Ask small-scale, sustainable-minded farmers where they go for tips, and invariably they'll mention ATTRA, an information clearinghouse funded by the USDA.
Just this morning, I went to attra.org to get information on how to make organic potting-soil mix for starting seeds. Like many farmers, I've printed out copies of ATTRA's indispensable guides to cover crops and soil management and keep them in a prominent place in the farm office.
As a new farmer, I can't imagine a world without ATTRA, which stands for Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas. That's why my blood began to boil this morning when I found out that the Senate had voted to defund ATTRA's ultra-modest $2.5 million annual budget.
This defies belief. To save $2.5 million, they figure they'll wipe out the most important information source for small-scale farmers?
Let me think of a couple of ways to put this in context. The first is an obvious but necessary exercise: In Iraq, we're blowing at least $200 million per day. So the Senate, which doesn't have the balls to challenge Bush on war funding, is eliminating ATTRA to save the equivalent of about an hour's worth of mayhem in Iraq.
Second, the USDA's annual R&D budget stands at about $2.4 billion. Almost all of that cash flows into research for chemically dependent, environmentally ruinous ag projects. In that context, eliminating the scraps tossed to sustainable/organic ag is particularly galling.
Here is the action alert that's been circulating on the Internet:
Last week, the Senate passed the "Continuing Resolution," which makes permanent funding decisions for the fiscal year already underway (Fiscal Year 2007), which wasn't completed before the last Congress ended. Distressingly, this resolution would IMMEDIATELY eliminate funding for a program crucial to sustainable agriculture! The Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas (ATTRA) program is a highly rated national information service that answers practical questions from farmers and others across the US who call its 1-800 telephone number, print publications from its website, or attend its workshops. Congressman Boozman (R-AR) is circulating a sign-on letter to USDA to fund ATTRA's modest $2.5 million. It's crucial that you call, today if possible, and ask your House member to sign onto that letter. NOW is the time to ask them to sign on, as Congressman Boozman will take this message to USDA early the week of February 26. Senators are also sending individual letters to USDA with the same message. It's easy to call (and your call has a big impact). Please call the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the office of your representative and your two senators (this means three very quick calls). Ask to speak to the staffer handling appropriations. If he or she is unavailable, leave a message with your name, phone number and the quick message below.
The message is simple. For your representative: Please ask Congressman/woman _______ to sign onto Congressman Boozman's letter asking USDA to restore full 2007 funding to the ATTRA sustainable agriculture information service. (Tell the staffer for your Representative that they can contact Maggie Lemmerman at (202) 225-4301 in Mr. Boozman's office to sign onto the letter.) ATTRA is a national valuable source of information to farmers across the US about how to farm using sustainable practices, and it shouldn't be cut.
For your senators: Please ask Senator _______ to send a letter asking USDA to restore full funding to the ATTRA sustainable agriculture information service. (Tell the staffer for your Senator that John Lewis in Senator Baucus' office (202) 224-2651 can provide information on the wording of the letter that Senator Baucus sent if that's helpful.) ATTRA is a national valuable source of information to farmers across the US about how to farm using sustainable practices, and it shouldn't be cut.
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Comments
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d41295 Posted 4:16 am
21 Feb 2007
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Tom Philpott Posted 4:43 am
21 Feb 2007
Victual Reality
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Jason D Scorse Posted 5:12 am
21 Feb 2007
That being said, if this program does actually get cut there would be nothing stopping farmers from paying a small fee to subscribe to just such a service.
J.S.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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d41295 Posted 5:14 am
21 Feb 2007
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d41295 Posted 5:17 am
21 Feb 2007
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atreyger Posted 5:45 am
21 Feb 2007
And quickly to the troll: Unless your business is an R&D start-up attempting to produce high-quality machinery, and worth about 3 million dollars at its inception, you are utilizing other people's ideas and money put into R&D (even under that hypothetical, you're still probably using it). Much of that R&D has been supported by the government in grants (and in some cases in very sweet ways) or actual R&D. Small farmers are not in the business of research, they shouldn't have to pay for it.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 5:58 am
21 Feb 2007
this one seems about as reasonable as they get and actually there are some sound economic arguments for the government subsidizing information provision- positive externalities.
