Tester’s Tractor Time
Senate Candidate Jon Tester Gets off Campaign Trail and on Tractor to Seed Big Sandy Farm
Jon Tester got off the campaign trail late this week and got on his tractor to begin spring planting—reminding himself that hard-working Montanans are counting on him to be on their side in the U.S. Senate race.
A third-generation family farmer who works the fields his grandparents homesteaded nearly a century ago, Tester will spend the Easter weekend seeding his farm and spending time with his wife and family.
“Though I plan to be a United States Senator in Washington, D.C., this time next year, I have been and always will be a Montana farmer first,” Tester said. “Farming helps remind me of the important things in life like my family, hard work, our family business, and the quality of life we share here in Montana.”
Jon and his wife Sharla are farmers west of Big Sandy. This year the Testers are planting wheat, barley, lentils, peas, millet, and buckwheat. Jon also is President of the Montana Senate, and has served eight years in the Montana Legislature.
Tester said he looks forward to returning to the campaign trail so he can talk to Montanans about the issues that concern them most, like preserving family farm agriculture and small businesses, improving education and access to quality healthcare, cutting America’s addiction to foreign oil, and returning standards of ethics to our nation’s capital.
“Its time for a change in Washington,” Tester said. “Montanans deserve an independent senator who’ll fight for health care, jobs, and growing Montana’s economy, not for lobbyists.”
“Conrad Burns has been a politician in Washington, D.C. for 18 years, and has forgotten the concerns of family farm agriculture,” Tester added. “We need an agriculture policy that stimulates family farms and rural communities, protects our open spaces, and creates value-added products made right here in Montana and America, not a policy that ships our jobs overseas.”
In the Montana Legislature, Jon Tester stood up for family farm agriculture by carrying and passing legislation that implements Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for meat products, and a bill that brought back the Made in Montana program to help small business and agriculture. Tester also helped spur the renewable energy industry in Montana—bringing clean, affordable, and reliable power and jobs to the rural areas of Montana that need them the most.
To view pictures of Jon working on the farm, go to http://www.testertime.com/.
Posted on Friday, April 14th, 2006 at 5:21 pm.
