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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] CORN FARMS AS HOTTEST PROPERTY

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  • From: Pego Rice <firekeeper38@yahoo.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] CORN FARMS AS HOTTEST PROPERTY
  • Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:25:16 -0800 (PST)

I think that is rather a combined point, the
scientific and the political moneys are all being
thrown down by corporations, not to mention the media
money as well. It is why we are kind of stuck sorting
through some rather patchy research sources that have
to stand up to the much glossier (big ag paid)
versions fatuously announcing the obsoletification of
the family farm. With media and scholastic sources
(paid by big businesses) telling everybody that small
farms don't pay, bank personnel, insurance providers
and the like tend to regard small farms with greater
suspicion. There are plenty of hardheaded farmers out
there who bull through the rigmarole but there is no
question that the going has gotten heavier.
Propaganda, which is what we are talking about here
with these people announcing that small farms aren't
economically feasible, affect a farmer's ability to
substantiate their reliability, that means they have
to pay extra money to get loans, get vehicles, get
insurance and any number of hidden costs, which of
course makes those fatuous predictions
self-fulfilling. This has much more to do with
politics than most people seem to think. 30 or so
years ago big business turned it’s lobbying efforts to
breaking into media ownership. Until this point, the
FCC had regulated how many could be owned by the same
business and had limited Newspapers, Radio and local
TV channels to separate ownership. It was thought and
has since been well proven, that local ownership meant
that the local media was much more responsive to local
needs. Deregulation was proposed and taken up, now
many small markets are owned by little more than one
corporation. Minority representation, balanced
viewpoints, local needs, investigative reporting for
anything but crime all but disappeared. Now people
have to become their own investigators and look up
sites like freespeech.org, newstarget.com and
ipsnews.net to get around stifled investigations, and
they are still SOL for local issues.

The politics, like you said, Mike, are yet another
component in this. Let's look at the NAIS legislation
coming up. The NAIS program literally is a solution
tailor-made to profit big Ag. It proposes to track
all critters at the owner’s cost, with additional
charges for moving any critter for breeding and the
like. This means that the smaller the flock or herd
you have the more you have to pay, proportionately,
for their upkeep. Plus you are encouraged, by fine, to
keep them in the same big business style confinement
that actually encourages disease, even the very
disease that this legislation is proposed to halt.
This is an excellent example of politics that
financially burden the small farmers more heavily than
the big. Big business already pay for over-confined
animals and the cost of drugging them to keep them
alive or destroying them when they go down, NAIS
handily pressures small farmers to take on the costs
that big business pay, on their much tighter
economies.

My whole family lived and worked on family farms 2
generations ago, one generation ago they were still
going out to assist in the harvest season for my
Grandparents. With the advent of the great combines,
and the loans to buy that machinery, most of my family
lost or sold their farms. The last aunt and uncle to
own their own farm died out 15 years ago and the farm
was sold to big Ag by cousins that just weren't up to
dealing with the problems. Sadly, had they kept up
with the hippies they would have known that going
mono-culture had been the mistake the hills on the
farm regularly provided my family with several bushels
of Morel mushrooms per year. Had that resource been
cultivated with intent it would have provided fore
several thousand extra in seasonal income. They have
always been expensive and are current running above
$50 per pound, even the family harvest that my aunt
and grandmother ambled by to get would currently take
about $700.00 to purchase at the (high end) grocery.
My Gran sure had a smug smirk on her face when she
took her morel harvest pictures. (sigh) I feel mostly
pissed.

If you care to look into "Mountain top removal" you
can see a very good example of the potent force that
big business money provides to mobilize politics,
science and media (or their selective silences) in
transferring the profound cost of big business
methodology onto everyone but themselves. If large
portions of the costs of production are borne by
locals, small business and the general public, and are
taken OFF of big business the "Economies Of Scale" are
handily, and heavily, warped in favor of big business.
It behooves not just family farmers, but all of us to
keep a weather eye open for these political
machinations.

Yours, Pego


<<I'm not looking to promote an argument, only to
point out the pressures that are being applied (and
the politics that drive them).

It's not just property prices that put pressure on
landowners, but also property taxes. If the elite
want your property they'll work to crank up the
property taxes until you say "uncle" :-( (Hmm, they
don't refer to the entity as Uncle Sam for nothing!)
Sad, but true. It's how it works in the rest of the
world. For those of us in the US we're now only
just beginning to understand what's been happening
elsewhere and what's starting to (or has been)
happening here.> -Mark Nagel>>




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