The Government spends much more than $2.5 million a year on R&D, so it makes sense for the government to spend some money making that knowledge accessible to the general public.
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d41295 Posted 5:58 am
21 Feb 2007
No one pays anything to subsidize my business. I see no reason why I should to pay anything to subsidize Tom Philpott's. He should pay his own business expenses.
And I am not a troll, you pathetic liberal. I am someone who disagrees with you. Very telling that you can't accept that at face value, but must find an ulterior motive. Says a lot about your intellectual honesty.
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David Roberts Posted 6:07 am
21 Feb 2007
www.grist.org
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LeadByExample Posted 6:14 am
21 Feb 2007
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Gar Lipow Posted 6:22 am
21 Feb 2007
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d41295 Posted 6:45 am
21 Feb 2007
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atreyger Posted 6:46 am
21 Feb 2007
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d41295 Posted 6:47 am
21 Feb 2007
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Biodiversivist Posted 6:59 am
21 Feb 2007
No need to call him a troll just because he has a chip on his shoulder, dislikes "liberals" and rarely gives much thought to what he says. Sounds more like a conservative than a troll to me, to play the stereotype labeling game.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Bart Anderson Posted 7:11 am
21 Feb 2007
As an example of an intelligent person who argues for markets, we have Jason Scorse. I often disagree with Jason, but he is thoughtful and able to change his mind when presented with evidence. He is a plus to the community, d41295 is not.
About ATTRA, Tom is absolutely right. It is a national treasure and should be expanded, not banned.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:13 am
21 Feb 2007
So, I take it then that your business uses no electricity, no natural gas, no gasoline, no municipal water, nor sewer services.
What is it you do again?
All of these things are subsidized, at one level or another, in our society. Those things that aren't directly subsidized by the government with cash are subsidized by everyone who has to live with the externalities of your consumption of resources. For the same reason that it is impossible to participate in society without causing ecological harm, it is also impossible to participate without taking subsidies right, left, and center.
I am fundamentally libertarian (though I have serious problems with the Libertarian canon, for reasons that d4 exemplifies nearly every time he posts). But the reality is that our society, our culture, and most of all our industry is built on an enormous pile of subsidies, monetary and otherwise. And the standard-issue Libertarian "just eliminate all subsidies" is impractical to the point of utter absurdity.
Just to take one example, let's say we eliminated all subsidies to the generation of electricity (including the environmental externalities that currently have no price attached to them) tomorrow. Or, gasoline, let's say. The result would be an immediate price spike of probably at least two orders of magnitude, and an economic collapse to rival anything in Kunstler's most fevered imaginings.
Subsidies are here to stay, for the time being at least. The largest subsidies, by far, are given to the extractive industries. In that context, bitching about a tiny subsidy to provide information to a group of people who are actually making the world a better place and making a living while doing minimal damage to the planet, is beyond goofy.
dr1295, you are a troll.
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atreyger Posted 7:21 am
21 Feb 2007
Obviously, there are major organizational issues: what about the R&D that is now mostly done by the gov't for the public benefit (at least supposedly)? However, supposing we do away with subsidies to oil companies: the price of gas would go up, but we should have more money to pay for it and so on and so on.
I guess, fairness becomes an issue for the poor, which I am currently.
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d41295 Posted 7:27 am
21 Feb 2007
Why can't Tom Philpott raise his prices in order to cover the cost of him having to go out and look for information? Why is it such a burden that he should have to do so?
No one is subsidizing my business, I see no reason why I should have to subsidize his.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:28 am
21 Feb 2007
Yes, as you say, if done gradually, we could eliminate both subsidies and taxes and wind up with a world that was both much more fair and much healthier.
