Off farm
March 1, 2018 1:21 PM Subscribe
An economic argument that there are too many small farms, especially in commodity-crop country. "Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton are still playing tug of war with the farm economy." Doesn't mention ecological externalities, which have their own problems with retirement.
giving no suggestions whatsoever about what else they should be doing.
The WSJ article the author is responding too concerns farmers who already have other, non-farm jobs supporting them. The stat he quotes is that for these small farmers, 82% of their income is already coming from non-farm work.
large farms are getting subsidies and stripping resources that could be used to support thousands more people
If subsidies are cut, it is the large farms which will survive. If you want the government to pay people to do jobs they find fulfilling which aren't otherwise profitable, why not just go for a UBI? What's special about farmers?
posted by Diablevert at 1:48 PM on March 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
The WSJ article the author is responding too concerns farmers who already have other, non-farm jobs supporting them. The stat he quotes is that for these small farmers, 82% of their income is already coming from non-farm work.
large farms are getting subsidies and stripping resources that could be used to support thousands more people
If subsidies are cut, it is the large farms which will survive. If you want the government to pay people to do jobs they find fulfilling which aren't otherwise profitable, why not just go for a UBI? What's special about farmers?
posted by Diablevert at 1:48 PM on March 1, 2018 [6 favorites]
Farming is a job, and should not be treated with any more sentimentality than say, a spot on the auto production line is treated. To do otherwise is, fundamentally, a political act.
posted by Chrischris at 1:57 PM on March 1, 2018 [13 favorites]
posted by Chrischris at 1:57 PM on March 1, 2018 [13 favorites]
Good farming is more than just a job. Good farming improves the land over time. Managing a long term societal good is more than just a political idea it's just a plus for humanity.
posted by sammyo at 2:03 PM on March 1, 2018 [27 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 2:03 PM on March 1, 2018 [27 favorites]
Well, my rich relatives acquired the job of managing millions of dollars by selling their farmland to retail developers and keeping enough for themselves to build a family compound that has enough acreage to support racehorses. So that’s one kind of job you can get by selling land.
posted by xyzzy at 2:27 PM on March 1, 2018
posted by xyzzy at 2:27 PM on March 1, 2018
What's special about farmers?
From TFA, it's the Jeffersonian ideal/romanticized individualism blah blah blah.
Work a minimum wage job and need gov't assistance ? you're a leech on society. If you're a farmer and need gov't assistance, you're a passionate salt-of-the-earth american with dirt under your nails.
posted by k5.user at 2:34 PM on March 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
From TFA, it's the Jeffersonian ideal/romanticized individualism blah blah blah.
Work a minimum wage job and need gov't assistance ? you're a leech on society. If you're a farmer and need gov't assistance, you're a passionate salt-of-the-earth american with dirt under your nails.
posted by k5.user at 2:34 PM on March 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
sammyo: "Good farming is more than just a job. Good farming improves the land over time. Managing a long term societal good is more than just a political idea it's just a plus for humanity."
All the more reason to nationalize the farms, but barring that radicalization, why do you imagine that small farms are better at doing this than corporate farms? Certainly cronyism means that malfeasance on the part of large corporations is generally much broader impact than (say) a farmer dumping hazardous fluids on his land, but in a functioning system I'd think that it'd be easier to regulate the environment impact of well-equipped and homogeneous work fleets.
posted by TypographicalError at 2:35 PM on March 1, 2018
All the more reason to nationalize the farms, but barring that radicalization, why do you imagine that small farms are better at doing this than corporate farms? Certainly cronyism means that malfeasance on the part of large corporations is generally much broader impact than (say) a farmer dumping hazardous fluids on his land, but in a functioning system I'd think that it'd be easier to regulate the environment impact of well-equipped and homogeneous work fleets.
posted by TypographicalError at 2:35 PM on March 1, 2018
This piece is missing huge amounts of context. Yes, automation means you can do a lot more with fewer workers. But one major reason things are the way they are is the structure of crop insurance. Crop insurance has long been a way for taxpayers to hand money over to corporate megafarms, with small and medium farms getting a very small benefit. After the last farm bill, that effect was accentuated. I see farmers putting marginal land that has been woods or prairie for decades into row crops, despite the low prices, because the income they can get from either harvesting or collecting insurance is better than, for example, CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) income.
