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GOVE -- Driving a borrowed John Deere tractor, pulling an also borrowed ripper, 84-year-old Francis Jamison on Wednesday criss-crossed a dusty, burned-out section of his retirement program.

He was there to "chisel" the ground, pulling up moisture-laden clods of soil to help prevent dust from blowing, much as it did Tuesday when winds were in excess of 50 mph.

Jamison didn't actually have a chisel, a piece of equipment that has been used for decades to slow erosion. He also didn't have a tractor.

So he borrowed both from a neighbor.

Jamison sold all of his equipment when he enrolled cropland he and his wife, Carolyn, had owned into CRP.

"This is my retirement plan," Jamison said, taking a break from pulling the ripper.

The land Jamison was working was part of two fields that were to be burned in mid-March under contract requirements with the federal government.

But the fire flared out of control, jumping a road and barreled down on a windbreak that sheltered an abandoned house. Eventually, nearly 1,500 acres of land burned, along with everything in its path.

A burn ban followed in the wake of that fire and another one of similar size in Gove County. Since then, local residents have lobbied hard for changes in the burning requirements, urging the Farm Service Agency to change its rules.

Northwest Kansas, burning opponents say, is no place for setting fire.

Jamison is among those who thinks burning CRP ground is a bad idea.

He's now thinking CRP itself is something of a bad idea.

Also opposed to the idea of burning is Bob Kuntz, who farms land in the area and owns the shelter belt and home that burned.

On Tuesday -- as winds whipped through the area -- Kuntz was down by the burned-out land to see how much soil was blowing.

"It was a dirty son of a buck," he said. "It looked like the Dirty 30s."

Kuntz was armed with a camera, a shovel and a yardstick, which he stuck in the ditch next to the field, measuring about 8 inches of freshly blown topsoil.

Kuntz and others have lobbied to get a change in the burning requirement. He has talked to congressional representatives and officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

His message?

"That we should have an option," he said of managing CRP land. "This burning does not work out in northwest Kansas. It's far too dangerous. We need some options. This is going to happen again. Next time, it may be a real nice farmstead. We need other options."

Jamison agrees.

"I didn't burn any more," he said of the additional tracts of land that he enrolled in CRP. "I waited until April and all we had was fog and wind.

"And I'm hoping they'll have an alternative."

Jamison now thinks that had he waited a couple more years to burn the grass, the erosion problems could have been prevented.

"I had to burn it in the first 10 years," he said. "They kept talking to burn it, so I got ready. We burned it too early. We should have let this get established."

Jamison said the grass had been in the ground for about four years. While it was planted in ideal conditions, Jamison said he also had to plant feed on the ground as a cover crop.

"It got 10 feet tall and took all the moisture out of the ground," he said.

Kuntz said he has no plans of stopping his campaign to get burning out of the management options.

"We're going to do our darnedest to change this around," he said.

"There shouldn't be soil erosion on CRP."

Kuntz said he had to chisel a parcel of CRP he owns that burned in March. He did so, he said, after getting reluctant approval for the practice from government regulators.

"I was going to do it whether they liked it or not," he said. "You gotta stop it.

"I just wish they'd get that burning stopped. It's just too risky."

"We thought this was a real good retirement thing," said Carolyn Jamison. "Until we had to burn it."

Francis Jamison sought but didn't gain approval for alternatives to burning on the other land he owns.

"They said, 'No, if you want your money,' " Carolyn Jamison said. "And that's our retirement."

In hindsight, Francis Jamison said he regrets enrolling the land in CRP.

"I should have rented this to someone and not taken out CRP."