However, as with any adaptive process, rate of change is the key. An instantaneous transition would, as I said, crash the economy. A rapid but non-instantaneous transition might allow businesses to adapt, but it would really screw over the poor. We're all firmly tied up in a fossil-fuel dependent infrastructure; if the price of fossil fuels goes up much faster than the infrastructure adapts, then the people with the fewest resources wind up being hurt the worst.
This is the catch-22 of increasing the cost of destructive environmental practices of all sorts. By the time the price gets high enough to change the behavior of the upper class, who's purchasing decisions drive infrastructure and R&D, the lower class has been priced out of the market. When the market in question is for gasoline, or heating fuel, or food (i.e. corn), this is a problem.
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Jason D Scorse Posted 7:33 am
21 Feb 2007
We need good rationales for distinguishing between what are good and bad subsidies and economics is the only discipline that has a coherent, defensible, and scientific basis for this undertaking.
I think I'll have to write a post on this when some time frees up. In the meantime, check out this article on "perverse subsidies", which are the worst of the worst.
http://www.brocku.ca/envi/db/envi1p90/readings/Perverse%2 ...
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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atreyger Posted 7:40 am
21 Feb 2007
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:47 am
21 Feb 2007
Sure they are. Tell that to folks living near coal-fired power plants. Did you know that the childhood asthma rate in West Oakland (the industrial zone) is six times the national average? Six times is not a wash.
Why can't Tom Philpott raise his prices in order to cover the cost of him having to go out and look for information? Why is it such a burden that he should have to do so?
Because he has to compete with a food system based on mass production of corn, which is subsidized both directly, financially, and indirectly. (And don't tell me the externalities of corn monoculture are "a wash". I don't live downstream from those farms. But someone does.)
No one is subsidizing my business, I see no reason why I should have to subsidize his.
Ah, hooey! You completely ignored the fact that all the natural resources you utilize (directly or indirectly) are subsidized financially, as well as by the permission of externalities.
Deal with it, d4. Your hands are no cleaner than mine. Philosophical purity is nice, but it's not available in the world we currently live in.
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d41295 Posted 7:48 am
21 Feb 2007
It deals with words.
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d41295 Posted 7:52 am
21 Feb 2007
>> reason why I should have to subsidize his.
> Ah, hooey! You completely ignored the fact that
> all the natural resources you utilize (directly or > indirectly) are subsidized financially
Not me. I pay fair market price for all the resources I use, to the best of my ability. No one subsidizes my business (words), and I see no reason why I should subsidize Tom Philpott's. If he needs information in order to run his business, he can pay for that information himself and add the cost to his prices.
Besides, all subsidies are wrong and immoral. The fact that some people get them is not an argument that even more people should get them. It's an argument that the people who do get them should not get them.
Please try to keep your thinking clear.
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atreyger Posted 8:02 am
21 Feb 2007
a) write
b) etymology
c) get paid for bulk e-mails
What do you do with words?
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GreenEngineer Posted 8:31 am
21 Feb 2007
As you should well understand, the "market price" in a subsidized market does not reflect the true cost. The greater the subsidy, the greater the discrepancy. If you're spending less than $5-10 per gallon of gas, you're partaking of the subsidy.
Again, my thinking is quite clear. And my eyes are open. What my eyes tell me is that I have a choice. I can be a philosophically pure hermit, and have no impact on my culture. Or I can participate in my culture, try to make a difference, and accept my portion of the responsibility for the travesties that we wreak on a daily basis.
You have blood on your hands, just as we all do. So much so that your talk about the moral wrongness of subsidies wrong hollow and false. If you really are a Libertarian (and you sure sound like one), what about the moral wrongness of this?
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d41295 Posted 8:42 am
21 Feb 2007
> Did you know that the childhood asthma rate
> in West Oakland (the industrial zone) is six
> times the national average? Six times is not a
> wash.
Then these people should move. If they can't afford to move, they should work two jobs -- three even -- in order to afford to move. It will be to their benefit.
