Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Emery Mitchamore <emitch@att.net>]

In recent discussions about new national budgets, I got to wondering about agricultural (and other corporate) subsidies.  Strikes me that a lot of progress, in many areas, could be made by eliminating those subsidies, such as are paid to grow that excess corn and soy.

On Apr 22, 2009, at 3:21 PM, Tradingpost wrote:

Here's a reply I made to another list:
paul tradingpost@lobo.net
----------

But 2% or 5% producing and the rest consuming is what's wrong now. It
requires centralized distribution and that means midddlemen and mega
corporations controlling the supply and the prices as well as farmers
costs. A classic lose-lose system for us. We're trying to reduce dieoff in
terms of food security, not aggravate it.  

Actually that answer at the link (Chosen by Voters):
"A figure I saw is that about 2 percent of the population in the US are
farmers and produce about 2 percent of national income. This however, is
still enough to feed (in my case, overfeed) the other 98 percent and still
have a lot left over for export. US agriculture is the wonder of the world.
No other country can match it for productivity and efficiency. In some
developing countries, 80 percent or more of the people work in agriculture.
They can barely feed themselves much less produce a surplus to feed the
other 20 percent."

was chosen by uninformed "voters".

For one thing, the U.S. is now a net IMporter of food, not a net EXporter.
It's odd to claim we're so much more productive than the rest of the world
(the myth of American exceptionalism) when so much of third world countries
are exporting grains and beef to the U.S. and Europe for trade income to
repay IMF debt, and transnational corporations there are ripping off the
workers who can't afford the food they produce for export. Frances Moore
Lappe documented this years ago and it's only gotten worse. It's a rigged
system to our advantage. That's why some countries can't feed themselves
adequately, and the rest are impoverished by proxy wars over resources like
tantalum in the Congo, needed for our cell phones. And dieoff has been
happening in some of Africa and SE Asia for decades. As global trade
continues to break down (Baltic Dry Shipping Index) it'll be on our
doorstep.

A last note: most farmers don't grow any of their own food and don't know
how. They buy groceries like most everybody else. Grains, corn, beef, soy,
etc. is what they do, and all they can do with it is sell to the middleman
at his price.

Thoughts? Disagreements?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net



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

On 4/22/2009 at 7:16 PM emy8rq wrote:

--- In the_dieoff_QA@yahoogroups.com, "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@...>

wrote:

Just a point about that 5% producing our food. We've heard it

How about 2%?

<http://ph.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070702060921AALGoI5>

The other 3% can put it in bins and deliver it to each neighborhood.

Jay

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E. E. "Mitch"  Mitchamore

www.hillcountrynatives.biz