Congress bill deprives Alabama peanut farmers' jobs
| KENNY SMITH Staff Writer A farm bill passed by the 106th Congress may cause almost 3,000 people to lose their jobs. The bill, signed into law last March, will make the policy that governs peanuts more stern. Before this law went into affect, U.S. peanut farmers divided 1.35 million tons of seed among themselves. The new law will allow only 1.2 million tons of seed to be dispersed among farmers. Another provision of this law lowers the national price quota, the amount the United States will pay for the farmer's crop. This figure dropped from $678 to $610 per ton. John Curtis, a graduate student in agricultural economics, along with the department of agricultural economics and rural sociology, propose this new policy will result in the loss of an estimated 2,824 jobs and a $219 million loss in economic output. Wayne Dollar, president of the Georgia Farm Bureau, said, "This will hurt the farmer twice in one season." "It will cut into the farmer's income by 20-25 percent," Dollar said. This may happen because the farmer will have less seed to grow and will receive less money for his product. Georgia, Alabama and Florida will all feel the effects of the changes. The Southeast produces about 64 percent of the U.S. peanut crop. Cecil Burk, legislative director for the Georgia Farm Bureau, said, "The consumer will never know the difference as far as price is concerned." Don Koehler, executive director of the Georgia Peanut Commission, said, "The farmer will cover the costs and bear the risk of the program's cost." "The North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade are the wildcards. We have to find a way to compete against people who have lower costs," Koehler said. He said China can produce peanuts at $200 per ton and Argentina can produce at $300. The U.S. farmer's cost is more than $500 per ton.
|  One of the main reasons for this cost is the extensive use of fungicides. Current varieties must be sprayed eight times to meet U.S. health standards. "The biggest challenge will be on the universities and experiment stations," Koehler said. John P. Beasley, an extension agronomist and professor at the University of Georgia, said, "Through the combined efforts of the University of Georgia, Auburn University and the University of Florida, we are developing new varieties which will be more resistant (to fungi) and will cost the farmer less." Burk believes peanuts from other countries cannot offer the same quality, shelf life or safety for the consumer. "Through research we have come up with a product that is surely a safe product for the consumer," he said. He does not feel the same way about other countries' products. "(Foreign products) could be a danger for the consumer healthwise," Burk said. "The consumer should be informed of what's in the peanut," Curtis said. Curtis' thesis deals with the economic impact of peanuts. In one report, Curtis stated the total economic activity related to the peanut industry in the Southeast is $1.3 billion, with 16,242 employees in the peanut and allied industries. Jerry Crews, extension economist and associate professor of agricultural economics and rural sociology at Auburn, said, "Peanuts are the second largest row crop in Alabama, behind cotton." There are 209,000 acres of peanuts in Alabama in 1996 producing about $1.44 million in economic income for the state, he said. "Efficiency is the key. We've got good farmers who can face those challenges. "It's just a train that's coming, and we've just got to figure out how we're going to lay the tracks," Koehler said. |
Summer tourism at all-time high, Alabama revenues soar
| STEVEN BARNETT Staff Writer Alabama saw a record-breaking tourism season for the summer of 1996. In one profitable weekend, $80 million in tourism revenue was pumped into the state's economy, according to the Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau. The state may have acquired convention business that would have normally gone to Atlanta but was displaced because of the Olympic Games. Other people affected by the games were Atlanta residents themselves. "The Olympics definitely ran many Atlantans off. Some just wanted to get away," Don Ingram, owner of the Gulf Shores Motel, said. However, Ingram said this summer was no better for his business than any other summer. "In fact, we were down about 2 percent from the previous summer," Ingram said. "Most Gulf Shores visitors come from about a day away. People that came to see the Olympics mainly went to the center of the state, Birmingham or Montgomery," he said. | Ingram expects the summer of 1997 to be better because the elections will be over. "People want to settle down and relax after elections," Ingram said. The winter season is also a big time for Gulf Shores. They are expecting more than 9,000 people to visit the gulf during the winter. "Next summer should be about the same (for the Auburn-Opelika area)," Maria Traylor, sales and marketing coordinator for the Auburn-Opelika Convention and Visitors Bureau, said. "The Auburn University Aquatic Center will play host to several U.S. swim meets and the U.S. Diving Championships next summer," she said. One major tourist attraction in the area is the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Traylor said people come from as far away as Germany and Japan to play on the trail. "Area residents can expect people to come from several states for the NCAA Golf Tournament in 2000, which will be held here on the trail," Traylor said. |
Salem mural celebrates town, teaches history
