Comments otocco has made

Pick your poison

     IMO, as long as there have been more than two links to the agrifood supply chain, greed has played a part in the system.  I doubt an organic designation will change this.
     We recently had a big fight within the farm community about the wholesale banning of the use of rBST in dairy cows in the "conventional" supply chain.  I found it interesting what happens when two giants, in this case Monsanto and the Kroger Corporation, work against one another.  Through this debate, a thorough examination of both the "conventional" and organic systems was made by a number of professors and vets.  Their findings were published in an article in Feedstuffs Magazine.  An excerpt and full citation is below:

     "Support of organic or rbST-free milk products may stem from concern about the environment, but the science does not support those positions. Cows given rbST produce more milk. In doing so, their efficiency of production increases and they eat less feed for each gallon of milk they produce. In fact, it takes about 6 to 8% less land to produce milk from cows given rbST. Less land plowed, less fertilizer, less of all of the inputs that go into producing the dairy products consumers enjoy. These cows release less greenhouse gas into the environment per gallon of milk produced, reducing their impact on global warming. This means there is less impact on the environment to produce our nation's milk. In fact, a recently released British government study of organic farming found that in many cases, organic farming was less environmentally friendly than conventional agricultural practices. This was particularly true of milk production. The report concludes, in part, that organic milk requires 80% more land per gallon of milk produced, generates 20% more carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas), and produces almost double the amount of other byproducts that can lead to acidification of soil and pollution of water."

http://www.feedstuffsfoodlink.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?nm=Blog& ...

I recognize this report was from what some Grist readers might call "The enemies".  But these are 65 academic professionals (ie. scientists) who want to objectively evaluate the systems based on replicated trials.

     In these times when we as a global village struggle to feed ourselves without destroying our ecological niche on the planet, it seems we might be a bit premature to write off "conventional" practices as deplorable. To provide greater equity to our farmers, we would definitely do well to shorten the chain between us and our food, but we should ultimately support them. Any time there are more distributors, packers, haulers, or manufacturers in our food chain we can always expect the possibility of trouble.On Why that organic label on your milk doesn't tell the whole story posted 1 year, 6 months ago 25 Responses

An Answer from the Market

     Thanks for the post.  More need to speak out about this.
     Where I work in Michigan the trend is the same.  A growing small farm base and increasing Mega farms but the midsized farms get squeezed out.  A current local study showed 71% of the farmers in the region gross less than $20K.
     One of the ways we've been working to facilitate change in the marketplace is by providing mechanisms to help midsized farmers find scaleable markets.  One tool that is currently active is online called MarketMaker (http://national.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/)  This helps these farmers find another avenue, sometimes circumventing the brokers and shippers and directly going to retailers.  It also helps the retailers find farmers.
     From the retail end, we're beginning to see much more than just lip service from produce buyers about finding local sources.  Mid-sized grocery chains paying freight to get produce to market are feeling the pinch of $4.20 diesel.  Their buyers are doing a lot to fill orders as close to local hubs as possible.  This is a sea change from just three years ago, when the only company that was actually walking the walk was Wal-Mart.
     I don't shop at Wal-Mart and despise many of the things they do, but they organized regional produce hubs in close proximity to their growers and cultivated relationships with these growers to make far more local supply chains, long before it was cool or even financially expedient to do.  One of the apple growers who supplies Wal-Mart used to be a business aquaintance, and he saw the value in the system when he bought into it back in the 90's.  It's a pity the rest of the food system is still playing catch up with Wal-Mart.On To make local food more accessible, time to revive mid-sized farms posted 1 year, 7 months ago 10 Responses

Farm Bill Repercussions

     Another potential wrinkle in the mad dash to plant more corn acres can be found in the Farm Bill.  One of the programs authorized in the Farm Bill is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).  This is one of those programs that pays farmers to not plant land that is "marginal".  Marginal could be highly erodible, near a stream or other water body or on a slope.  When corn was $2/bu or less, this program helped defray the cost of not planting these areas.  Farmers could still make more money if they planted the ground, but most all of them did the right thing and enrolled in this voluntary program.
     Now that comodity prices are climbing, the temptation could be to pull these areas out of this program and plant them to corn or beans.  If someone could perfect cellulosic ethanol, we could plant these areas (CRP ground)to perennial grasses and mow them for ethanol production and leave the good ground for food production. On Three million more acres of industrial corn? posted 1 year, 7 months ago 6 Responses

The sins of petroleum

Fertilizer costs have gone up tenfold in the last three to five years.  Alas, when the system is based on petroleum derived chemicals and built to fuel the petroleum industry, someone has to lose.  That someone is very often the farmer, who now has to find a way to afford the inputs to take advantage of $6 per bushel corn.  The margins for farming haven't changed, despite the record price for corn.  

To give you an idea as to how bad the cost of fertilizer has been for farmers, until recently most livestock producers have looked at manure as a "problem" they had to dispose of.  Today many livestock farmers are considering expanding.  Remember, these guys have to buy that $6 corn and feed it to their animals at a net loss when they go to sell the critters.  Why would they be considering expansion in herd numbers? Because of the manure value of the animals.  There are folks that have essentially bought future manure production of large confinement operations so they can have the fertilizer to grow that $6 corn.
     On Corn hits a new record -- $6 a bushel posted 1 year, 7 months ago 8 Responses