Veteran’s losses about more than ‘10-15 acres’

Maybe the city administration officials and a very few dissenting citizens aren’t aware that there is quite a difference between higher quality horse hay and cow hay. The hay that Mr. Bill Moore grows, has been RFQ-tested (by UGA) for adequate levels of macro- and micro-nutrients, protein content and degree of digestibility, making his hay optimal for equine health, appearance and performance.

Bill carefully researched and selected the types of grasses he grows, the fertilizers and the soil amendments that he uses. Why else would Chehaw, many surrounding plantations and commercial horse farms, and Bennett’s Feed Supply want his particular hay? Anyone may consult the UGA’s Extension Service for a better understanding, as Bill did before ever sowing these fields and does as he routinely submits grass samples to them for this RFQ analysis.

The question was, why is Mr. Moore focusing on this particular parcel of land when his lease encompasses other acreage as well? Why not just focus on the larger tracts of land? Well, here follows some information for y’all.

Mr. Moore has spent a significant amount of time, resources and money in the sowing, fertilizing, soil amending, soil and grass testing, leveling and preparing all of the fields in his lease, investing his own sweat equity in every piece of this process. He’d been working with this particular (more easily mowed, accessed and maintained) field because of its location, shape and staging ability for years, finally in 2016, grooming it into his highest-producing acreage for his more desirable and salable square bales.

After the first decimation of this particular parcel, he had to start from what was worse than plain dirt. Undesirable chemicals, limbs, trash and other “leavings” had to be personally hand-picked and dug out, piece by piece, before he could even start working this land again. Neither the city nor the Army Corps assisted Bill with this. He hauled truckload after truckload of horse manure from our farm and spread it over that contaminated and denuded field.

This was followed by lime applications to reoptimize the pH level of the soil for hay growth. He then had to sprig and over-seed the types grasses and legumes that were originally there and follow that with large and repeated amounts of weed suppression due to all of the undesirable vegetation brought in with the storm debris, and then with pesticide applications.

Once he had finally gotten that field beginning to grow toward what he had before, this same field was decimated once again without his being able to reap, even once, what he had literally himself sewn, (fertilized, soil repaired and amended, retested, leveled and prepared) twice. Remember, he also had these other fields in this lease that he maintained, including pH correction, over-seeding the legumes, fertilizing, weed suppression and insecticide applications.

The total loss of everything it took to groom and then re-groom this higher production field as well as to maintain the other fields now deemed not his to work, plus the loss of years of multiple harvests, plus the loss of customer base caused by lack of product, plus the greater than 10 percent reduction in farmable land, plus the breaching of his lease twice, is why Bill Moore is so upset.

Could any of you personally absorb losses in excess of a couple hundred thousand dollars plus an 85 percent pay reduction due to production loss and the subsequent loss of customer base? As I said earlier, we are not wealthy and we don’t have subsidies.

By now, Bill would have already made his first cutting for the season, and he is always first to market with hay. This lease dispute has cut off his livelihood. He is unable to access the fields that he has paid for in this lease, which is yet another fiscal loss. This currently growing hay grass will go to seed and be worthless in another week or so. He still has more than a dozen large round bales from the very end of last season behind locked airport gates. The airport gave him the gate keys with the lease, but he dares not use them for fear of trespass charges. Loss yet again …

Now you can see why Mr. Moore has so much sadness and frustration, not only about this particular parcel of land, but also now about the whole lease issue as well. I sincerely hope this clarifies a few more things.

Michele Cary Moore

Albany

EDITOR’S NOTE: Michele Cary Moore is Bill Moore’s wife.