If both CRP and crop insurance were recalibrated there would be less commodity crops grown, which would raise the price and there would be more land put into CRP, which is good for the environment.
Regarding this:
If subsidies are cut, it is the large farms which will survive. If you want the government to pay people to do jobs they find fulfilling which aren't otherwise profitable, why not just go for a UBI? What's special about farmers?
Farming is a job, and should not be treated with any more sentimentality than say, a spot on the auto production line is treated. To do otherwise is, fundamentally, a political act.
I understand the sentiment but what is missing from this analysis is the externalities that we all face that can be mitigated by farmers. Farmers can do a lot to mitigate climate change. Switching from straight tillage planting to continuous living cover (cover crops on the land all year round) can actually sequester carbon. So can raising cattle in a way that mimics buffalo herds on the prairie - managed rotational grazing, especially integrated with cropping, can sequester carbon as well. Tillage releases carbon, so anything that farmers can do to stop that process is helpful.
Something like continuous living cover could be adopted by large farms, but it's not. Even though it is often shown to increase yields. A big farm is betting on Monsanto and Syngenta and the solutions they provide, like round up ready crops.
Managed rotational grazing would be harder to scale up because you have to know your fields and there is a lot of maintenance of fences and equipment that can't just be handled by machine. Feedlots are easy to scale up, assuming you can get permitted. Feedlots are known for causing air pollution and water pollution. They harm the communities in which they're located, not to mention the animals raised that way.
Small farms are better for the communities they're in because they mean the farmers know the land. Land you know well is land you can manage better. You can't get to know 2500 hundred acres. If there is a spot (and with so many acres, there will be more than one!) where your topsoil is eroding or your fertilizer and rain are running off so fast your plants hardly get to meet them, that is bad for the environment around it. Ultimately it gets into our waterways. To prevent that you have to know where those spots are.
There are management techniques that can increase yields through more traditional practices (like cover cropping thoughtfully). Big farms don't use those techniques. They solve their problems by burning gasoline and spraying chemicals. I understand that big farms could do better by the land and by the environment, but the fact is they aren't now and they never have.
posted by Emmy Rae at 2:46 PM on March 1, 2018 [27 favorites]
If both CRP and crop insurance were recalibrated there would be less commodity crops grown, which would raise the price and there would be more land put into CRP, which is good for the environment.
Regarding this:
If subsidies are cut, it is the large farms which will survive. If you want the government to pay people to do jobs they find fulfilling which aren't otherwise profitable, why not just go for a UBI? What's special about farmers?
Farming is a job, and should not be treated with any more sentimentality than say, a spot on the auto production line is treated. To do otherwise is, fundamentally, a political act.
I understand the sentiment but what is missing from this analysis is the externalities that we all face that can be mitigated by farmers. Farmers can do a lot to mitigate climate change. Switching from straight tillage planting to continuous living cover (cover crops on the land all year round) can actually sequester carbon. So can raising cattle in a way that mimics buffalo herds on the prairie - managed rotational grazing, especially integrated with cropping, can sequester carbon as well. Tillage releases carbon, so anything that farmers can do to stop that process is helpful.
Something like continuous living cover could be adopted by large farms, but it's not. Even though it is often shown to increase yields. A big farm is betting on Monsanto and Syngenta and the solutions they provide, like round up ready crops.
Managed rotational grazing would be harder to scale up because you have to know your fields and there is a lot of maintenance of fences and equipment that can't just be handled by machine. Feedlots are easy to scale up, assuming you can get permitted. Feedlots are known for causing air pollution and water pollution. They harm the communities in which they're located, not to mention the animals raised that way.
