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Sowing Disaster: Why We Need a New Farm Bill
Congress passes its share of boondoggles, but there's a real doozy on the docket April 18. If the nearly $300 billion Farm Bill passes in its current form, the American public will pay billions of dollars to large-scale farmers and food corporations for the following end results: an oversupply of unhealthful junk food that worsens our national obesity epidemic; severe depletion of soil and air through overuse of pesticides and destructive farming practices; and the hastened removal of small farms from the land, eroding the spirit and finances of rural communities across the U.S.
To be sure, there are positive elements in the bill, which gets revisited every five years. There's funding for conservation and nutrition programs, even small bits (in the $5 million range) for innovative community food security projects that expand markets for small farmers while making food accessible to poor inner-city residents. But the bill's Commodity Title erases all that - using tax dollars of up to $20 billion a year to finance big growers' production of corn, wheat, and other commodities that are used as ingredients in everything from cooking oil, to sweeteners and fattening agents in processed foods, to livestock feed and auto fuel.
While supporting farmers to produce basic foodstuffs is a laudable policy goal, our current farm-subsidy system accomplishes something far different, propping up profoundly unsustainable growing practices while undermining the nation's health and its farming and food future. By upholding subsidies for big agriculture, Congress is not only wasting taxpayer dollars at a time of soaring crop and food prices; more fundamentally, it's undermining vital efforts to make our food supply more healthful and sustainable, both environmentally and economically.
Consider just a few numbers. Seventy-five percent of subsidies go to a handful of commodities (mostly wheat, corn, and oilseeds) used as food additives, making highly processed junk food cheap -- while fruits and vegetables and whole foods get no payments at all. Nearly 70 percent of farm payments go to the top ten percent of the country's biggest growers -- while America loses one farm every half an hour, 15,000 per year. This form of corporate welfare encourages the ongoing consolidation of farming and food production into fewer hands while removing small and mid-sized farmers who can no longer compete in this unlevel playing field. Meanwhile, by skewing payments toward large-scale farming, these subsidies promote ecologically damaging intensive pesticide use and severe depletion of precious topsoils -- while organic foods, often exorbitantly expensive, get no supports at all. As a nation we dump nearly half a million tons of toxic pesticides on the land, polluting the air, often sickening nearby residents, and tainting rivers and streams, to say nothing of our food supply which is covered in pesticide residue.
Even as Congress appears poised to approve this damaging legislation, we need to start a new national discussion on our country's food and farming priorities. Instead of spending more money to produce cheap raw ingredients for the meat industry and food processing corporations, we need a radically different yet ultimately sensible New Deal for food that invests the public's money in sustainable growing practices, organic foods, and small and mid-sized farms that form the bedrock -- both economically and socially -- of communities throughout America's heartland.
Hardly a romantic nod to the past, such an overhaul is an investment in the future. As global warming heats up, we cannot afford a food system that guzzles 100 billion gallons a year in pesticides and long-distance transit of packaged foods. As obesity hits thirty percent of the population - harming individual lives and costing the public more than $100 billion in related health costs -- we cannot afford to finance cheap junk food and excessive meat consumption. And we can ill afford to continue paying large-scale commodity growers to plunder our fast-eroding soils while making it near impossible for smaller diversified growers to compete and survive. Programs that revive local foods and small farms -- via farmers' markets, community-supported agriculture, and school purchasing programs -- are gaining ground across the country. Consumers show they are hungering for organic foods, and for more farmer's markets, where growers can increase profits while food prices remain the same or lower than in supermarkets.
The public's money ought to finance sustainability in its truest sense - supporting farms and food programs that sustain local economies, our health, and the future of farmlands, instead of agribusiness and food corporations that plumb the land and these communities for short-term profit. As Congress lurches toward destructive old policies, now is the time to cast our vote for a new path the next time around.
Christopher D. Cook is the author of Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor, Harper's and elsewhere.
42 Comments so far
Show AllThe way to unblock the logjam that the every-five-years "farm bill" has become is for a president to announce well in advance that he/she will absolutely veto it unless the unrelated parts (subsidy payments, conservation, food stamps, etc.) are broken out as separate bills each passed on their own merits. It's likely too late this time, but could be done for the re-play which would be due in the second term of the Obama administration, for instance.
The Democrats which DD constantly bleats for who control Congress now could do it this time but won't. And we need more Democrats? Sounds like more of the Same O, Same O to me whether it is Democrats or Republicans in charge.
