Stroda Brothers Farm - Stroda, JoLynn

My name is JoLynn Stroda. My husband and I are partners in a 1500 acre farming operation in Monroe, Oregon. The farm is almost a century farm, started by my husband?s great grandfather and is currently being operated by 3 brothers and their families with us being one of them. Currently, we farm peppermint, grass seed, wheat, sugar beets, and Christmas trees. I am writing today in TOTAL support of changing the classification of Christmas tree farming to agricultural status under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As you can see, we farm many different crops on our land. There are absolutely no different practices between producing Christmas trees from our other crops. They are planted with the notion of being harvested, cultured and pruned, carry out weed and pest control, and eventually harvested as a crop. If you look up the word ?farm? in Webster?s Dictionary, it reads: ?farm ? land that is cultivated for agricultural production; raising of livestock or crops as a business?. Christmas trees are cultivated and raised to sell by operations such as ours to make a living from our land and should be considered as stated in the dictionary ? farming as agriculture. I would like to thank the Department for your efforts to hopefully change the classification of Christmas tree farming to agriculture as that is exactly what is taking place. JoLynn Stroda Stroda Bros. Farm Monroe, Oregon