Small farms are better for the communities they're in because they mean the farmers know the land. Land you know well is land you can manage better. You can't get to know 2500 hundred acres. If there is a spot (and with so many acres, there will be more than one!) where your topsoil is eroding or your fertilizer and rain are running off so fast your plants hardly get to meet them, that is bad for the environment around it. Ultimately it gets into our waterways. To prevent that you have to know where those spots are.
There are management techniques that can increase yields through more traditional practices (like cover cropping thoughtfully). Big farms don't use those techniques. They solve their problems by burning gasoline and spraying chemicals. I understand that big farms could do better by the land and by the environment, but the fact is they aren't now and they never have.
posted by Emmy Rae at 2:46 PM on March 1, 2018 [27 favorites]
Farming is a job, and should not be treated with any more sentimentality than say, a spot on the auto production line is treated. To do otherwise is, fundamentally, a political act.
All actions (and non-actions) in these contexts are political acts. Prioritising corporatised efficiency in farming is a deeply political act with consequences for the environment, communities and individuals. It assumes capitalism as a natural law rather than human convention and I think that deserves pretty strident questioning.
posted by deadwax at 3:47 PM on March 1, 2018 [16 favorites]
All actions (and non-actions) in these contexts are political acts. Prioritising corporatised efficiency in farming is a deeply political act with consequences for the environment, communities and individuals. It assumes capitalism as a natural law rather than human convention and I think that deserves pretty strident questioning.
posted by deadwax at 3:47 PM on March 1, 2018 [16 favorites]
Small farms shouldn’t be rowcropping. We need more tomatoes, cucumbers, mixed greens and other vegetables on the market. The fact that small farmers are paying to rowcrop when there are high value crops that can be successfully farmed on as little as 3 acres is totally bonkers.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:11 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Big Al 8000 at 4:11 PM on March 1, 2018 [1 favorite]
Market gardening presumes reasonable access to markets, which can be an issue. But yes, I personally know people full time farming profitably on 1-3 acres. Jean Martin Fortier is one of the best known people doing this (erm, I'm not saying I know him personally).
posted by deadwax at 4:17 PM on March 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by deadwax at 4:17 PM on March 1, 2018 [2 favorites]
Farming is a job, and should not be treated with any more sentimentality than say, a spot on the auto production line is treated. To do otherwise is, fundamentally, a political act
You are 100% wrong and I don't even have time to go into the many reasons why. But try firing them all and replacing them with new hires and and see how that goes.
Farming is a collective cultural tradition and knowledge set that lets the human race exist at a very base level. It's the opposite of working in a plant in many ways
posted by fshgrl at 5:15 PM on March 1, 2018 [13 favorites]
You are 100% wrong and I don't even have time to go into the many reasons why. But try firing them all and replacing them with new hires and and see how that goes.
Farming is a collective cultural tradition and knowledge set that lets the human race exist at a very base level. It's the opposite of working in a plant in many ways
posted by fshgrl at 5:15 PM on March 1, 2018 [13 favorites]
Farming is a collective cultural tradition and knowledge set that lets the human race exist at a very base level.
Very much this. There are certain professions and ways of life that involve skills which are no longer particularly profitable, but which are absolutely critical to preserve. If the chain of traditional knowledge is broken in farming (and certain other skilled traditions), it will take generations to recover what is lost. For the most part, with our society structured as it is now, we may be able to get by without a large pool of people who know how to farm. But that knowledge is a safeguard against changing conditions. Climate change, war, famine, breakdowns in global or regional trade, any of these would (will) produce dramatic changes in our society and economy that could result in an awful lot of us needing to learn how to work the land again. If and when that happens, most of us will be relying on the small farmers to teach us what they know.