Life isn't fair, is it? It never was. It never will be. Take some initiative.
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atreyger Posted 8:55 am
21 Feb 2007
Yep, you sold me d... What the hell do you for a living, still haven't answered me?
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:41 am
21 Feb 2007
Maybe he writes for Reason or the Cato Institute. More likely Reason, given the quality of his reasoning and his writing.
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GreenEngineer Posted 10:51 am
21 Feb 2007
Why should they have to move, just so that you can enjoy cheap electricity and consumer goods? You're benefiting from the externalities that are hurting these people. Saying that they need to take responsibility for improving their situation does not relieve you of the moral responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
Life isn't fair, is it? It never was. It never will be. Take some initiative.
Of course not. Bad things happen to innocent people all the time, due to circumstances beyond any human control. That will never change.
But that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is bad things that happen to people because of the actions of other people, actions which are taken to benefit the likes of you, D4. And that's something we can change. Even more, it is something that we are morally obligated to try to change, because we do not have the right to make other people pay the price for our lifestyle.
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:11 pm
21 Feb 2007
I also suspect that you're 14, or thereabouts. That was the age I was when I was haunting the boards (dial-up BBS's) with Randroid ideology.
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ccdangelo Posted 3:33 pm
21 Feb 2007
ATTRA should be maintained. If nothing else, the government could provide some of the funding, and the site could be maintained through fundraising, volunteers and/or cutting corners. In today age, losing the 1-800 number probably wouldn't be too bad.
But remember, small farmers should be supported by every greenie. Small farmers who provide local, fresh, sustainably grown produce to their communities help foster community involvement in green issues and an inter-connectedness that is largely lost in today's globalized, mega-conglomerate world. Small farms conserve rural and urban land and are fun, to boot.
Business it may be, but small farms really don't make too much profit.. Hence why small farms are being lost at an astonishing rate.
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d41295 Posted 11:53 pm
21 Feb 2007
> that you can enjoy cheap electricity and consumer > goods?
Because it is far, far easier to change their personal circumstances than it is to fight city hall. They can spend the rest of their life trying to get rid of a power plant, endlessly fighting bureaucracies and powerful interests, or they can save up some money and move and start over someplace else. It is not that hard to move--millions of people do it ever year. Moving is the path of least resistance, and their quickest, easiest route to a better life.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:15 am
22 Feb 2007
This feller is a great anti-spokesman for the cause.
Freedom of speech is golden, our constitution is amazing. What if "Drug" Limbaugh was on foxnews daily? Come on Aylesworth and Murdoch make a deal for "Drug".
You offered OJ a nice deal, why not "Drug"? I got it, a Drudge, "Drug" hour. Finally, fair and balanced infotainment at its zenith!!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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d41295 Posted 3:01 am
22 Feb 2007
> I also suspect that you're 14, or
> thereabouts. That was the age I was
> when I was haunting the boards
> (dial-up BBS's) with Randroid ideology.
It is very interesting, and telling, how many people here resort to insults and ad hominem attacks when their ideas are challenged. That does not speak well for your own convictions, or for you confidence in them.
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d41295 Posted 3:03 am
22 Feb 2007
> Great argument which has been with
> the conservatives for a long time: it's
> the poor's fault for being poor.
It is irrelevant whose fault it is. The reality is, no one is going to come and rescue this hypothetical family--not you, not society, and not the government--so they must do it for themselves. It is the only way their lives will get better.
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d41295 Posted 3:08 am
22 Feb 2007
> to make a difference, and accept my
> portion of the responsibility for the
> travesties that we wreak on a daily basis.
Life is short. You can bang your head against the wall if you want, but I'm perfectly willing to pay 10% extra for green power and get on to more important things, like my family and my work.
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d41295 Posted 3:10 am
22 Feb 2007
> that you can enjoy cheap electricity....
Not me. I pay 10% extra for 100% green power. My power company just recently sent me a letter saying that last year I saved 6300 lbs of CO2 by purchasing green power.
