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.
kel@ea.UUCP (08/09/84)
#R:siemens:-23800:ea:10100078:000:2305 ea!kel Aug 8 16:46:00 1984 [hiccup] Since we have gotten onto the topic of farm management, it may be of interest to note that much of the massive agri-business phenomenon may be directly attributed to the attitudes and practices of the federal government, specifically the Department of Agriculture. DOA (sic) consistently and methodically has provided the results of their tax funded research to only the biggest farms for field testing. This is (according to Ken Meier, a South Dakota agri-businessman's son become political scientist at the University of Oklahoma) a result of a myth held within the bureaucracy that bigger farms are more efficient farms. Furthermore, DOA has focused its activities at the behest of the free market, produciing certain deleterious effects. Government research has focused on the quantity of food produced per unit of land to the exclusion of quality considerations. Case in point: The mechanical tomato harvesting system. Tomatoes, as evolved and existing in nature, are not suitable fruit for mechanical (thus high volume) harvest. They are entirely too delicate to withstand the physical abuse involved in mas harvest, i.e., handling by unfeeling (tactilely nonsensitive) mechanical fingers and the forces that result from all phases of traditional mechanical mass harvest. DOA set out, nonetheless, to create a tomato harvesting machine. (Aside: the very notion of mass harvesting of tomatoes implies a presupposition that mass harvest by machine is more efficient than hand harvest: a definitely assailable presumption.) After years and millions of dollars of research, (I can get specifics for those of you who feel they must flame) the machine was invented, and it was discovered that the thing smashed most of the tomatoes it handled (>80%). The answer: build a better tomato. As you may have guessed, if you do your own shopping, DOA did indeed make a "better" tomato: one that can stand up to the rigors of mechanical fingers, being dropped 36" into a metal bin, and having more tomatoes dropped a similar distance on top of it. This product was, however, a compromise: the tomatoes that can be picked by machine, and thus show up in your local supermarket, have approximately 50% of the nutri- tional value of the older, hand picked variety. Your tax dollars at work, Ken
mwm@ea.UUCP (08/09/84)
#R:siemens:-23800:ea:10100079:000:521 ea!mwm Aug 9 03:40:00 1984 /***** ea:net.politics / kel / 4:46 pm Aug 8, 1984 */ This is (according to Ken Meier, a South Dakota agri-businessman's son become political scientist at the University of Oklahoma) a result of a myth held within the bureaucracy that bigger farms are more efficient farms. /* ---------- */ Rather than just slinging around suggestive phrases (or playing net.politics as usual), how about some facts that demonstrate the falsity of this intuitively correct "myth"? Or do they exist only in the twilight zone? <mike