Subsidizing the continued existence of small farmers is a kind of insurance policy against the catastrophic breakdown of society. Maybe we'll never need them again, but given that human civilization has been built on small farming for ten thousand years, and on industrial agriculture for only about a century, it seems prudent to keep that store of knowledge available. And for a skilled profession like farming, the only way to keep it alive is to encourage it to be practiced.
posted by biogeo at 8:55 PM on March 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
Very much this. There are certain professions and ways of life that involve skills which are no longer particularly profitable, but which are absolutely critical to preserve. If the chain of traditional knowledge is broken in farming (and certain other skilled traditions), it will take generations to recover what is lost. For the most part, with our society structured as it is now, we may be able to get by without a large pool of people who know how to farm. But that knowledge is a safeguard against changing conditions. Climate change, war, famine, breakdowns in global or regional trade, any of these would (will) produce dramatic changes in our society and economy that could result in an awful lot of us needing to learn how to work the land again. If and when that happens, most of us will be relying on the small farmers to teach us what they know.
Subsidizing the continued existence of small farmers is a kind of insurance policy against the catastrophic breakdown of society. Maybe we'll never need them again, but given that human civilization has been built on small farming for ten thousand years, and on industrial agriculture for only about a century, it seems prudent to keep that store of knowledge available. And for a skilled profession like farming, the only way to keep it alive is to encourage it to be practiced.
posted by biogeo at 8:55 PM on March 1, 2018 [7 favorites]
I hate to tell you this, Emmy Rae - but no-till farming (which is, as you noted correctly, a better farming practice) very much relies on Roundup Ready etc. That's kind of the point of Roundup Ready GMO crops.
posted by twoplussix at 2:29 AM on March 2, 2018
posted by twoplussix at 2:29 AM on March 2, 2018
no-till farming ... very much relies on Roundup Ready etc.
Maybe "no-till (tm)". No till as an English language description absolutely does not rely on non-organic methods, although I suppose you can use then if you choose. It's a common shorthand in organic farming where the aim is to leave the soil biome intact, which does generally preclude pesticides.
posted by deadwax at 3:23 AM on March 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
Maybe "no-till (tm)". No till as an English language description absolutely does not rely on non-organic methods, although I suppose you can use then if you choose. It's a common shorthand in organic farming where the aim is to leave the soil biome intact, which does generally preclude pesticides.
posted by deadwax at 3:23 AM on March 2, 2018 [3 favorites]
There are management techniques that can increase yields through more traditional practices (like cover cropping thoughtfully). Big farms don't use those techniques. They solve their problems by burning gasoline and spraying chemicals.
Every region is different, but here it is the big farms (sometimes family owned, sometimes corporate or in a few cases collective, eg Mennonite) that have put the resources into best practices like no-till, riparian buffers, and so on. Smaller farms (and especially hobby operations) either don't have the resources to make those investments, or don't want to; they are the ones who are plowing to the stream edges and using the higher impact methods.
As noted already, modern no-till for large conventional farming operations relies on chemicals; at the same time, chemicals are a major cost and one of the key investments large farmers make is in GPS-enabled machinery that tracks inputs (eg fertilizer, Roundup, dessicant, irrigation, etc) and yields across every inch of ground. Farmers who haven't upgraded have no choice but to apply inputs at higher rates, since they can't easily adapt the application to micro-areas in the fields and applying too little will hurt yields.
The real ecological disasters tend to be the hobby operations, who usually have way too much livestock for their acreage and aren't running the operation like a business so neither need to limit chemical applications nor have the resources to adopt modern best practices.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:18 AM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
Every region is different, but here it is the big farms (sometimes family owned, sometimes corporate or in a few cases collective, eg Mennonite) that have put the resources into best practices like no-till, riparian buffers, and so on. Smaller farms (and especially hobby operations) either don't have the resources to make those investments, or don't want to; they are the ones who are plowing to the stream edges and using the higher impact methods.
