East TN Conservative

Pork Report Slams Boll Weevil Eradication Program

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

The annual ‘Pork Report’ from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research names the state’s boll weevil eradication program as the biggest waste of tax-payer money in 2008.

The Tennessee Center for Policy Research is a non-profit organization that looks for government waste and claims to have no partisan agenda. Director Drew Johnson says the boll weevil program has done its job for the cotton industry and should be de-funded.

“We were told by the people who run the boll weevil program that there are fewer than 8,000 boll weevils in Tennessee. It works out to $731 per boll weevil that we’re spending to eradicate these things.”

The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Stratton Bone, says dealing with wide-spread pests isn’t that simple.

“A tremendous amount of money comes from the revenue when cotton is sold and its very, very important that we try to control that boll weevil that caused us so much damage or those cotton farmers so much damage over the years.”

Officials for the Department of Agriculture say a massive loan was taken out when the eradication program began that is still being paid back. Cotton farmers pay for 3/4ths of the cost while the state picks up the rest. Next year, the state expects to spend nearly 4-million dollars to fund the boll weevil eradication program.

The Pork Report also includes a 70-million dollar, five year commitment by the state to subsidize switchgrass farming and biofuel refining. Other items include the cost to process 2,000 non-binding resolutions, roughly 70-thousand dollars, and losses at state-owned golf courses, totaling 1.4-million dollars.

By Blake Farmer