Lobo Gris
I think the whole Congress lost their brains. What ever happened to common sense?
Good article.
Where are the anti-welfare people when we need them. They hate it when we help some single mother raise a child, but don't mind this highly destructive welfare at all.
As Jim Hightower puts it; How about a little tough love for these corporations.
A new farm bill won't solve anything. The magnitude of the coming crisis requires a complete restructuring of our civilization. Given that we are likely at or near "peak oil", and that peak gas production is no more than 15-20 years off, a complete restructuring our economic, political, and social systems needs to happen NOW.
If you think that assessment is "over the top", check out the attached web link. However; be forewarned, there is no sliver lining here. Learn to enjoy what's left of your life.
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
GTC wrote "The magnitude of the coming crisis requires a complete restructuring of our civilization."
Three words: Relocalization, Relocalization, Relocalization.
There is a silver lining though: we may just rediscover what it means to live in a real community. And I predict we will learn to prefer this way of life to the soulless existence in which we are trapped now.
The reason the Democrats (or Republicans) of Congress don't do better with this bill, as lobo gris demands they could and should, is that many of them have constituencies to appease and re-election realities. This is why a better leadership is needed on the whole issue from the president.
It's time to bring back the barter system and bypass the whole commercial food market. Reassemble your scattered family so some of them can tend the back yard field; grow something, and swap with your neighbours. REJECT, REFUSE, REDUCE, RELOCALIZE.
This mess isn't going to get fixed by nibbling at the edges of it or by adding some contradictory regulation ADM and their ilk can bypass. The average citizen will have to be willing to rejigger his entire life structure for something sustainable and healthy to happen. Shopping "organic" or going vegetatian/vegan is not the answer - it's mere self delusion and vanity.
The average citizen's life will soon be redesigned completely anyway, as things run out and the whole house of cards collapses. S/He might aswell get started now and have some say in how it goes.
Yes,Let`s go back in time and do things thre way we did them in the good old days. Park all of those 24 row planters and 12 row combines and do it 1 or 2 rows at a time, it is more fun that way. If we all raise our own food we can close the grocery stores and look at the money we will save. I am sure the 250 million people now living in the cities will be glad to try their hand at a little back-breaking labor. We will need their help after the commercial farmers are done away with as it takes much labor to do things the old way, but how happy they will all be.
Then we will want to complete the return to happiness by throwing out all electric appliances, air conditioners, all entertainment gadgets, stop driving around in fancy cars,and get rid of all that unnessary junk that people think they need to have.
Our ecomomy will probably collapse after the change, but who cares, Bush has got us so far in debt we will never get out anyway so the biggest problem our country has now is to get rid of all commercial farmers and everybody get to work on a small piece of land.
Our economy is collapsing now - can't your hear the crashing? It's not a matter of going back to anything, but a new way of living on a smaller scale -and yes, with less stuff. We may have to find better ways to be happy than to shop till we drop. It's a biggie. Amazingly, more "primitive" cultures managed to live and be happy, have a rich cultural and spiritual and social/familial life before global agribiz and the CIA routed them out of their subsistence farms and into the slums.
No need to be angry or sarcastic. Happy or not - some field labour is due. There are people who love it - it's not the work anyway that's the problem, it's the structure - the monoculture agribiz slavery system is the cause of all the broken backs.
medusa,
You have no idea.
Which two thirds of the world do you want to condemn to die? That is what will happen if the vast grain crops (monculture) are done away with. You pick and let us know who lives and who dies.
kendpotter,
Actually it's you who has no idea. Low-tech sustainable organic agriculture can produce more pounds of food per acre, with a higher nutritional value (and rebuilds rather than depletes the soil into the bargain, not to mention eliminates pesticide pollution) than monoculture grain crops. There are millions of tillable acres, mostly in small plots (lawns, golf courses, etc) as well as urban rooftop gardening in large pots that could feed the world's hungry.
Most of the world's vast grain crops are actually going to either the care and feeding of meat livestock (whose bodies are not evolved to digest corn and soy, hence myriad human health problems in the developed world) or, increasingly, into fuel tanks; or they are used for junk food, like the high fructose corn syrup which sweetens soda pop. Seriously, we can ALL get along fine without them. The human race did so for all but the last hundred years of its existence.
The current crisis is the means they are using to restructure civilization. They use crisis to get support for changes that create new crisis, and soon we will be in the New World Order, it will likely resemble Orwells 1984.
