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Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

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Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#61

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

escherplex wrote: post #54
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #42

“We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.” This. I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's…

what happens if we encounter this generation's version of potato blight on corn or wheat Out of curiosity, how would you rate the quality of the soil in today's agribusiness farmlands? Seems food production now involves clones fed on ammonium nitrate derived from natural gas and mined potash. This suggests the crops of today are being raised on junk food.

Exactly, we are eating oil and gas. Once the spigot slows down, things get ugly real fast. This is going to make the great depression and ww2 look small in comparison. Buckle your seat belt, and grow unusual edible species. I don't even eat grains, humans aren't equipped to eat that.

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#62

Post by HIPisTheAnswer »

shoo wrote: post #50
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #42

“We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.” This. I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's…

This is interesting, thank you for sharing. Is the main problem simply the reduced price of output (due to competition with large scale industrial agriculture), rather than other factors (such as potential increased costs of inputs, degraded soil quality, access to water). > We've wrung all of the redundancy, both financial and biodiversity, out of the system. I have similar concerns, not just about farming but other…

> I wouldn't worry about this one -- unless foreign investors have a means to enforce physical security of their ownership claims, there's always the option of the government with control over the physical assets to expropriate them

That isn't a good scenario. Foreign? There were no white men in america, no black men either, so everyone is a foreigner, and the natives should expropriate them all? Dangerous ideas. That's how a war turns into a nightmare.

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#63

Post by celias »

ewams wrote: post #2

"A gallon of milk costs a farmer approximately $1.90 to produce, but in the last year, farmers have been receiving as little as $1.35 per gallon." If it cost more to make it than they are getting, why are milk prices not higher?

Planet money did a piece the "government cheese" program during the Carter and Reagan administrations that was supposed to help dairy farmers

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/31/643486297/epis...

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#64

Post by GlenTheMachine »

escherplex wrote: post #54
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #42

“We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.” This. I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's…

what happens if we encounter this generation's version of potato blight on corn or wheat Out of curiosity, how would you rate the quality of the soil in today's agribusiness farmlands? Seems food production now involves clones fed on ammonium nitrate derived from natural gas and mined potash. This suggests the crops of today are being raised on junk food.

On the one hand, I can't really comment specifically on the soil quality. I don't have first hand scientific knowledge.

On the other hand, it's certainly true that these producers are not implementing anything like a closed-loop nutrient plan. They're absolutely trucking in fertilizer from somewhere else to keep yields high. And they're producing monocultures, enforced with chemical pesticides and herbicides, to keep expenses low. Neither of those things strikes me as good in any possible way other than cost efficiency.

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#65

Post by nitwit005 »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #42

“We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.” This. I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's…

Quite a bit of US food production is going to produce animal feed, and some is exported. It'd take an amazing blow to cause actual starvation, given that could be diverted to feeding the population.

The main threat to agriculture in time of war used to be dependence on foreign oil, but the US has largely solved that.

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#66

Post by GlenTheMachine »

bsder wrote: post #57
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #42

“We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.” This. I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's…

> He raises specialty row crops and runs an agricultural co-op, the kind where you pay a certain amount a month and get a box of fresh vegetables every week. But hobby farmers can't feed the country. We can't even feed ourselves, if it comes to that. Is this actually true that small farmers can't feed the country? Farming productivity even on small farms is at an all time high. It's probably higher than the 1970's. G…

I have just a few acres. I've actually done this math. If the End of the World came, I could probably just about feed my family on my land. I could put in two acres of corn, an acre of vegetables, and keep a few of my sheep for the occasional Sunday dinner with meat. We have sime chickens in the back yard which are self sustaining during the summer but have to be fed corn in the winter. The sheep would need corn and hay in the winter as well. It wouldn't be a pretty existence but we might survive.

But I'm surrounded on all sides by other families. There are 13 people in addition to my family of four within shouting distance of my back door. They aren't farmers. Some of their land is theoretically arable, if they knew how to do it and had the equipment, which they don't, and if they had already improved their soil to make it amenable to subsistence farming, which they haven't.

Small farmers could have fed the country fifty years ago, when there were a lot more of us and when many more people who weren't farmers nevertheless substantially supplemented their diets with family gardens. But there are far fewer farmers and far more people to feed now.

It could be done - it has been done in the past - but we are heading in the opposite direction and have been for several decades.

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#67

Post by r00fus »

nitwit005 wrote: post #65
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #42

“We’re heading to a place where we don’t have farmers; we just have food production.” This. I don't know what the solution to this is. I have a small farm, and raise meat sheep. But it's very much a hobby. The problem is, though, that almost all of the other farmers in my area, the ones I meet at the feed store or the livestock auction, they're also hobby farmers. There is exactly one “real” farmer (meaning that it's…

Quite a bit of US food production is going to produce animal feed, and some is exported. It'd take an amazing blow to cause actual starvation, given that could be diverted to feeding the population. The main threat to agriculture in time of war used to be dependence on foreign oil, but the US has largely solved that.

How has the US "solved" foreign oil dependence?

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#68

Post by shard972 »

r00fus wrote: post #67
nitwit005 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit of US food production is going to produce animal feed, and some is exported. It'd take an amazing blow to cause actual starvation, given that could be diverted to feeding the population. The main threat to agriculture in time of war used to be dependence on foreign oil, but the US has largely solved that.

How has the US "solved" foreign oil dependence?

By becoming the largest oil producer.

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#69

Post by brycelark »

r00fus wrote: post #67
nitwit005 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit of US food production is going to produce animal feed, and some is exported. It'd take an amazing blow to cause actual starvation, given that could be diverted to feeding the population. The main threat to agriculture in time of war used to be dependence on foreign oil, but the US has largely solved that.

How has the US "solved" foreign oil dependence?

https://www.energy.gov/articles/us-becomes-world-s-largest-c...

Re: Is the Second Farm Crisis Upon Us?

#70

Post by toasterlovin »

r00fus wrote: post #67
nitwit005 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a bit of US food production is going to produce animal feed, and some is exported. It'd take an amazing blow to cause actual starvation, given that could be diverted to feeding the population. The main threat to agriculture in time of war used to be dependence on foreign oil, but the US has largely solved that.

How has the US "solved" foreign oil dependence?

By producing more oil domestically than we use.
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