Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

I fear oil and big machines changed that a bit Dan. Small scale is still 
more productive but not necessarily more profitable. A few years ago we got 
a letter from our Dep. of ag. in the letterbox explaining that we should aim 
to expand. An example was given from a huge beef farm where a man and wife 
team rounded up 450 beef animals per week by helicopter. They made just $5 
of profit per head but that still made for a few thousand $$ per week. We 
were told we had to aim for something like that.
And indeed big farmers make small profits per head on huge numbers and the 
whole system is further geared to benefit them. For instance, we have a 
compulsory annual Tb test. A farmer with just 4 cattle will pay something 
like $160 for this or $40 per head. A man with 400 cattle will pay $300 or 
less than $1 per head.
No wonder so many small ones are squeezed out of business. However, if oil 
gets too expensive it are the big ones that will get it in the neck while 
the small farms may survive. The question is how many small farms will be 
left by then though.
John

> I found this quote in my archives:
>
> "The ambition for broad acres leads to poor farming, even with men of
> energy. I scarcely ever knew a mammoth farm to sustain itself; much less 
> to
> return a profit upon the outlay. I have more than once known a man to 
> spend
> a respectable fortune upon one; fail and leave it; and then some man of
> more modest aims, get a small fraction of the ground, and make a good
> living upon it. Mammoth farms are like tools or weapons, which are too
> heavy to be handled. Ere long they are thrown aside, at a great loss."
>
> Source: Abraham Lincoln, Sept 30, 1859, Wisconsin State Fair
>
> Dan C
> Belgium, WI
>
> On 10/9/2013 11:00 AM, livingontheland-request@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 22:06:25 -0600
> > From: tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>
> > Subject: [Livingontheland] Big Ag hurts the small farm, but which
> > grows the most food?
> > To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Message-ID: <5254D641.50806@lobo.net>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >
> >
> > Big Ag hurts the small farm, but which grows the most food?
> > http://www.nationofchange.org/big-ag-hurts-small-farm-which-grows-more-food-1381242642
> >
> > *The Land Grab*
>
>
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