I really wish we could step away from the term Organic and replace it with Sustainable as you cant be sustainable without using better practices and less chemicals than Organic But you can certainly be far less than sustainable and have the almighty Organic Certification. :) That being said the biodiversity on sustainable farms is indeed as productive or more productive than Conventional Industrial Factory Farming. The net profit per acre is much higher, the prices to the consumer are competitive and the practices are sound and environmentally friendly ones that heal depleted dead soils, improve water and air quality and function as a part of our world rather than attempting to dominate nature. There are real challenges to improving the food system and converting to sustainable agriculture. The hostile regulatory environment towards small and mid size farm to fork producers needs to just go away. A set reasonable standards should be pat in place that are distinct and separate from Mega COrp regulations. End farm subsidies and grants and convert those programs to low or no interest loans that dont require a perfect credit score. It is insane that I have a decent credit score, was willing to put up $275,000 worth of land as collateral, was reguired to have a co signor and then even more collateral in the form of all of my equipment and livestock needed to be held as collateral as well......... For a $35,000 easy to obtain USDA Micro Loan. All total they wanted in the neighborhood of $425,000 in collateral and a cosignor. Yeah I eventually told them to F Off. If there are going to be subsidies let those subsidies be in the form of work programs that help existing farms pay fair wages to Sustainable farmers in training. I would argue that the Existing Farms be certified in some way as being productive and profitable without grants or subsidies funded by tax payers. We need a lot more young people starting farms that are serious about producing food. somewhere in the hood of 6 million of them across the nation. We need local, regional and Intrastate infrastructure put in place to get food from the farms to the population centers that pay the farmer a fair wholesale price. The reason I refuse to sell anything wholesale is the buyers want to pay pennies on the dollar and turn the products around at top tier premium prices. Part of the malfuntion with Industrial farming are the hordes of middlemen that all take a healthy cut between the farm and the grocery store. I know a lot of conventional farmers that dont make a dime from the crops they grow, but make a ok profit from the subsidies paid for those crops. This bullshit promotes even more consolidation of farms into fewer and fewer farm owners owning more and more land each year. Why? Because the more acres of cropland you own the more subsidies you get. Its severly broken system that promotes perpetual debt and dependence...... We need the people who are on task forces and policy making boards to actually be small to mid size productive farms that are actually feeding a signifigant number of people. Personally I am tired of idiots that produce little to nothing presuming to speak for those of us who are productive. We end up with all kinds of shit for brains policies that mean nothing, a handfull of ok policies and rarely a very good policy based on these hair brains input. Of course those who are most qualified to sit on these boards and committees dont have time to because they are working 100-120 hours per week on their farms, trying to make a honest living..... under shit for brains policy. We need to kill the idea that local and regional food is expensive food perception. The only way to do that is through more farms being productive and creating competition for the elitist farms that preach eliminating competition to keep the local prices high. Yes sustainable food can compete with and even replace conventional industrial food. But people have to get serious about making that shift happen, starting with the small and mid size farms. Followed up with serious consumer education that does not revolve around preaching to the choir.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 07:51:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015