Also, under WTO regulations, farm subsidies are limited, and since the last farm bill we have exceeded our limits and are in WTO court with several other countries. How anyone can write an article on subsidies in a new farm bill and not mention this is amazing. If other countries subsidize their farmers and are over WTO limits, we have IMF shut off the loans. Thats why we have this global food crisis, as big agribusiness has moved into all these countries and driven out the smaller farmers who no longer are subsidized, putting them in a position to create shortages of food and drive up prices.
Like I have been trying to say, there is no money in growing food. Farming is a business not a charity. I have watched 3 farms I can see from my house that have gone under in the last 3 years. One guy even plowed 400 acres of apple trees into the ground and sold the wood. Another just sold his whole heard of dairy cows. He just keeps a few beef cows now to fill his freezer for his family. All their wives have full time jobs. It is huge corporations that run the food industry not the family farm anymore. That is stuff you see in ads not real life.
I feel the reason for food shortages and cost is Americans are eating to much and there is none left for the rest of the world.
Food forests and permaculture!
Also.. check out GREENING THE DESERT.. google.. amazing things about Greening the desert in Jordan.
Chris Cook is spot on,The title of his book says it well,Diet For A Dead Planet. He must be a fan of Francis Moore Lappe! peas in
"Bobbi Dykema Katsanis April 18th, 2008 5:44 pm
kendpotter,
Actually it's you who has no idea. Low-tech sustainable organic agriculture can produce more pounds of food per acre, with a higher nutritional value (...) than monoculture grain crops."
WHAT IF the monoculture grain farming is done organically [or] using an alternative method that's environmentally safe, 'sustainable agri.', permaculture, ...? The grain products I purchase are all organic grains.
Let's say that it does and still would produce fewer pounds of food per acre, we still need grains for food, right?!
And I don't see how enough grains could be grown without doing it monoculturally. By seriously reducing the number of meat and dairy animals farmers raise, and by eliminating use of grain plants for making biofuels, this would mean much less land being needed to grow grains; but I don't imagine it being done other than monoculturally.
That, however, depends on what BDK means by monoculture grain farming.
If it's grown where historically and naturally the lands were fields of grass, then that was monoculture, although such wild or natural fields normally have a variety of plants growing, so they would have only looked like monoculture from a distance. Hence, it was not monoculture, after all. But I'd imagine that such lands are the most appropriate for cultivating grains when many acres are grown.
If growing grains monoculturally is truly bad, even when done organically or with another safe, healthy method of farming, then what about when a grain farmer plants some total acreage of wheat, barley, and oats, with these acres being intermixed such that the whole acreage for each of these grains is not all in single blocks, or contiguous, adjacent acres (whatever)?
We surely can't ask farmers to grow a variety of grains entirely intermixed, like rows of grains consisting of [a], one, wheat plant, a barley plant, and then an oat plant, repeatedly; giving [full] intermixing, as thorough as humanly possible to do. It'd be surely difficult, if at all really possible, even, to separate the grains after harvesting.
It could be done with many crops, certainly with the crops from the cabbage family, squashes, probably (though I'm not sure) tomatoes (they require acidity though), and some other crops; but surely not for grains, and I doubt it'd be a good idea with carrots, beets, other root vegetables, and perhaps, if not surely, other crops, for the harvesting work would be a little more or too tedious even when entirely harvested by hand.
But the latter can be grown in relatively few adjacent rows of each of the crops, with these groups of rows being intermixed. A square acre, say, could have several crops, with each of the crops grown, so sown, in groups of adjacent rows; x rows of carrots next to x rows of parsnips next to x rows of beets next to x rows of beans, and so on. I don't know if it's purposely done to avoid monoculture, but this intermixing of groups of rows of crops is how a local organic farmer here cultivates his fields.
Grains aren't really harvestable by hand, not for the large quantities needed for feeding humans, alone; I believe not, anyway. So given the harvesting requires the use of harvesting machines, whatever they're called, I suppose monoculture can be minimized by growing each type of grain in groups of rows, perhaps no more than a quarter to a half an acre for each grouping. If only one type of grain is grown, then other crops can be grown inbetween the groups of rows of the grain crop. Further above, I was thinking of growing grains on one acre each, using intermixing with each other and/or other crops for the additional acres of grains. But I think a quarter to half an acre for the individual grains might be also acceptable for a farmer, and meaning this in terms of seeding and harvesting.