| ANISA SUMLAR Staff Writer It is on a wall that this narrative unfolds. The story, depicted in detail with every stroke of the brush, serves as a silent reminder of the struggle for survival, the cost of freedom and the endurance of love. It is the history of a small Alabama town, recorded not with words but with pictures. It captures a time when slaves picked cotton and brought it in from the fields on a mule to be weighed, when families sat on the front porch together, when a man and woman met, fell in love and stayed that way. It is a reminder of a past which, in the haste of the present, is often forgotten. "As you look at the faces, not all of them are smiling. It was a tough life," muralist Ans Steenmeijer said, "but we honor the slaves. That's what I like." The 94-foot by 14-foot mural Steenmeijer is working on covers the brick outer wall of Ol' Salem Antiques in Salem, Ala., reminding all who pass of an earlier Salem and of things significant to the community. "It is a typical Alabama scene of a rural area. We tried to depict the things that were important economically to the growth of this region," Allen Woodall, one owner of the antique store, said. For Woodall, who is sponsoring the mural, preserving history is important. His collection of antiques and lunchboxes, numbering in the hundreds or perhaps thousands, underlines this fact. "I like to do things where history is involved," he said. It is this history, tied in with the mural and antiques, that Woodall hopes will draw tourists from the interstate to the Salem area. "This could be an anchor, historically, for this end of Lee County," Woodall said. Outside the antique store, the mural boldly takes form as color is added to the larger-than-life sketched forms. "I love colorful things," Steenmeijer said, recalling how she debated over whether the blue sky was too bright. The scene representing slaves collecting turpentine is now completed, and the scaffold stands at the next section of the mural. Back inside the store, Woodall tells more about the mural, taken from actual photos of people who worked in Salem. Recreated on the mural is a picture of Chester and Ernestine Dunn standing in front of the old depot where Chester worked for 50 years without missing a day. Their son, Forrest Dunn, said it was also at this depot that his parents first met. "My mother came here as the principal of the school, and my daddy was the railroad master at the depot. When mother got off the train, daddy saw her. They romanced about two or three years and then married," he said. Dunn still lives in Salem and tells the stories of the town's residents, as he said his mother did years ago. Farther down the wall is a picture of Dr. Andrew McLain and the house he lived in. Before his death in 1956, McLain delivered 3,600 of the town's children without ever having a mother die or deliver in a hospital, Dunn said. Also on this wall, the former slave and famous bridge builder Horace King will be painted in one of the covered bridges he is believed to have constructed the Salem Shotwell Bridge.
|  DJ BONDS/Photo Editor The bridge was included in the mural because covered bridges are an important part of the town's history, he said. Even the building the mural is being painted on is a part of the history of Salem. Built around 1832, it originally housed an old W.C. Bradley cotton warehouse and the adjoining Salem grocery, Woodall said. The vacant lot in front was the location of the old depot before it was taken down in the 1950s. Woodall began restoration of the building in April. When he first began, he said, it was "raining as much inside as it was outside." Now, after sledgehammering, jackhammering, sandblasting and pressure washing, the work is almost finished. The plaster covering the brick walls has been removed; the roof has been repaired. "I didn't think they could build it up, but they did," Steenmeijer said. In September, work was far enough along on the building for Steenmeijer to begin the mural. If the weather stays clear, she should be finished by the store's grand opening on Nov. 2, she said. The Salem mural is not Steenmeijer's first. She began painting murals with her father as a girl in Holland. "I always told him I'm not going to do this, ever, because it's too much work. I'm going to be a fine artist. "I'm going to sit down with my feet propped up. That's the way I'm going to work. So I think he's laughing now, saying I told you so," she said. After finishing school in Holland, Steenmeijer came to America because Holland was "too tiny," she said. She began her career doing fashion and fine art work in California, but a brain tumor caused loss of vision in her right eye. The doctor told her if she wanted to continue painting, she needed to do big pieces that would not hurt her good eye, Steenmeijer said. Now, Steenmeijer, her accent still detectable after more than 25 years in America, said she wishes she had started painting murals earlier. "It's a fun thing. It's not a job. It puts a smile over my whole body," she said. When Steenmeijer finishes a painting, she includes somewhere in it a bit of her own history, like her family's old black and white terrier, Joekie. She learned this technique from her father, but she adds a new twist. "When I'm finished, I put an element of surprise in there," she said. "It's a woman's face, and the whole world looks for that woman's face. It could be somewhere in the hair of the horse or in the cotton." The face is not based on a person, but it is always the same face with no shading, just lines, Steenmeijer said. "When you see it you think, 'How could I have missed it?'" Steenmeijer said murals telling the history of an area are popular right now. She just finished one based on the history of Pine Mountain and has five more waiting after the Salem mural. |