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atreyger Posted 3:13 am
22 Feb 2007
Why don't you get three jobs, and please provide some proof that you did, and then maybe we'll talk.
Plus: these people don't know or at least wouldn't know about their plight (in Oakland) unless it was due to government-subsidized research and due to government-subsidized information dissemination.
Please, please, please, tell us what the f^(k you do! I would love to hear it. Plus, that 14 remark by GEng was not an insult, and if you took it as such, maybe you either really are, or are so unconfident in yourself that you would perceive it as such.
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GreenEngineer Posted 3:26 am
22 Feb 2007
So what's it going to be? Moral principles, or practical concerns? Because I can argue either one with facility, but I need to know which basis you prefer to have an argument from. Switching back and forth in order to dodge a rebuttal is only an effective rhetorical technique if your opponent doesn't notice.
Not me. I pay 10% extra for 100% green power.
Don't delude yourself into thinking that buying renewable energy credits or carbon offsets actually means you're carbon-neutral, or not damaging the planet. Don't get me wrong: carbon offsets can be a powerful force for good. But the problems with them are well documented on this site. They do not nullify your footprint.
My attitude towards measures like that is well reflected by a license plate I once saw on a Prius: ITZA*T (Read the '*' as STAR)
And, yes, for the record, the comment about your age was not meant as an insult. It's my honest best guess about what's going on here. It fits with your apparent lack of understanding of what life in the real world is like, what it's like to work multiple jobs (particularly multiple minimum wage jobs), and your unwillingness to discuss your work ("it involves words" = high-school student?).
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Delay And Deny Posted 3:32 am
22 Feb 2007
Shouldn't it just take off and run on its own if its sustainable...and in fact, product a profit and generate new instances of itself without having to pump it up with tax payer money?
Sheesh!
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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atreyger Posted 3:35 am
22 Feb 2007
That was the most ret... misguided statement ever. Sustainability does not imply lack of inputs, au contraire, it implies the right amount of efforts: change is a constant, in order to keep something going you have to apply work. Think of a car in motion: sustainability for the car is to remain in motion, but in order to remain that way, inputs of gas, pressure on the pedal, and steering of the wheel are required.
Geez!
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:56 am
22 Feb 2007
http://gristmill.grist.org/comments/2007/1/25/10544/0530/ ...
Read between the lines, all, if you have that ability.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreenEngineer Posted 4:02 am
22 Feb 2007
A sustainable society would run off of current solar income, and would support rather than deplete stores of natural resources (soil, water, biodiversity, etc). In the economic analogy, a society operating on this basis would be like an person who is living within their current income, avoiding debt, and hopefully saving a bit for the future.
The society we have is heavily subsidized the the environment. We use ancient sunlight, rather than current sunlight. Almost all of our agriculture and industry deplete our base store of natural capital. In the economic analogy, we're like a person who is living off their savings account.
For reasons that should be obvious, it is very hard for a sustainable solution to compete with the established unsustainable way of doing things. Sustainable solutions have to overcome the inertia of current practice. Much more difficult, however, is to overcome the advantage granted to unsustainable activity by our current method of accounting for value. In order to be successful, a sustainable solution does not need to merely be better than current practice -- it needs to be so much better that it can overcome the advantage (the subsidy) taken from the environment and still be profitable. This is discussed at length in Natural Capitalism.
I think that liberals, by and large, look too quickly to the government to solve our problems. However, I also think that government involvement in transition to a sustainable culture is unavoidable, because the playing field needs to be leveled in order for sustainable solutions to compete.
The government can do this in one of two ways: support sustainable solutions, or eliminate the subsidies provided to unsustainable solutions (which would include imposing a cost associated with environmental degradation, such as carbon taxes or pollution taxes).
