Is "conventional" agriculture feasible?

[belovelife]

also if we did this as a national standard, then we would waste less water, and have a cycle back into our envyroment.

[lemit]

I saw the hearings that led to the forming of HR875 It is a measure to take some health monitoring from USDA and put it in FDA, which is better equipped to handle food testing.

 

I think it's good legislation. USDA hadn't been the appropriate agency to handle food safety and monitoring, as recent events have shown. In fact, it was a hearing on the peanut problem that finally caused the passage of this legislation that had been discussed for years, every time a food-borne health crisis generated hearings.

 

--lemit

[lemit]

I just read "Campaign For Liberty's" page more carefully. Apparently they don't care about the deaths caused by shoddy peanut farming practices and shoddy state oversight.

 

It's amazing if you know the language of law to see how it's interpreted by people who see everything as a vast conspiracy. Here they are trying to instill fear that the federal government wants to take organic farming away from them, and in one case fear that the government's going to take backyard gardens.

 

I spent 25 years in government, including some time editing laws. What I see in this bill is a lot of the normal administrative stuff. But it's also designed to take some state and individual rights away. For example, it's supposed to be designed to keep peanut growers from using animal waste for fertilizer. It's designed to pass the state enforcement rights to the federal government since state enforcement was very lax in the peanut case.

 

We need to remember that this legislation was passed as a result of several deaths and several previous incidents that had suggested overworked state governments, an overworked USDA, and an underutilized FDA.

 

Very often overreaching legislation results from deaths that could be attributed to loose or confused or, well, underreaching legislation. At this point in my argument I'm supposed to say I don't know which is better. I can't say that. I don't accept the deaths, and I don't think Congress did either. I'm proud of them.

 

--lemit

[Cedars]

What do the Yanks on the list think of this please?

Campaign For Liberty — HR 875 The food police, criminalizing organic farming and the backyard gardener, and violation of the 10th amendment

Does anyone see any irony in this and Mrs. obama starting an organic garden?

 

After reading the link you posted, and skimming over the bill's contents, I think there's a bit of confusion.

 

The obama garden will not fall under this regulation.

 

"(13) FOOD ESTABLISHMENT-

(A) IN GENERAL- The term ‘food establishment’ means a slaughterhouse (except those regulated under the Federal Meat Inspection Act or the Poultry Products Inspection Act), factory, warehouse, or facility owned or operated by a person located in any State that processes food or a facility that holds, stores, or transports food or food ingredients

(:) EXCLUSIONS- For the purposes of registration, the term ‘food establishment’ does not include a food production facility as defined in paragraph (14), restaurant, other retail food establishment, nonprofit food establishment in which food is prepared for or served directly to the consumer, or fishing vessel (other than a fishing vessel engaged in processing, as that term is defined in section 123.3 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations).

 

(14) FOOD PRODUCTION FACILITY- The term ‘food production facility’ means any farm, ranch, orchard, vineyard, aquaculture facility, or confined animal-feeding operation."

 

(19) PROCESS- The term ‘process’ or ‘processing’ means the commercial slaughter, packing, preparation, or manufacture of food.

 

When a large farmer harvests tomatoes (for example) for sale, it is still in the manufacturing process. It goes from the field to another point of sale before product separation begins. Some gets washed and packaged for "fresh sale" some goes into spagetti sauce. That is determined by the buyer and the responsibility is with this buyer. Some of these big farms in California bring the product from the field into a Production plant where they package the items for direct sale to the consumer (via big grocery chains). They will be responsible for following these regulations.

 

Reading laws is difficult because there is so much cross-referencing other laws/definitions.

 

When reading this the first time, I can see where people become alarmed. Most states already have specific laws and regulations regarding this that will already be in compliance with regulations.

 

Added:

An example would be "organic certification". If you take the time to read up on various state requirements for producers to hang the term 'organic' on their products, the rules and regs outlined in this new legislation would most likely (depending on state) already cover issues and require the organic farmer to change nothing they already do in their operations to qualify on the state level to use the term organic in their sales.

[lemit]

Thank you, Cedars, for saying what I was trying to say in a much less divisive way. I think what you added complements and ameliorates what I said very well.

 

--lemit

[lemit]

I'd like to revive this thread, because I think conventional farming offers a lot of things to a lot of people.

 

The kind of farming I grew up in was organic without understanding that it was organic. The practices of family farming, diversified farming, crop rotation, and selective breeding (outside the lab) seem to be what both the organic people and the family values people want.

 

Why can't we make people interested in this kind of farming? The beauty of the fields and pastures and woods where I grew up should attract anyone.

 

I hope people will read this and respond.

 

Actually, if anybody wants to live on my farm and create a diversified farm, I'd be happy to rent or sell it. Any takers?

 

--lemit

[lemit]

Someone asked me about traditional farming methods. Other than the Foxfire books, I think this thread is good as anything you could find, so I'm giving it a bump.

[maikeru]

I'd like to revive this thread, because I think conventional farming offers a lot of things to a lot of people.

 

The kind of farming I grew up in was organic without understanding that it was organic. The practices of family farming, diversified farming, crop rotation, and selective breeding (outside the lab) seem to be what both the organic people and the family values people want.

 

Why can't we make people interested in this kind of farming? The beauty of the fields and pastures and woods where I grew up should attract anyone.

 

I hope people will read this and respond.

 

--lemit

 

You have an interested reader.

 

I agree with JMJones that farming can be regarded as a business. I've read that much of the costs and loss of profit with farming is involved in the costs of irrigation, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. From what I've been reading, for example, the costs on phosphate fertilizers have been rising fast and this adds to the cost burdens that farmers have to bear. Will this make things like organic farming more competitive with "conventional" farming?

 

Volatility is outlook for phosphorus in 2009

 

When my grandparents lived in Taiwan, they were farmers, and as I understand it ran their farm as a profitable business before and after WW2, though they eventually sold the land for development and immigrated.

 

Also, I think there are many young people who are interested in "greenery" and those pastures and woods. Part of the problem is that young people are shouldering a lot of personal debt and have gone into "fields" which usually aren't related to agriculture. Year after year, colleges and universities have cranked out graduates who've gone into banking, economics, business, etc. The economy's become skewed and many jobs are unsustainable, such as those which developed during the construction and tech bubbles. It's not to say that farming is wholly or always sustainable, especially if practiced improperly, but like JMJones and Cedar, I believe it can be if done right.