" good luck April 18th, 2008 8:08 pm
Like I have been trying to say, there is no money in growing food. ..."
While it evidently is true often enough, I don't know what the reasons are for every failing farm, and believe that small-scale farming is sufficient for adequate income. Consumers need to encourage these farmers, whenever there are any who are local or near enough and the farmers sell directly to retail customers. It's what I'll do as much as I can; preferring to leave shopping at the organic food store, which is a co-op, only for foods not available from local farmers. Buying directly from them means buying food as fresh as you can possibly have without growing the food crops yourself; and the fresher it is, the longer it keeps after you, consumer, purchase the food, I've found anyway. And buying directly from them is a way of telling Big Corp. to ... fly off or away ... parasites! This all makes for mutually beneficial and pleasant experience.
Small-scale farmers will be able to optimise their revenues or income, profits, by lowering their operational costs. There's no need for them to buy and use large machinery, f.e. If they don't minimise their operational costs and the farm goes bankrupt because of this reason, then these farmers suffer due to their own fault, so "too bad"; I won't shed a tear for them.
They also need to stay away from using GMO seeds, for both environmental and human health reasons, as well as for minimising operational farm costs. They should not have to buy much for seeds every year, but only for the first year or two of each crop grown; for then they should be keeping seeds from their harvested crops and using these seeds the following seasons.
If they don't use synthetic pesticides and herbicides, they can again reduce their operational costs; surely. There, from what I've read, and from speaking with a neighbour who organically gardened, are plants that can be grown as companions to the food plants; while companion crops sometimes can be food crops themselves, too. One I read about being both is garlic; it can be used as a companion crop for pesticide or insecticide purpose, and then harvested for food. Great!
Small-scale farming is not possible for me, but only because I don't possess the needed land, and can't afford [any]; being too poor. If I had a few acres though, then I could get started; I save seeds from the organic produce that I purchase for food, while hoping enough of these will be able to germinate. Most are seeds of organic squashes and they all looked ripe or mature enough for the seeds to be able to germinate. The other seeds are from locally grown Spartan apples and I'm sure these would germinate. With this alone I could immediately get started with planting, if I had land; a few acres or so.
I'd be able to make it adequately profitable, for the average revenues for food crops is said to range from $8,000 to $15,000 per acre, and I'd be doing pretty much [all] of the work myself, alone, so the revenues would cover the minimal operating costs incurred, as well as personal income far better than what I have to live with now.
That is the average revenue for southern Quebec, Canada, and for conventionally grown crops, anyway. I don't know what it'd be in the U.S., and believe it'd probably be similar as here across Canada. And it's the farm revenue; not reflecting the additional costs consumers pay when buying at or through grocery stores or co-ops.
Blueberries and garlic are both said to provide around $15,000 per season or harvest, per acre, here; and I read that garlic can be harvested, so sown or planted and later harvested, twice a year, with spring and fall harvests, so the $15,000 per acre of garlic could potentially mean a total of $30,000 in revenue per year per acre of garlic. I've also read that broccoli and, I suppose, other cabbage family crops, can also be grown and harvested twice a year; therefore, maybe there are still other crops this can be done with.
$8,000 per acre would be with the least profitable food crops, and I'm not sure what these are; maybe carrots, peas, and beans, say? Organic carrots go for fair enough prices for consumers, but organic potatoes seem to cost more, yet surely not providing as much revenue as other crops do. Anyway, a person can optimise revenue by planting the more profitable crops, only; or enough of them anyway.
Blueberries and, I suppose, raspberries, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, beans and peas, celeri, parsnips, beets, leeks, onions, ..., sweet potatoes (not potatoes), squashes, tomatoes, ... should provide ample revenue for small-scale farmers who aren't greedy, don't seek to spoil themselves with all sorts of expensive living, etc.
By optimising operational costs and cultivating organically, or using an alternative healthy method of farming, I don't see why small-scale farmers could not do sufficiently well for themselves. I'd see consumers being dumb animals, as usual, and not buying from their local farmers as THE PROBLEM.
Of course when a farmer is too far from sufficient populations of people, then few people would go to the farm, so the farmer needs to get the produce to marketplaces; and this might be a little difficult to arrange for some of these remotely located farmers. I do not know how they'd arrange getting their harvests to market, but there must be a way for many of them; I think, hope.
