I forgot.
‘Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.’
[QUOTE=roseymare;8668625]
How can you say agriculture hasn’t researches diversity? What is methane digesters? Genetics? Nutrition. ? Feeding cattle with wasye products of the brewing industry?[/QUOTE]
Are you addressing me?
If so, then I’ll just point you in the general direction of subsidized monocropping and the various globalized industries of scale that dominate transnational markets:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production
Of course, both traditional mixed-crop farms and modern, scientifically-driven sustainable farms retain and even require biodiversity, but both of these are at odds with the single-crop, industrial model that simultaneously generates vast corporate profits and insane amounts of waste and destruction.
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668663]
Are you addressing me?
If so, then I’ll just point you in the general direction of subsidized monocropping and the various globalized industries of scale that dominate transnational markets:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production
Of course, both traditional mixed crop farms and modern, scientifically-driven sustainable farms retain and even require biodiversity, but both of these are at odds with the single-crop, industrial model that generates both vast corporate profits and insane amounts of waste and destruction.[/QUOTE]
Do you actually have any “on farm” experience or do you just regurgitate crap you found on the internet? Links to this and that DO NOT prove education or experience or KNOWLEDGE on the subject.
^ I’m a (non-ag) college professor living on a small organic farm with a few horses, some free range hens, and a bit of veg.
So what?
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668686]
^ I’m a (non-ag) college professor living on a small organic farm with a few horses, some free range hens, and a bit of veg.
So what?[/QUOTE]
Yup.
Thought so.
You are DEFINITELY AN EXPERT!
And in your book, “experts” are people actually making money in industrial production, right?
Very convenient, that. :lol:
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668708]
And in your book, “experts” are people actually making money in industrial production, right?
Very convenient, that. :lol:[/QUOTE]
Funny, my family has been farming for 5 GENERATIONS and I still have yet to find or see any “industrial production” but you can keep telling yourself that it exists so you can make yourself sound so smart and edumacated. 'Cuz the interwebs says “industrial production” exists.
Meh.
My ancestors lived in Europe for 5 THOUSAND YEARS. That doesn’t make me an expert on European investment markets.
Every citizen who buys food and pays taxes should familiarize herself with how food is produced and distributed; there’s absolutely no reason to be an “expert” to research the basic issues - which, oddly enough, you don’t seem to have done. (And why not, I wonder? Debates around “industrial” and “organic” and “sustainable” farming have appeared in the popular press for, like, 50 years.)
I think you’re taking this frothing, furious, anti-intellectual position because people on this forum usually back down when harassed. I’m not going to do that, but please feel free to knock yourself out. I honestly don’t care.
.
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668735]
My ancestors lived in Europe for 5 THOUSAND YEARS. That doesn’t make me an expert on European investment markets.[/QUOTE]
I am amazed that you can accuse other posters for making comparisons that you feel are not accurate, but your comparison is off the chart.
My family farms. Has forever and will continue for the foreseeable future. We are all also college educated (at a major ag university), most of us holding Agriculture degrees. We KNOW farming. We ARE farming and unlike you, we know the truth about farming.
But go on, I know you are an EXPERT on agriculture.
Duplicate.
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668708]
And in your book, “experts” are people actually making money in industrial production, right?
Very convenient, that. :lol:[/QUOTE]
What is even funnier is the notion that farmers make money. :lol:
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Where can you possibly have gone to school where no discussion of the differences between organic and industrial (or “chemical-intensive”) farming ever occurred?
Why on earth would you boast about being unfamiliar with a very detailed and on-going set of arguments, existing in the popular press for decades?
I’m sorry, but this whole “Aw, shucks” thing just isn’t working for me.
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668663]
Are you addressing me?
If so, then I’ll just point you in the general direction of subsidized monocropping and the various globalized industries of scale that dominate transnational markets:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/804/industrial-crop-production
Of course, both traditional mixed-crop farms and modern, scientifically-driven sustainable farms retain and even require biodiversity, but both of these are at odds with the single-crop, industrial model that simultaneously generates vast corporate profits and insane amounts of waste and destruction.[/QUOTE]
But I will ask you where is is noted that those who have produced these monocrop cultivars that are currently in vogue have suggested or even mandated that heirloom or even past cultivars be destroyed? This is what you are saying is occurring. I am saying that it is not. Scientists have been selectively breeding crops and animals for centuries and are not in favor of getting rid of diversity. Just because right now only cultivar x is being grown is no reason that in the next ten years we might go back to cultivar y. Yes it is true that you risk the loss of an entire crop if you have a monoculture BUT there is another way to look at it as well.
Take bananas. We would not have bananas at this time if it wasn’t for science and the fact that all bananas shipped to the US currently are the same plant. This has bought us over 80-100 years of bananas. There are cultivars that are not being grown industrially that have not succumbed to the fungus. It took 80 years for the fungus to mutate and infect the Cavendish. Now we can bring out those older cultivars and start the battle against the fungus anew and maybe have another 80 years of bananas. If we had continued with multiple cultivars it is possible that they all would now be susceptible to the fungus.
Roseymare,
You seem oddly convinced that I’m somehow anti-science, even though I’ve repeatedly assured you that I’m not. Nor did I ever say that “science” intentionally destroys biodiversity.
For me, the most compelling ways to understand the mechanics of globalized agriculture are economic and political (this IS my field) and that’s the point from which I’m approaching it here. (Consider, for example, the effects of NAFTA on native, drought-resistant Mexican corn varieties! Talk about scary!)
If it is the politics you are talking about than say so instead of blaming the farmer who used traditional methods.
But food IS political - just like everything else.
I don’t “blame the farmer” for the machinations of the WTO, of course, but I do expert her to be reasonably aware of the larger issues surrounding her own profession - just as I would if talking to a school teacher or a Congressman or a brain surgeon.
Don’t you?
But food IS political - just like everything else.
I don’t “blame the farmer” for the machinations of the WTO, of course, but I do expert her to be reasonably aware of the larger issues surrounding her own profession - just as I would if talking to a school teacher or a Congressman or a brain surgeon.
Don’t you?
[QUOTE=Red Barn;8668786]
Where can you possibly have gone to school where no discussion of the differences between organic and industrial (or “chemical-intensive”) farming ever occurred?[/QUOTE]
Kansas State University. And when I attended, organic was not even a blip on the radar, and definitely NOT discussed. At all. Nor was it discussed when my parents and grandparents attended. I am sure it is probably somewhere in the curriculum now. I can ask my nieces if you’d like - they are currently attending K-State.
“Chemical intensive” is definitely not a phrase that accurately describes the use of herbicides or insecticides on any of my family farms. Do you know the rate of application for those products???
For the record, like other “conventional agriculture” posters on here - I am NOT against organic. What I am against is the public being coerced into thinking that organic is the ONLY way to go, and that conventional farmers/ranchers are horrible greedy bastards who don’t give a da*n about the environment or it’s future.
I agree people should be able to “know where their food is from” but I strongly disagree that ACCURATE information on that subject can be found on the internet.
1 Like
Cow? What Cow?
^ The cow is now at Kansas State University, giving lectures on biodiversity.
Please try to keep up.
