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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Ranks of farm workers swell amid faltering economy

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Ranks of farm workers swell amid faltering economy
  • Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:15:59 -0700


Well, that uncle is killing himself by degrees ;-) with that tired myth
about too much work for the same amount of food. They never tire of
informing us that one person with a million dollars worth of machinery can
work a thousand acres.

Wrong. They hide all the labor that went into producing the raw materials
and transporting theem and finally manufacturing that machinery - like it
appeared by magic in their barn one night. And we won't even mention the
crushing debt for it, nor all the resource depletion and pollution
involved.

See below

paul tradingpost@lobo.net
------------------------------------------

"However, by managing more “intensively” the new farmers are able to
net far more profit from each dollar of sales. They reduce their costs of
purchased inputs through diversification, increase the value of their
products through niche markets, focus on the things that they do best, and
work together to do the things that they can’t do as well alone. As a
result, their net return per dollar of sales may be 40 to 50 percent rather
than the 15 to 20 percent for a conventional farm. Thus, the net returns
on a farm with $100,000 in annual sales may be $40,000 to $50,000 and even
a farm with $50,000 in annual sales may net $20,000 to $25,000 to support
the small farm family. The bottom line is that 10 acres, intensively
managed to produce high valued products, may generate more profits than
1,000 acres used to produce bulk agricultural commodities - corn, cattle,
wheat, cotton, etc. Many small farms make some fairly big profits."

- Farming for Profit and Quality of Life, John Ikerd, Professor Emeritus,
Agricultural Economics, University of Missouri - Columbia, MO
http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/SFTkeynote.html



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

On 2/12/2009 at 7:47 PM Liz wrote:

>Ha! This is exactly what I've been waiting to see. Last year on our
>family
>forum we had an exchange about reviving small local farms--my opinion, of
>course, was that it was essential to do so. My uncle, with the degree in
>agriculture, said it couldn't be done because of all the additional amount

>of labor that would be required to turn out the same amount of food. That
>was just about the point where the foreclosures and layoffs were really
>beginning to catch the public's attention, and I replied that I thought
>many
>of those out-of-work people would be happy to work on a farm, to have any
>job at all. Now I can say "I told you so."
>
>Liz
>http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com
>





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