permaculture

[Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>]

Laura quoted:

> *Climate and changes in the food supply*
> By Jess Halliday   
[snip]

>   *"Individual agricultural
> businesses need to be ready to seize opportunities for new crops and
> markets, and to adapt to evolving pressures."*
>   
No comment needed on that one.
> Prof Tester believes that climate change could be the decisive factor in
> great GM debate. Quite simply, he thinks consumers may not have much 
> choice
> over whether or not they eat GM foods, if they want to eat at all.
Be afraid; be very afraid (so you'll buy our product!). I don't see the 
Inuit or the !Kung resorting to GM foods, and their climates are harsher 
than the grain belt will ever be. There are enough heirloom and 
open-pollinated varieties to deal with virtually any climate conditions. 
And there are some great breeders, like Alan Kapuler, who are creating 
more for the public domain.

> Farmers, realizing there is a burgeoning
> market, divert acrage that was previously devoted to other crops like
> soybeans to corn and drive up prices of those, too.
>   
I just went to a talk by David Blume on ethanol production, and it made 
me rethink some of my assumptions. He's got good figures showing that 
farmers are not "diverting" acreage to corn. They are taking some of the 
vast acreage that they have been paid not to farm, since there has not 
been enough demand for grain, and returning it to production in corn. 
This acreage is more than enough to make up for the demand for corn 
ethanol. Corn production is up so much that the price should be 
dropping, but other factors are the true influence on corn prices: The 
oil industry, which buys 90% of all ethanol, is speculating hugely in 
the corn futures market, driving up prices; and energy costs are forcing 
farmers to charge more for all their crops. Broccoli prices are rising 
as much as corn, and I don't see them making ethanol out of broccoli.

Once again, we we're being fed the easy answers, and need to ask who and 
what are behind them.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com



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