Wendell Berry`s 50 year farmbill.

[BA Deere]

First I heard of the man, on Bill Moyers show tonight  http://billmoyers.com/segment/wendell-berry-on-his-hopes-for-humanity/  

I`m not endorsing everything that he says.  And I imagine the young guy farming 1,000 acres looking to rent another quarter or the BTO with 10,000 acres looking to make a deal with the devil to farm 20,000 acres of continous corn won`t like what he says.  Also I`m sure Monsanto and Don Tyson aren`t too thrilled with him either.  But, if I make it to 79 yrs old as Berry, I could see myself adapting many of his ideas.  🙂

Here`s a story with a link to the 50 year farmbill   http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/the-50-year-farm-bill/265099/   I haven`t read much about it, but there would have to be some mechanism to compensate farmers to switch from row crops to more perennials and "free range animals".  Also, if farming would change as Berry recommends, barriers would have to be put up to keep cheap foreign meat flooding into the country. 

Anyway I thought it was interesting and I know "who will we pick to starve?"  🙂

[Red Steele]

I may split my operation into one that I run myself, into my dodderance years with Wendell Berry Idealism, and one that my sons farm for profit to keep the silly old man and his family going.

Like Owen Wilson said, it takes money to pay for the lap dances for the old man.

[hardnox604008]

As to who'd going to starve:

10 bushels of wheat/person/year (or equivalent, for the sake of some variety) makes a pretty decent backbone for human sustenance- 1500 calories, some protein, some vitamins and minerals. That's approximately what we grow annually, forget the rest of the grain and oilseed crops.

Throw in a few ounces of meat/dairy to make use of by-products, excess or bad grain and grass. Then some fruits and veggies and a bit of fat/oil and you're up around 2500 calories.

Extrapolate that out and we can take care of the better part of the diet for a few billion of the planet's current population. No need for anybody to starve.

[BA Deere]

The "who do we pick to starve?" statement was meant tongue-in-cheek, because that`s usually how any discussion of sustainable agriculture is shut down by the "get big or get out" crowd   😉

[BA Deere]

  At a Farm Bureau meeting we were talking about farming in Europe.  How certain countries paid their farmers to plant flowers to keep that storybook image up for the tourists and small 100 acrish (whatever hectares) drove brand new small tractors down the cobble stone roads with a hay wagon and pitchfork.  When a Farm Bureau bigshot asked a local sizeable farmer if that would fly around here.  He shook his head "Pisssush!  Around here we like big loud tractors with alot of smoke!".    At the time a WWII vet local farmer who spent time in Germany after the war, said Europe remembered starving after the war so food and sustainablity had a higher importance over there.  In this country we haven`t seen anything like that in recent generations.

I understand idealogues like Berry, to have a more family farm structure, instead of the Walmart farming model.  But, organics is set to fail, those selling the high priced organic fertilizer and input write the rules, which leads the organic farmer to mine his soil just to capture the high organic prices.

[Kay/NC]

A bigger headache for that set of producers is the Food Safety Modernization Act. Evidently, decades of fear-mongering to get people to " buy organic" has swung that pendulum too far...I had a conversation with a friend who works for the state in marketing. The headaches with that set of rules will very likely drive a lot out of the business of growing produce.

It is a true unintended consequence...by making people too fearful of foodborne health problems, they have now hyper-sensitized the USDA brain trust. The cry to exempt " small" growers makes no sense, of course, because no producer is too small to harbor a pathogen on his product.

The flip-side of every regulatory coin is, of course, legal liability for selling an " unsafe" product. Risking everything one owns for the privilege of selling some veggies or berries takes on a whole new dimension. If anything, the manure and other soil amendments utilized in organic production present more health risk, not less.

I doubt Mr. Berry has foreseen this FSMA fiasco. It is the one thing uniting conventional and organic producers, in resistance to our nanny state's overkill tactics.