As noted already, modern no-till for large conventional farming operations relies on chemicals; at the same time, chemicals are a major cost and one of the key investments large farmers make is in GPS-enabled machinery that tracks inputs (eg fertilizer, Roundup, dessicant, irrigation, etc) and yields across every inch of ground. Farmers who haven't upgraded have no choice but to apply inputs at higher rates, since they can't easily adapt the application to micro-areas in the fields and applying too little will hurt yields.
The real ecological disasters tend to be the hobby operations, who usually have way too much livestock for their acreage and aren't running the operation like a business so neither need to limit chemical applications nor have the resources to adopt modern best practices.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:18 AM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
I hate to tell you this, Emmy Rae - but no-till farming (which is, as you noted correctly, a better farming practice) very much relies on Roundup Ready etc. That's kind of the point of Roundup Ready GMO crops.
Yes I understand "the point" of round up ready crops. I grew up in farm country, I am active in the farming community and I am a farmer. Continuous living cover (which is what I referenced) is not necessarily the same as conventional no-till.
As noted already, modern no-till for large conventional farming operations relies on chemicals; at the same time, chemicals are a major cost and one of the key investments large farmers make is in GPS-enabled machinery that tracks inputs (eg fertilizer, Roundup, dessicant, irrigation, etc) and yields across every inch of ground. Farmers who haven't upgraded have no choice but to apply inputs at higher rates, since they can't easily adapt the application to micro-areas in the fields and applying too little will hurt yields.
This is a good point, but I think we need to dig deeper into why maximizing the big 3 crops (corn, soy, wheat) is the goal of farming. A large amount of the corn we're raising is going to feed animals being raised for meat. Instead of perfecting corn, our energy could be better spent reworking how cattle are raised and the mix of crops being grown. That's a huge change that doesn't seem to be happening on a large scale, but in my experience the people who are working toward more responsibly raising beef and pork tend to be smaller farms willing to experiment or who simply aren't willing to continue harmful practices.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:04 AM on March 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yes I understand "the point" of round up ready crops. I grew up in farm country, I am active in the farming community and I am a farmer. Continuous living cover (which is what I referenced) is not necessarily the same as conventional no-till.
As noted already, modern no-till for large conventional farming operations relies on chemicals; at the same time, chemicals are a major cost and one of the key investments large farmers make is in GPS-enabled machinery that tracks inputs (eg fertilizer, Roundup, dessicant, irrigation, etc) and yields across every inch of ground. Farmers who haven't upgraded have no choice but to apply inputs at higher rates, since they can't easily adapt the application to micro-areas in the fields and applying too little will hurt yields.
This is a good point, but I think we need to dig deeper into why maximizing the big 3 crops (corn, soy, wheat) is the goal of farming. A large amount of the corn we're raising is going to feed animals being raised for meat. Instead of perfecting corn, our energy could be better spent reworking how cattle are raised and the mix of crops being grown. That's a huge change that doesn't seem to be happening on a large scale, but in my experience the people who are working toward more responsibly raising beef and pork tend to be smaller farms willing to experiment or who simply aren't willing to continue harmful practices.
posted by Emmy Rae at 7:04 AM on March 2, 2018 [4 favorites]
Okay, I'll try to make this my last wall of text in this thread. My fundamental problem with the Big Farms Do It Better theory is that it ignores how much big farms have benefited from policies set forth in the farm bill. Payments to farmers, often through crop insurance, have disproportionately benefited megafarms. There are certainly things big farms can do better, but many of those innovations and advantages are a result of policy.
For example, we could make money available to farmers who want to transition into more sustainable practices. Transition periods are very risky which prevents many farms from being able to make a switch. The amount of money going to support green practices is absolutely minuscule when compared to the money going toward crop insurance for giant farms.
I don't want to discount the benefits and realities of automation such as those described by Dip Flash, and I also want to make sure we don't ignore the vast implications of farm policy.