The second option is, in my mind, greatly preferable. Unfortunately, it's simply not practical in most situations. The political reality is that powerful people will fight to protect their existing subsidies. They will not be defeated until their power base has already been eroded by competition (a chicken-and-egg problem). Worse, though, is the fact that the functioning of our economy and infrastructure is entirely dependent on cheap fossil fuels and easy externalization of costs. Take that away quickly (on a time scale of less than ~50 years) and you will crash the economy, and lots of poor people will starve.
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d41295 Posted 10:56 pm
22 Feb 2007
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d41295 Posted 10:57 pm
22 Feb 2007
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d41295 Posted 11:05 pm
22 Feb 2007
> Obviously, one has to start somewhere:
> getting a job is great. Having two is
> good too, especially if one is a
> part-time job.
It is very, very clear that for hypothetical west Oakland families affected by asthma, the fastest way for them to change their circumstances is to move. It's by far the fastest way. It will take years and probably decades for them to organize to remove this power plant, and even then their chances of success are slim. Why bang your head against a wall? Save up a couple of thousands of dollars and move someplace where it's nice and start over. Lots of people do it all the time. Are people in west Oakland so incapable that they cannot?
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atreyger Posted 12:00 am
23 Feb 2007
But come on now, you can't expect a meaningful discussion about jobs unless you reveal what it is that you do.
P.S.: Moving or letting the free market take care of moving an entire neighborhood, if not the entire city seems a bit far-fetched, what about the infrastructure and the economy of the area if everyone moved at once. Plus where are these people, many of whom have jobs and ties to the area supposed to move? Also can you elaborate on what I am supposed to do living downwind of Ohio Valley's multiple coal power plants? THis affects the entire region, so if I wanted to move to Pennsylvania from Central New York, I would still be affected, and if I wanted to move to Vermont, I would still be affected. Shouldn't these power plants either decommission or pay me restitutions for a decreased quality of life?
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amazingdrx Posted 1:27 am
23 Feb 2007
Turn about. Fair and balanced play.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Tom Philpott Posted 1:38 am
23 Feb 2007
Victual Reality
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utahpete Posted 12:20 am
24 Feb 2007
Corporate agriculture seems to have little interest in long term sustainability. Ultimately, organic agriculture will result in a safer, more sustainable food supply and a cleaner overall environment. This benefits us all.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:26 am
24 Feb 2007
Couldn't agree more pete. But even industrial scale farming could go organic with biogas digestors processing garbage, manure, sewage, and farm waste into renewable energy backup from fuel cell using the biogas and massive amounts of organic fertilizer.
That organic fertilizer can be spread on industrial farms too. As much as I dislike huge corporate ag, I would like to see it go organic, instead of continuing the destruction.
That industrial organic farm land would store cO2 and save dustbowl vulnerable chemically inert soil by building it up. Sodbusters plowed into 20 foot deep organic topsoil that stored 1000s of years of cO2, 6 inches of inert chemical dust is left.
To save small farming, encourage organic farming with regulation and tax credits, and make farmers into energy suppliers. With biogas digestors that pool manure and waste from local farms and supply the farmers with organic fertilizer. And pay farmers for the renewable kwh from the manure and waste.
Tax credits for these systems and renewable energy production friendly utility rate reform could do it.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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d41295 Posted 2:56 am
24 Feb 2007
What else of Tom Philpott's business expenses should we to pay for? His hoe? His toothpaste? His Odor-Eaters? It never ends with you people. I have plenty of good uses for my own money, and I don't want any more of it to go to pay for other people's cost of doing business. That's their responsiblity. Be a man about it.
I have written to my congressman thanking Congress for getting rid of the ATTRA subsidy.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:07 pm
24 Feb 2007
Once renewable technology takes hold eliminate the subsidies. No more subsidies. It's a way to restore competition in markets monopolized by corrupt lobbying and capital allocation.
"Free" marketeers rarely support eliminating subsidies for their favorite mega corporations. They mainly oppose subsidies designed to promote solutions to GHG global climate change, perpetual oil war, and nuclear proliferation.
Seems kind of dishonest.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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