Ag Credit of South Texas, joined Ron to discuss the benefits, and some of the feared effects of 1995's program, of reinstating the program to eliminate the Boll Weevil, the bane of cotton growers the world over, from the face of the cotton fields of South Texas.
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