Here is another thing to think about: while Monsanto et al are maximizing corn yields, there are other crops that are underdeveloped. In the apple industry we have a saying: we're not growing trees, we're growing apples. Meaning, we want the smallest tree it will take to produce our crop so that our inputs are going straight into the fruit. Corn isn't great by that standard - there are other crops that spend less energy on foliage to produce the food we harvest, and those are crops we haven't invested in heavily. We can perfect corn all across the midwest but that isn't good from a biodiversity perspective or from the perspective of people who like to eat things besides corn-based food and beef.
.....
TL,DR: Is the problem the small farmers trying to make it in this system? Or is it the system itself?
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:12 AM on March 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
For example, we could make money available to farmers who want to transition into more sustainable practices. Transition periods are very risky which prevents many farms from being able to make a switch. The amount of money going to support green practices is absolutely minuscule when compared to the money going toward crop insurance for giant farms.
I don't want to discount the benefits and realities of automation such as those described by Dip Flash, and I also want to make sure we don't ignore the vast implications of farm policy.
Here is another thing to think about: while Monsanto et al are maximizing corn yields, there are other crops that are underdeveloped. In the apple industry we have a saying: we're not growing trees, we're growing apples. Meaning, we want the smallest tree it will take to produce our crop so that our inputs are going straight into the fruit. Corn isn't great by that standard - there are other crops that spend less energy on foliage to produce the food we harvest, and those are crops we haven't invested in heavily. We can perfect corn all across the midwest but that isn't good from a biodiversity perspective or from the perspective of people who like to eat things besides corn-based food and beef.
.....
TL,DR: Is the problem the small farmers trying to make it in this system? Or is it the system itself?
posted by Emmy Rae at 8:12 AM on March 2, 2018 [6 favorites]
Good farming is more than just a job. Good farming improves the land over time. Managing a long term societal good is more than just a political idea it's just a plus for humanity.
Any job well done improves the field it affects. I'm seeing a lot of romantic ideas about why farmers are special, but but substance behind the arguments is thin because there are more assertions than arguments.
Farming is a collective cultural tradition and knowledge set that lets the human race exist at a very base level.
I dunno. Which cultural tradition? Some traditions die out because they don't measure up. Farming tradition from 100 years ago would likely be a recipe for famine today. Why do these practices change? Because farming is a business, and being a farmer is a job. The motivation to change is to be viable as a farmer. That means you are not losing money, at the very least.
Subsidizing the continued existence of small farmers is a kind of insurance policy against the catastrophic breakdown of society. Maybe we'll never need them again, but given that human civilization has been built on small farming for ten thousand years, and on industrial agriculture for only about a century, it seems prudent to keep that store of knowledge available. And for a skilled profession like farming, the only way to keep it alive is to encourage it to be practiced.
This sounds way too prepper. We need to subsidize small farms otherwise in the event of the apocalypse, we'll all starve because we'll have forgotten how? In that kind of event, I would think large scale agriculture of the most productive kind would be preferred rather than the small farmer. Maybe that depends on the apocalyptic event you're depending on.
I think we need to dig deeper into why maximizing the big 3 crops (corn, soy, wheat) is the goal of farming. A large amount of the corn we're raising is going to feed animals being raised for meat. Instead of perfecting corn, our energy could be better spent reworking how cattle are raised and the mix of crops being grown. That's a huge change that doesn't seem to be happening on a large scale, but in my experience the people who are working toward more responsibly raising beef and pork tend to be smaller farms willing to experiment or who simply aren't willing to continue harmful practices.
If it isn't happening on a large scale, it's probably because it isn't an improvement. Large farming operations are not operated by men twirling their mustaches thinking of ways to destroy the world. If there's a better way to farm, that's what they want to do, because there's more money in it. Large farming operations have great motivation to rework how they operate. They rely on agricultural research taking place at universities across the country and beyond.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:59 PM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
Any job well done improves the field it affects. I'm seeing a lot of romantic ideas about why farmers are special, but but substance behind the arguments is thin because there are more assertions than arguments.
