North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["loneroc" <loneroc@mwt.net>]

Phil,

I know that "farmers" buy their food at the supermarket.  I live ten miles
from the nearest town and am surrounded by "farmers".  What you refer to as
farmers I would call commodity producers:  people who know a lot about
mechanics a teensy bit about economics, and next to nothing about
agriculture or horticulture.  No one objects to a tractor here and there.  I
object to cheap subsidized grain being used to feed cheap cruelly raised
meat.

Overproduction is not caused by a surplus of farmers.  It is caused by an
agricultural system, subsidized by governments, that uses non-renewable
carbon-based fuels that are disrupting planetary weather systems as we
speak.  The entire system is subsidized, in effect, by externalizing costs
and making the rest of us pay, or mortgaging the future.  The price of grain
is cheap, but the price of Cheetohs is a bit higher.  Hmm.  I wonder where
the value added to the grain goes?

The massive cash subsidies the government provides to large corporate
agricultural entities belies the notion that the free market is the only
force operating here.  The commies (good riddance) took a long time to
remove the ideological blinders that prevented them from reaping some of the
benefits of capitalism.  Our right wing, and the left to a degree, (both
bought off by wealthy interests) have the same ideological blinders that
prevents any social progress (you've heard the accusation, "it smacks of
socialism" or, oh my God, Liberalism!).  Wars, Cold or warm, leaves their
marks on the winners as well as the losers. Heck, we're still living with
the echoes of the War Between the States.  Perhaps we can overcome some of
the ideological distortion and hogwash that 50 years of Cold War has left us
with.

For example, that free markets solve all problems.  Unfettered free markets
led to the trusts and monopolies of the robber baron era. Or Enron   The
pendulum has been swinging back in that direction for a long time.  The
other bit of post Cold War nonsense that we are still stuck with is that the
private sector is always more efficient than the government.  That's why
Medicare spends1% on overhead, instead of the 23% that for-profit health
care spends on "administrative costs". No doubt private sector efficiency is
the reason that recent private HMO "competitors" of Medicare are slated to
receive massive subsidies, or why the Medicare drug reforms prohibit the
government from negotiating for better drug prices, and the people from
taking advantage of the economies of scale that you hold up as one of
capitalism's advantages.  It's just that the powerful do their best to
protect themselves from the vagaries of the market by buying off  the
leaders.

The corporate and modern agriculture that you cite as a shining example of
economic progress and efficiency, is prime evidence that the marketplace,
unfettered, will lead us all into oblivion.

And as far as the serfs who work on these farms that surround me are
concerned; of course they don't consider themselves to be serfs.  We have an
educational system that doesn't teach half the population how to spell serf
(surf?), let alone know what one is.  The emperors of Rome learned a lesson
well.  Bread and circuses/corporate junk food and television, what's the
difference?  I didn't say that the emperors of America were stupid.

And those farmers that aren't doing so well?  I agree.  There are a lot of
them; they're merely one rung up on the food chain.  Most of the (fewer and
fewer) family farmers that survive around here are merely comfortable. Many
of them only farm part-time and have to take off-farm jobs to make ends
meet.  The profits, as I said, float to the top.

Just my opinion.

Steve Herje Lone Rock, Wisconsin USDA zone 3 (and praying for global warming
to help me out a bit with that).

----- Original Message -----
From: "philip sauber" <mrtejas@lycos.com>
To: "Bill Russell" <shaman@pennswoods.net>; "North American Fruit Explorers"
<nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 5:42 PM
Subject: [NAFEX] Corporate farms


