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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: avalonfarmshomegrown AT earthlink.net, Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] good sites for direct marketers
  • Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 09:10:28 -0500

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 19:04:31 -0500, you wrote:

> Until you can define these terms please stop using them.
>The 2002 Census of Agriculture reveals that almost 99 percent
> of US farms are owned by individuals, family partnerships or
> family held corporations. About 94 percent of US ag products
>are produced on farms that are owned by individuals, family partnerships
> and family held corportations. That leaves about 6 percent produced by
>non-farmliy corporations.

Where did you get this statistic? - "About 94 percent of US
ag products are produced on farms that are owned by
individuals, family partnerships and family held
corporations."

I'd be very, very interested to see your source for this.

I could believe it if you mean the following:

---------------
Of all the types of agricultural products
grown in the USA, 94 percent of those types
are grown at family farms (etc.)

-----------------

But that's a far different meaning from either volume (as in
tons of grain or tons of beef produced) or total dollar
value of all US crops. If you meant either volume or total
dollar value, then it's a bit difficult to believe an
*unattributed* statement that 94 percent is accounted for by
family farms.

The USDA often displays some pretty fancy footwork in its
statements so that they can be literally true given one
possible interpretation, but untrue given a more obvious
interpretation (the one that most people will think of).

Now, if you would consider Archer-Daniels-Midland (or
another company their size) to be a family-held corporation
(which maybe it is, I don't actually know), then that
changes the meaning of what you are saying as well.

So could clarify your post in these respects, please?

Pat



So I could argue that, based on what some of you say and on
these numbers, that family farms are bad. Lets do away with
them.

--
ContainerSeeds.com - vegetable, herb, fruit and edible
flower seeds for successful container growing.
http://www.containerseeds.com





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