Farming is a collective cultural tradition and knowledge set that lets the human race exist at a very base level.
I dunno. Which cultural tradition? Some traditions die out because they don't measure up. Farming tradition from 100 years ago would likely be a recipe for famine today. Why do these practices change? Because farming is a business, and being a farmer is a job. The motivation to change is to be viable as a farmer. That means you are not losing money, at the very least.
Subsidizing the continued existence of small farmers is a kind of insurance policy against the catastrophic breakdown of society. Maybe we'll never need them again, but given that human civilization has been built on small farming for ten thousand years, and on industrial agriculture for only about a century, it seems prudent to keep that store of knowledge available. And for a skilled profession like farming, the only way to keep it alive is to encourage it to be practiced.
This sounds way too prepper. We need to subsidize small farms otherwise in the event of the apocalypse, we'll all starve because we'll have forgotten how? In that kind of event, I would think large scale agriculture of the most productive kind would be preferred rather than the small farmer. Maybe that depends on the apocalyptic event you're depending on.
I think we need to dig deeper into why maximizing the big 3 crops (corn, soy, wheat) is the goal of farming. A large amount of the corn we're raising is going to feed animals being raised for meat. Instead of perfecting corn, our energy could be better spent reworking how cattle are raised and the mix of crops being grown. That's a huge change that doesn't seem to be happening on a large scale, but in my experience the people who are working toward more responsibly raising beef and pork tend to be smaller farms willing to experiment or who simply aren't willing to continue harmful practices.
If it isn't happening on a large scale, it's probably because it isn't an improvement. Large farming operations are not operated by men twirling their mustaches thinking of ways to destroy the world. If there's a better way to farm, that's what they want to do, because there's more money in it. Large farming operations have great motivation to rework how they operate. They rely on agricultural research taking place at universities across the country and beyond.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:59 PM on March 2, 2018 [2 favorites]
If there's a better way to farm, that's what they want to do, because there's more money in it.
No doubt this describes the motivation of many large scale farmers. The interesting question though is why there's more money in it, and I'm not sure you can or should make the leap that more money = "better".
posted by deadwax at 10:02 PM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
No doubt this describes the motivation of many large scale farmers. The interesting question though is why there's more money in it, and I'm not sure you can or should make the leap that more money = "better".
posted by deadwax at 10:02 PM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]
The interesting question though is why there's more money in it, and I'm not sure you can or should make the leap that more money = "better".
The interesting question is why one would make the leap that more money = "not better".
Farming practices of today have often changed from a century ago, which have changed from the century before, and so on, because the old practices are not sustainable. One hint that they are not sustainable: they don't make enough money. In the short term and/or long term. If a farm makes incredible profits for five years fertilizing with mine tailings, lead dust, and medical waste, and has barren land in ten, do you think the farmer will continue doing what he's been doing?
Organic farming is sometimes justifiably criticized for being less productive. This would often be unsustainable for a farm. However, organic produce can usually be sold at a premium, keeping the farming operation viable. All while serving a market.
The problem is asserting a one-size-fits-all solution to farming must be the goal. Corporate is king/small farm or GTFO absolutism isn't productive or realistic.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:05 AM on March 4, 2018
The interesting question is why one would make the leap that more money = "not better".
Farming practices of today have often changed from a century ago, which have changed from the century before, and so on, because the old practices are not sustainable. One hint that they are not sustainable: they don't make enough money. In the short term and/or long term. If a farm makes incredible profits for five years fertilizing with mine tailings, lead dust, and medical waste, and has barren land in ten, do you think the farmer will continue doing what he's been doing?
Organic farming is sometimes justifiably criticized for being less productive. This would often be unsustainable for a farm. However, organic produce can usually be sold at a premium, keeping the farming operation viable. All while serving a market.
The problem is asserting a one-size-fits-all solution to farming must be the goal. Corporate is king/small farm or GTFO absolutism isn't productive or realistic.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:05 AM on March 4, 2018
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