> The myth of the small farm died in the 1930s after tractors became widely
used.  You might be suprised that the average farmer buys their food at a
supermarket like the rest of us do and doesn't have a milk cow or butcher
their own meat or can vegetables from their garden.  The small farm also
died because people weren't willing to work for subsistence any longer, they
wanted a 9 to 5 job in a factory instead.  (How you going to keep em down on
the farm?) Small farms also disappeared because of the economy of scale and
too many farmers worldwide producing too much driving food prices down with
government encouragement.
>
> In my area a refinery worker earns in excess of $70,000 per year in a good
year.  The refinery worker had to put in some overtime to make that much,
say he averaged 9 hours a day with most weekends off.  However the farmer
probably works 10-13 hours a day on average with one day a week off but
works 7 days a week in the summer busy time and 5 days a week in the winter.
Lets do some economics for a wheat farm(I worked on a dry land wheat farm
during the summers in college.)  $4 wheat at 35 bushels to the acre grosses
a farmer $140 an acre.  Lets be wildly optimistic and say the farmer had a
profit of 25% and put $35/acre in his pocket at the end of the year.  The
farmer would have to farm 2,000 acres to equal the pay of a refinery worker.
This doesn't include the years of lost crops due to rain at the wrong time,
drought,etc so lets say the farmer has to farm 2,500 acres to average out
for the bad years.  Lets see, however with the price of land many farmers
are leasing part
>   o
> f their land so they don't make $35 an acre as they have to pay rent on
the land.  So lets say the farmer has to farm 3,000 acres to make his
$70,000/year.  Well with the highprice of farmland, say the farmer owned
half his land(he inherited it) and leased the rest.  At a conservative price
of $1,500 an acre his land is worth $2.25 million dollars.  And the farmer
probably would have to have a million dollars in equipment like tractors,
combines, etc.  I guess you could call our hypothetical farmer a wealthy
industrialist millionare or corporate farmer although he would probably not
see himself as one.  He probably incorporated so the slick lawyers in town
could only sue him in a limited way.  He probably wouldn't be living the
life of Riley either and would have a pretty modest home for a being a
millionare.
>
> I wouldn't think his hired hands would consider themselves serfs either if
you asked them.  Our free enterprise system is indeed a pretty bad system
until you compare it to the alternatives where governments try without
success to force people to produce instead of letting them work in their own
best interests.  Oops, forgot that the anti-capitalists exploded into
oblivion around 1989 and are now capitalists just like us.  Oh well,
anti-capitalism persists only in our beloved universities.
>
> Just my opinion.
>
> >>
> >> I would not purchase irradiated foods in general, though.  Not because
I'm
> >> 'afeared' of the radiation, but rather that such foods are inevitably
> >> produced by industrial/non-sustainable agricultural practices.  I do
not
> >> purchase organic food because I'm afraid of 'chemicals', but because,
> >living
> >> in the country, I see how industrial agriculture has destroyed the
fabric
> >of
> >> rural life by eliminating small farms.  Organic agriculture generally
> >> requires its adherents to use a lot of human (often family) labor,
rather
> >> than relying on machinery and fossil fuel.  I believe that US
agriculture
> >> (you .know by the commercials: the most "efficient system of
agriculture
> >in
> >> the world") now uses about 80 calories of energy for every calorie of
food
> >> produced.  We might as well drink the oil and huff the natural gas!  I
> >> believe that "inefficient" third world agriculture nearly reverses
these
> >> numbers.
> >>
> >> The US now has more prison inmates than farmers.  Rather than being a
> >> Jeffersonian country of yeoman farmers, we now have a third world
pattern
> >of
> >> agricultural land ownership:  a few wealthy industrial "family" and
public
> >> corporations now pay local serfs and migrant workers minimum wage,
while
> >the
> >> folks at the top get bigger and richer---just like the rest of the US
> >> economy.  Please continue to vote for politicians who pay lip service
to
> >> God, prevention of gay marriage, and other issues of "morality" about
> >which
> >> they care not a whit, while they and their, corporate/wealthy buddies
> >> continue to siphon off most of the cream that the US produces.
> >>
> >> Just my opinion.
> >>
> >> Steve Herje, Lone Rock, WI   USDA zone 3
> >>
> >>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Bill Russell" <shaman@pennswoods.net>
> >> To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> >> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 2:58 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fruit Labels
> >>
> >>
> >> > I've heard that tomatoes are irradiated to prolong shelf life. So is
> >meat.
> >> >
> >> > Bill
> >> >
> >> > ----- Original Message -----
> >> > From: <list@ginda.us>
> >> > To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>; "Bill
> >> > Russell" <shaman@pennswoods.net>
> >> > Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 9:22 PM
> >> > Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fruit Labels
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > > I don't think any "fresh produce" can be irradiated - that would
kill
> >> > > the cells, and it wouldn't keep.
> >> > >
> >> > > On Dec 18, 2003, at 2:58 AM, Bill Russell wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > > > Is there a code # for nuclear irradiated food?
> >> > > >
> >> > > > Bill
> >> > > >
> >> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> >> > > > From: "road's end farm" <organic101@linkny.com>
> >> > > > To: "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
> >> > > > Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2003 4:19 PM
> >> > > > Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Fruit Labels
> >> > > >
> >> > > >
> >> > > >>
> >> > > >> On Tuesday, December 16, 2003, at 01:17 PM, Doreen Howard wrote:
> >> > > >>
> >> > > >>> This is from the Chef's Collaborative newsletter, and it's
handy
> >> > > >>> information
> >> > > >>> for growers, consumers and garden writers.
> >> > > >>> Doreen Howard
> >> > > >>>
> >> > > >>> A SECRET ECO-LABEL
> >> > > >>> If you find yourself with a sudden fruit craving with nary a
> >> > > >>> farmstand
> >> > > >>> in
> >> > > >>> sight, duck into a supermarket and check out those annoying
> >plastic
> >> > > >>> stickers
> >> > > >>> on the fruit. Conventional produce has a four-digit code
starting
> >> > > >>> with
> >> > > >>> the
> >> > > >>> number 4; organic produce has a five-digit code starting with
the
> >> > > >>> number 9.
> >> > > >>> Genetically modified produce also has a five-digit code, which
> >> starts
> >> > > >>> with
> >> > > >>> the number 8. Right now, papayas are the only genetically
modified
> >> > > >>> food
> >> > > >>> available in the produce section. Be aware that PLU (price
lookup)
> >> > > >>> stickers
> >> > > >>> are not mandatory and are not used in all stores.
> >> > > >>>
> >> > > >>>
> >> > > >> Are growers and wholesalers currently required to identify GMO
> >> > > >> produce?
> >> > > >> I didn't think they were; in which case, GMO's might easily be
> >going
> >> > > >> under a conventional label.
> >> > > >>
> >> > > >> There are GMO summer squash on the market, and there may be GMO
> >> > > >> contamination in corn varieties that are not supposed to be GMO.
I
> >> > > >> think
> >> > > >> the previous rounds of GMO potatoes and tomatoes were duds and
are
> >> not
> >> > > >> currently being grown, but am not sure.
> >> > > >>
> >> > > >> -- Rivka
> >> > > >>
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