Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

Glad that sparked some debate. Naturally I can't agree 100% myself with
everything I need to pass on. That said, animal prices are rising, and feed
prices are a direct cause. As you said, "The amount of land is not as
important as what corn growing DOES TO the land", and I'd agree. However,
land that grew other food crops is being diverted to corn and that cuts the
quantity and raises the price of those other crops.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 9/21/2007 at 2:23 PM Dan Conine wrote:

>>
>> The misguided politics of corn ethanol
>> Published: September 19, 2007
>>  http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/19/news/edethanol.php
>>
>>
>> Backed by the White House, corn-state governors and solid blocks on both
>> sides of Congress' partisan divide, the politics of biofuels could
hardly
>> look sunnier. The economics of the American drive to increase ethanol in
>> the energy supply are more discouraging.
>>   
>> The distortions in agricultural production are startling. Corn prices
are
>> up about 50 percent from last year, while soybean prices are projected
to
>> rise up to 30 percent in the coming year, as farmers have replaced soy
>with
>> corn in their fields. The increasing cost of animal feed is raising the
>> prices of dairy and poultry products.
>>   
>This is misleading. The price of animal products doesn't rise until 
>farmers stop producing animals because of high costs of corn. The 
>increase in animal products prices right now is mostly due to the 
>distorted low prices we had in the past, and the fact that the 
>processors finally figured out that the cost of processing was going up 
>due to high oil prices and trucking costs, so they raised the price of 
>consumer items. The money we are throwing at China has created increased 
>demand for meats and other high energy products.
>This article makes the implication that farmers have some choice about 
>the prices they get for animal products. We haven't seen nuthin' yet.
>
>> The economics of corn ethanol have never made much sense. Rather than
>> importing cheap Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, the United
States
>> slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on ethanol from Brazil. Then the
>> government provides a tax break of 51 cents a gallon to American ethanol
>> producers - on top of the generous subsidies that corn growers already
>> receive under the farm program.
>>   
>Another misleading and disconnected piece of writing. First, the 
>solution to the energy demand problem is to conserve, not to buy 
>Brazilian ethanol. Second, the corn growers don't get subsidies if the 
>price of corn is above a certain level. High corn prices eliminate 
>subsidies.
>
>> Corn-based ethanol also requires a lot of land. An OECD report two years
>> ago suggested that replacing 10 percent of America's motor fuel with
>> biofuels would require about a third of the total cropland devoted to
>> cereals, oilseeds and sugar crops.
>>   
>The amount of land is not as important as what corn growing DOES TO the 
>land. Depletion of organic matter, contamination with pesticides, 
>monoculture problems with weed timing and the encouragement of mergers 
>and acquisitions that take people away from the land and put bigger 
>machines on the land.
>> Meanwhile, the environmental benefits are modest. A study published last
>> year by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated
>> that after accounting for the energy used to grow the corn and turn it
>into
>> ethanol, corn ethanol lowers emissions of greenhouse gases by only 13
>percent.
>>   
>Again, the environmental issue shouldn't be to compare corn ethanol to 
>sugar cane ethanol or to petroleum, but to compare the emissions of 
>wasteful behaviors to conservative behaviors and frugal behaviors. Most 
>of the demand for fuel is for people doing things they don't really need 
>to do, such as drive individual cars to jobs that do nothing for the 
>future of the world. Better to take the money spent on ethanol subsidies 
>and pay people to stay home from their advertising jobs, just as the 
>government used to pay farmers not to grow corn. We have an excess of 
>advertising, so where are the economists to tell us that we should 'weed 
>out' the weak advertisers?
>> The United States will not meet the dual challenges of reducing global
>> warming and its dependence on foreign suppliers of energy until it
>manages
>> to reduce energy consumption. That should be its main goal.
>>   
>This should have been the first paragraph of the article; conservation 
>shouldn't be the 'afterthought'.
>> What's wrong is letting politics - the kind that leads to unnecessary
>> subsidies, the invasion of natural landscapes best left alone and
soaring
>> food prices that hurt the poor - rather than sound science and sound
>> economics drive America's energy policy.
>>   
>Another mistaken thought. Soaring food prices only hurt the dependent 
>poor. They do wonders for the rural poor who grow food. They could do 
>wonders for the urban poor that grow food, also. 
>(http://www.growingpower.org) Cheap food has destroyed our rural middle 
>class that added value to products of the family lands.
>"Sound Economics" are local economics; putting producers and consumers 
>together without processors and middlemen and government agencies to 
>loan money for farm expansions and  factory buildings and giant manure 
>pits. "Sound Economics" are when a person can live on the value of their 
>labors, without massive Systems of Systems to inflate monetary prices 
>and denigrate their work by replacing people with unnecessary machinery 
>or bureaucracy, all in the false names of Profit and Oversight.
>
>Dan
>