Locally, here, I would know what to do, but if I did have land to work, then I'd be, and firstly, small-scale, maybe 10 acres at most; secondly, I'd be close enough for a considerable number of consumers to come and buy directly from me; and, lastly, trucking or van'ing of surplus produce would not be far, no more than twenty miles or so anyway, and much distributed more nearby. That's good for many farmers around here. And I'd want to let people pick what they want themselves, for crops this can be trusted with; for you need to surveil pickers to make sure they don't mess up harvesting. Pick yourself method of sales is attractive to enough people.
But what is the situation for farmers whose farms are remote? Besides 'good luck'.
" johnny hempseed April 18th, 2008 10:20 pm
Chris Cook is spot on,The title of his book says it well,Diet For A Dead Planet. He must be a fan of Francis Moore Lappe! peas in"
http://www.dietforadeadplanet.com
That provides a link to a page for a short intro. on the book by Chris Cook, and for posting comments. It has a 'continue' link for more 'about' the book, and that page includes several reviews or praises, including from "Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet and Hope's Edge".
What's 'peas in' mean in johnny hempseed's post?
One of the problems that small farming operators face now is keeping a line of small machery operating as repairs are very hard to get for older, smaller machines.That is understandable, as dealers would much rather sell, lease, and carry repairs for machines costing up to $250,000 as try to handle small obsolete equipment.
Also, grain farmimg is pretty well geared for large volumns and that puts a small farmer at a disadvantage. Small operations are much more labor-intensive which is now a big problem as many do not choose to do manual labor and the immigrants have become more of a problem to use.
Consequently, with the exception of high value vegetable production, it is impossible to return to small farming for grain production. It makes no sense to expect farmers to return to the older methods, unless all others are willing to give up their new lifestyles with modern conveniences, which will only happen if our entire country collapses for some reason.
If one wants to do that type of farming for a hobby, that is great, but do not expect most farmers to operate that way to make a living. It is much more satisfying to rent the land to a large operator with modern equipment and it is also more profitable to the landowner.
kendpotter - whoah! you really mistook what I wrote - deliberately? - I'm saying we here in the overindulgent and selfish part of the world have to share -and that means we have to cut back, not the starving masses.
And anyway, what you wrote sounds a little clueless, it needs to be said.
Funny - everyone is so hot and enthusastic about making a few superficial and mostly cosmetic changes, and when it comes to the reality that you will have to cut back a lot and your life will be very different, everybody squawks, "not me! I have my needs, my rights!".
It reminds me of the 70's, the oil crunch, when the supposed plan was that everyone should start taking public transportation to save money and the oil supply. well, it turned out that people wanted everybody else to take public transportation so that they themselves could continue to use the car. That's what this sounds like.
There is no evil, no injustice occurring on this planet today that (generic) you are not complicit in - where do you want to start? You will have to start, not the starving masses in Haiti, who are already eating dirt to stay alive.
Bobby Dykema Katsanis has it right. The answer is not more brutality on nature, more technology, better trained police/military to keep the rioters in line, more clever chemistry so you can futz around with your iPod and drink your bottled water as before, (oh and don't forget, shop fair trade and organic, and put green fuel in your car) but you doing without your freaking iPod and car altogether and relating to a couple of dozen people in you neighbourhood and working with them to feed each other and find meaning in life.
The sustainable answer is local - small and low tech.
You won't do it - it's worth it to you to have unrest and starvation in Haiti, Congo and a zillion other places where large scale monoculture and the CIA have thrown people off the land so you can put cheap food on your table, and buy the latest electronic doodads with blinky lights and fancy ring tones.
And that's why you're angry - (generic)you have so much, stuff, so much else, and most people on this planet dig through garbage to survive. Only if (generic)you are willing to cut back on you expectations/demands will you be able to balance the supply so everyone has a chance at a decent, if humbler, life.
The world will be very different - only if you get involved in the process of real change will you have some say in the future.
kendpotter - whoah! you really mistook what I wrote - deliberately? - I'm saying we here in the overindulgent and selfish part of the world have to share -and that means we have to cut back, not the starving masses.
And anyway, what you wrote sounds a little clueless, it needs to be said.
Funny - everyone is so hot and enthusastic about making a few superficial and mostly cosmetic changes, and when it comes to the reality that you will have to cut back a lot and your life will be very different, everybody squawks, "not me! I have my needs, my rights!".
It reminds me of the 70's, the oil crunch, when the supposed plan was that everyone should start taking public transportation to save money and the oil supply. well, it turned out that people wanted everybody else to take public transportation so that they themselves could continue to use the car. That's what this sounds like.
