The outlook for agriculture

Recently my sister, the younger who lives in Nevada, asked me to comment on an article from the New York Times. The article was constructed as "An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief." It was written by Michael Pollan whose salutation reads "Dear Mr. President-Elect." Mr Pollan is a Professor of Journalism at the University of California, Berkley. You can find the article on the Times Web site.

Now truth be said, my sister is of considerably more liberal persuasion politically than I. In fact it is likely that her vote for president next month will nullify my own. No matter! I found it to be an interesting article, worth a little cogitating and a chance to express an opinion.

Right off, Mr. Pollan presents a pretty good history of how modern agriculture has developed in the USofA. He recognizes that it is politically beneficial to pursue a cheap food policy, exactly what President Nixon did when he instructed Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz to throw money at the problem. Plant it fence row to fence row. Get big or get out! The result has been vastly increased production through the factory mega-farms that we see today.

Mr. Pollan heaps all the woes of modern life on present day agriculture, important things such as the epidemic of obesity, the over-weight related maladies of diabetes breathing problems and heart problems all stemming from modern "mono-culture" Ag. Raising corn and soybeans for fuel takes a hit too. Horrible to his way of thinking is all the farm ground taken out of production and placed in reserve but he conveniently neglects to recognize the related benefits of decreased soil erosion and great resurgence of wildlife.

He addresses the fact that food production is second only to the automobile (doesn't use the term transportation) in the use of oil today. Commercial fertilizer, a large consumer of oil both directly and in the production of power used to fix the nitrogen is bad and of course pesticides also take a huge hit. And then there is the problem with factory animal production causing pollution when the manure produced could more properly replace bad old "fossil-fuel fertilizer" and worse yet the use of antibiotics in animal feed! The diatribe is nothing new to those of us who live in fly-over farm country; we have heard it all already. Some is true but mostly it is liberal myth.

Professor Pollan has the answer for the next president to reshape agriculture. I am reminded of my good friends that railroaders, the train crews. Railroads cut right through farmland and I never met a trainman that wasn't an expert on how farmers should farm. Never mind the problems that a farmer faces daily, machinery to repair and calibrate to be ready at the time needed. Livestock to tend to, hay to put up when it is time to cultivate corn the list is legendary. No problem for the trainman though sitting high above the crops in the engine or way car, looking down at a field that should have been tilled yesterday and thinking that if that farmer wanted a better yield he would have done it in a timely fashion!

That is the way it is with Mr. Liberal professor from Berkley California. He has all the right answers and his advice is about worth what you pay for it. His answer is the small family farm, current buzzword "sustainable agriculture" with "organic" and "sun-food agriculture" thrown in.

It may cost a little more but the food will be so much healthier. He thinks that the Department of Agriculture should require gardens in every family's front yard and surrounding every grade school. His dream is to follow the example of Eleanor Roosevelt's Victory Gardens that won WWII. The professor is all for banning confinement animal feeding therefore allowing only grass fed or free range animal production. His plea and I quote: "But we now know how to grow crops and graze animals in systems that will support biodiversity, soil health, clean water and carbon sequestration." All the buzz words and liberal talking points right there!

Yes, I agree that we have a problem in the USofA today with way too many fat people. Small rural towns continue to shrink. Our taxes are increased to support agriculture subsidies (and congressional pork projects) all supposedly designed to insure cheap food. Yet today's American farmer is the most efficient producer of food the world has ever seen. Subsidies have skewed the markets and caused unintended surpluses or scarcities but so do overabundance of rain or lack thereof.

The problem that Mr Pollan doesn't recognize is that government interference is a major cause of the problems that we see and he has so well identified in Ag today.

No one in the world of government is smart enough to direct food production in this or any country but liberals are only too eager to try again and again. Only one system works to efficient perfection and that is the free market and the natural tendency of Ag producers to attempt to beat the system. The end result is today's most economical food production system the world has ever seen.

Mr. Liberal Professor has a point. We can either vote for the most Liberal Presidential Candidate who will most likely implement his Socialistic ideas or we can vote for the more Conservative Candidate who will most likely strive to continue the present system of influencing agriculture imperfect that it is!

It is only our future so choose wisely!

That is the way I see it.