Thu, 30 Dec 2004

A harvest of modern technology

As usual, some good stuff, some not so good. The downside that most folks don't see in large farms has little to do with the "rural lifestyle" or "declining values", and everything to do with sustainability and enviromental preservation.

Take the farm described in the article: it's expanded from 400 to 5000 acres in 30 years, and added a large confinement hog operation. This is possible only because of the cheapness of fossil fuels: when the oil price really spikes, the cost for nearly all of the inputs for this farm will increase. I'm not just talking about the deisel to run the tractors, I'm talking about the fertilizers (petrocehmical based) that allow yields that make such large scale operations possible. Not to mention the electricity for the hog barns: our henhouse get's a 250 watt heat lamp on the coldest days: I'd wager his hog barns take as much power as the city of Thorntown to run on any single day. Lights, heat, sludge and feed pumps - note that if his power goes down he can't even feed his hogs!

Enviromental protection? If you've ever seen (or smelled) the lagoon from a hog operation of this sort, you won't have to ask.

We've adopted every available technology for the farm, without asking if it's appropiate or viable over the long haul, without understanding that without a stable food supply our civilization itself could be at risk. But this is "agri-business" now - not farming. And it's a recipe for disaster. It's not a question of if, only of when.

Darkening skies and a light morning drizzle blanketed the fields while combines harvested corn and tractor-trailers hauled away this year's crop. Even though he knew what was coming, Brian Watkins hopped out of his pickup truck and stepped into his office to check the weather forecast on his computer.

(link) [CNN]

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