There is no evil, no injustice occurring on this planet today that (generic) you are not complicit in - where do you want to start? You will have to start, not the starving masses in Haiti, who are already eating dirt to stay alive.
Bobby Dykema Katsanis, Mike Corbeil have it right. The answer is not more brutality on nature, more technology, better trained police/military to keep the rioters in line, more clever chemistry so you can futz around with your iPod and drink your bottled water as before, (oh and don't forget, shop fair trade and organic, and put green fuel in your car) but you doing without your freaking iPod and car altogether and relating to a couple of dozen people in you neighbourhood and working with them to feed each other and find meaning in life.
The sustainable answer is local - small and low tech.
You won't do it - it's worth it to you to have unrest and starvation in Haiti, Congo and a zillion other places where large scale monoculture and the CIA have thrown people off the land so you can put cheap food on your table, and buy the latest electronic doodads with blinky lights and fancy ring tones.
And that's why you're angry - (generic)you have so much, stuff, so much else, and most people on this planet dig through garbage to survive. Only if (generic)you are willing to cut back on you expectations/demands will you be able to balance the supply so everyone has a chance at a decent, if humbler, life.
The world will be very different - only if you get involved in the process of real change will you have some say in the future.
why did that go in twice? sheesh!
The answer is not in a farm bill but in your back yard,local small scale Organic farms and CSA's(community Supported Agriculture.
Ask yourself where most of your food comes from...if you answer "the store" then you are a fool. Only a fool would trust someone else to their most important basic NEED- food.
Get out of the city and buy a chunk of dirt now, its the only way you will get a meal in the coming cull (killing off the masses) sponsored by the Neo Cons and Republicans.
I haven't been reading commondreams lately because I've been trying to grow food. It is hard. Acres?! Ha! Just planting a small garden takes a lot of work. And it all has to be done within a certain time.
I tried growing potatoes, broccoli, peas, carrots, beets, lettuce and onions while it was cool. OK. The peas haven't sprouted. The broccoli is being eaten by something. Some of the potatoes have sprouted. Nothing else has sprouted. I also tried sprouting tomatoes over a hot compost pile. They sprouted, but then I think they cooked.
How many of the 300,000,000 people in this country know how to farm? I grew up in Los Angeles. I know nothing. My co-worker is married to a farmer who farmed on land that had been in his family for generations. They are spendthrifts, and kept re-mortgaging their land. He gave up his apple trees, then his hogs, then the wheat, then the hay, for pete's sakes. He made a lot of money on the hay. All he has now are some cattle. She insisted that he get a wage labor job, so he started pouring concrete. Then they laid him off. They don't even have a garden for vegetables. They totally live from the grocery store.
One year I grew soybeans. I was out in the garden trying to shell them by hand. The pods are hairy and hurt your fingers. In the meantime, the farmer next door harvested 10 acres of soybeans with a combine in about the same time it took me to shell maybe a pound. I'm not kidding.
I do believe that we need to get back to living off of this year's sunlight, instead of relying on millions of years of compressed sunlight. I just think it's going to be very difficult to do. But we did evolve as tribal animals, cooperating to bring in food for all. They did harvest grains by hand, with a scythe, in the old days. It just took a lot of labor. Now there are less than 1% of the population that lives off the land. We definitely need a restructuring.
The vast population of the US mostly does non-productive, or even destructive, labor. I'm thinking of all those employed in the military-industrial or the prison-industrial complex, for example. Then there are the millions who are unemployed, or employed in socially worthless things like insurance companies, or stock brokers. Sure, it's more pleasant to spend your day in an air-conditioned office typing, and then going out to eat a delicious meal grown and prepared by someone else, before retiring to your spacious, climate controlled house via your fossil fueled propelled vehicle, than it is to sweat all day in a field, only to watch your efforts get eaten by grasshoppers. But our sweet life has been fueled by a limited resource that is now close to gone. The party's over, and it's time to get back to reality.
#
Daniel David April 18th, 2008 2:00 pm
"The reason the Democrats (or Republicans) of Congress don't do better with this bill, as lobo gris demands they could and should, is that many of them have constituencies to appease and re-election realities. This is why a better leadership is needed on the whole issue from the president."
And they will have those same constituencies to appease and re-election realities to think about with a Democrat as President as they did with a Republican.
