wws@siemens.UUCP (William W Smith) (07/26/84)
NOVA this week has an excellent discussion of American farm practices. There is a discussion of the many hidden costs of farming as executed in the US that will be paid for by our grandchildren. Topsoil is being washed away at a high rate. In 100 years, 1/2 of our topsoil that took 1e5's of years to create has been lost. Also discussed is the draining of the Ogalalla (sp?) aquifer under the great plains, the effects of mechanization of farming on both the consumer and farmers, and the time bomb we are creating with chemicals on the farms. As a summary of the editorial content: The emphasis is on debunking an idea supported by farmer behavior and gov't policies. This idea is that bigger is better and more efficient for a farm. An agriculture professor from Purdue described a study that demonstrated that the point of diminishing returns on efficiency increases is at the size of a farm that is full time for 2 farmers. Bigger than that is no more efficient. The comment was made that government policy gives no disincentive to growing larger. Personal Comments: Throughout the show, farmers and experts were saying "A farm is a business, I've got to make a profit." Lately I've been deciding that that statement is a bad policy. Farms have to balance long term and short term interests as the show pointed out. Free enterprise, for all it's strong points, provides no incentive to act on the long term interests. In addition, market forces just plain don't work right with farm products. For example, in hogs, the free market has led to boom and bust cycles that are self-feeding. The gov't wants to force all of agriculture into the same cycle. The human suffering for farmers and the cost of disruption of food supplies are incalculable. Bill Smith ihnp4!mhuxi!princeton!siemens!wws (note change in path, if you sent something via astrovax, it probably didn't make it here)
al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus) (08/02/84)
A better system than feudalism for soil conservation: How about lack of pressure to expand and resultant debt? Most farms go under after expansion, and 'the system' encourages farmers to expand as much as possible.