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  • From: Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Retiring to a farm
  • Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:49:12 -0500


On Oct 15, 2007, at 2:48 PM, Don Bowen KI6DIU wrote:

Time Magazine has a fluff piece on people retiring to farm in this weeks
issue. It does not say much until they got around to quoting an un named
USDA official. They say hobbyists get far less yield per acre than the
lifetime pros and in times of food shortages they could further crimp the
supply. We all know yield per area with intensive techniques is far
greater than industrialized methods and that this is the UDSA supporting
those industrial farmers.

I have tried to write to Time but I have to wait for the disgust to recede.

Follow the dollars.

But . . . the total of organic farmers, CSA's, home gardeners and other small-scale producers could not under present conditions begin to feed the country in spite of higher yields of better-quality produce. Fruit, vegetable, grain and meat consumption levels are now sustained only by huge producers using massive inputs of oil-based fertilizers and expensive equipment. A transition back to small-scale farming is not going to happen unless the energy sky were to fall. About half of all Americans actually prefer to live in cities. To feed them with small-scale producers nearby would require a solid ring of gardeners. But the land immediately surrounding cities is no longer affordable for small-scale farming.

We deserve what we get even though much of what we want is due to ignorance. Most prefer things as they are. I need to often shake myself back to reality with numbers. For instance, how many Americans are really living as those on this list do or aspire to?

An agrarian society was once the ideal. For America today, it would mean going backwards.

Btw, don't trap yourself in your letter; yields possible through intensive gardening are not the norm for home gardeners. They wrote: "Hobbyists get far less yield per acre than the lifetime pros . . . ." I think that is most often true. What would be equally true is that serious small-scale producers seeking maximum yields could, acre-for-acre, out-produce the big boys. On some crops. Not sure if I would ever want to go for 200 bushel-per-acre corn.

Thanks for bringing the article to our attention, Don.





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