Lobo Gris
with great thought I may just pack it in and sell off some off some of the equipment. Yes the local stores accept some local food from farmers. The farmer markets are getting bigger all the time. Young people don't want to get into farming anymore. I am not as young as I use to be and the long days are getting longer as I slow down some. I drive by a housing complex on my way to town that use to be a farm I worked at as a boy. The whole area has gone from 1200 people to over 12,000 in 5 years. I have had 3 realestate agents knock on my door in the last 3 months with a fist full of cash, more than I can make off this land that's for sure. I would just buy a small piece of land say 50 acres covered in trees enjoy nature feeding the birds and cutting dead wood for free heat, maybe take the odd Deer. Be nice to live in a new house not this 100 year old cold leaky barn. Head south in winter and be warm 12 months of the year. Yea, good luck with your chemical sprayed veggies, force fed amimals and the cancer it will give you. Myself I am going even more organic but just for my family, and I suggest you folks do the same.
kernel-I must disagree with you. Two years ago my family farm corporation farmed with a 24-row planter. We figured if we could get each crop planted in less than one week, we were ok. I sold out to my business partner and I now farm with a 6-row no-til planter, 2 small tractors, a 75' home-made sprayer and a collection of older wagons (cost-just over 40k). A neighbor combines for me with a well maintained older JD combine. If things go reasonably well I can plant ALL my crops in 3 days. If I wanted to I could farm a lot more land and if I upgraded to an 8-row planter I could farm a heck of a lot more. But I can make a modest living as is and I'm not so young any more. Farmers don't have to have a million dollars worth of fancy equipment, although satellite auto-steer is nice. Some farmers read novels or watch tv while they're planting, but I don't mind not having those particular freedoms.
OH ME ,OH My, Sounds like the same old, same ,old good old boy corporate GREED!
Mike Corbeil,while I admire you for attempting to present many alternatives to the present system, I think you should visit or work on an organically maintained land and work there for at least one harvest. If you did so, you would realize that some of your ideas are impractical and ignore many other facets of sustainable farming.
I worked on a farm for 7 years in Southern Spain. The main crop was the 5,000 olive trees, but we also grew many fruit trees and all types of vegetables and fruits that aren't grown on trees. Finally, we rotated crops on other areas. Barley one year, chick peas the next. Sometimes we would let the land lay fallow for a year in order to recuperate.
It was a community effort. We always left a perimeter of cereals for the poor people to come and harvest as they pleased. We also let the goatherders come in after the harvest of, say, barley, where they would graze for several months and their droppings would help to fertilize the earth. We would also rotate crops that either fixed nitrogen to the soil or took nitrogen from the soil.
Pretty basic stuff really but very hard work nonetheless. The most joy I got out of it was the great tasting fruits, meats, and vegetables, as well as sitting down after a long, hard day and looking over the land. I knew every leaf and branch and weed. The money was terrible. We could only get by month to month, so it was no way to save money for a child's future.
We simply need to return to the basics and certainly end corporate welfare. Farming is backbraking work. It is also very satisfying if you feel a connection to the land and its animals and the weather.
But I thank you for your posts. I do not mean to belittle what you have written so honestly.
I don't make it on these forum threads very often, but it never ceases to amaze me what an utterly naive ___________* Daniel David is.
That's all.
*I was going to say something like "douchebag," "simpleton," or "twit," but I magically refrained.
Good article.
I appreciate all the posts that point out that farming is hard. In the 60's many hippies (no disrespect meant from this Brooklynite) tried to start farms and soon realized it requires experience and endless hard work. Very few such farms survived. It is not an easy or glamorous way of life.
When you see the manicured hands of Cornyn and Kyl pushing the farm bill, you know there is something wrong with it.
We need to shift the focus from supporting agribusiness to supporting whatever will bring healthful food to the population. There is no reason why this should not be a matter of public policy like education, health and transportation have been.
Family farms need seed money to implement organic and humane policies and to get their goods in markets. For instance, it is expensive to build individual stalls for a few dairy cows and call the vet when they get sick rather than to keep them tightly tethered in giant barns, dose them with antiobiotics and give them milk producing hormones. Farmers may need some ongoing support to survive market and weather fluctuations from time to time. They may need some incentives to raise delicate vegetables and fruits rather than corn for ethanol. But the money would be well spent.
Local family farms can also cut down on transportation costs and related fuel use as compared with cross-country trucking.
monstanto, with their GMO's,will determine who lives and dies. Why do you think they are banned in the EU!
gt-"monsanto...will determine who lives and dies." I think it depends more on whether you can afford to eat mudcakes made with mud and a bit of oil and sugar, or whether you have no money and must watch your family starve. This is what is happening in Haiti and other places. Worrying about GMO's is about 10,000th down the list of things to concern yourself with. Wake up, get your priorities in order.
Great article!
"As Jim Hightower puts it; How about a little tough love for these corporations."
A great idea for sure!!!! Corporate farmers aren't farmers they are in the Agri-business. Thats not farming, thats big business.
Greg R
You say "Worrying about GMO's is about 10,000th down the list of things to concern yourself with."
Then why is there a Farmer to Farmer campaign by the National Family Farm Coalition (USA) raising concerns about GMO's see:
http://www.nffc.net/issues/geissues.html
and in Australia the 'Network of Concerend Farmers' see their excellent web site: http://www.non-gm-farmers.com
While Canadian family farmers are calling for a moratorium on GM crops, see http://www.nfu.ca/gmfood-ban.htm
Greg R
It is a myth put out in corporate propaganda that GMO's will solve hunger, if you want to help starving people in Haiti, teach them sustainable organic agriculture.
A global ban on GMO's would be getting one's priorities in order.
A very good article with some very interesting comments.
The comments do, however, display just how far from the land modern humans are. Yes, farming is hard, hard work; it is also very stressful because so many variables are out of the grower's hands. (Note: i grow plants on a large scale for a living.)
One commenter spoke of percolating dreams and profit figures, while hoping that his saved apple seeds would sprout. Unfortunately, apples have random genetics. Planting a Spartan apple seed will not grow a Spartan apple tree.
Replacing our current system...which is dangerous and unsustainable...with a "back to the land" utopia is myopic. Moreover, it is bound to fail against the combined forces of government and agribusiness.
Monoculture is the only realistic way to grow cereal grains, but we must differentiate between traditional monoculture and industrial monoculture. The traditional variety includes rotation and monoculture plots in a diversified whole, including livestock.
In this case, the consumer has all the real power...we don't, however, wield it. Yes, buy from farmers and shop at their markets. Eat Wild dot com has a map function to find farmers near you, and your county extension can also provide information.
Apply the "one grid at a time" model to your life. A bread maker can get you off the bread "grid" quickly and easily (and you don't even have to know how to bake). Don't attempt the whole nine yards in one play, go slowly. If you've never gardened before then buy starter plants rather than seeding. If you want to seed, do it inside under lights where you can control more variables (and get a head start).
Start with one bed and grow from there. Research edible flowers to interplant and look into semi-ornamental varieties of crops as well. For example, rainbow Swiss Chard. You can build aesthetically pleasing food production areas in your yard. Save space by trellising vine crops. Some, like cucumbers can even be grown in hanging baskets. Containers can produce a large amount of food.
You will not be able to live at peace with backyard wildlife; i'm sorry, but you won't. Rabbits will cease to be cute. "Liquid Fence" works, as do real fences. Live traps are an option. Eating the rabbits is another option.
Organic gardening is difficult, so make it a long term goal. You will have to learn a great deal about soil chemistry and other things to be successful with it. And the average soil build time for really good organic is four years. Use the chemicals you need to get fresh food from your own hands at first, but use them sparingly. Examine your plants at least daily in order to catch disease/infestation early.
You won't learn to garden from a book. (though you can gain valuable information) Talk to your neighbors, talk to the people at your local (independent) garden center, and accept that trial and error will be your best teacher. Above all, apply common sense rather than sticking to a theory that you believe in.
The journey to food freedom starts with a single grid, or just one tomato plant.
(and apologies for the length of this post)
The playbook for fixing this mess
The farm bill was turned into corporate welfare long ago. Its original intent was to help the small farmer and look what a monster it has grown into. Now there are so many entrenched lobbyists and corporate handouts it is very difficult to get it back to doing something useful with our tax dollars.
It has the aura of doing good for everyone. The spin is that if we do not have this, food prices will be much higher. It is kind of like the DOE during the cold war. If you want to be free of communism, give us what we want.
Those sort of fear tactics hide the truth of what is really going on. We can have affordable food and a good defense without spending a huge fortune every year. But the people that receive that fortune want things to stay as they are and the tax payers have to keep paying more and more to make a few richer and all the rest of us poorer.