Part of the pasturing grown patterns on a dairy farm is to use the herd to fertilize the pasture fields that grow nitrogen fixers like clover, before the fields are used for crops. The thought of one of my great uncles or grandfather buying fertilizer is beyond the pale.
]]>Monocultural food production is dangerous. One new disease can take out a crop, not just a field, and you won’t find a resistant strain if there is only one strain in the field. If you get hit by something, the chances are good that whatever is left is resistant, so you want that seed. What Monsanto does is bad for farmers and hungry people.
]]>I guess we should have known that the more things change the more they stay the same.
]]>If being a farmer was good enough for George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, I don’t see why it is so difficult to find someone who has actually mixed some sweat with the earth to lead the agency that oversees the production of food in this country. Family farms are disappearing at an alarming rate as farming becomes industrialized. Much of this is caused by the government directing almost all of its assistance to agri-business and middle men, rather than the large number of people who are trying to make a living while workers are struggling to buy food.
Growing grain that will end powering engines instead of people is pretty damn short-sighted, and growing sterile seed is down right suicidal, but this is what agri-business and Vilsak want to do.
]]>I did a whole series of subcontracts for a USDA contractor back in the early days of my tiny business, and learned a few things about them. The important thing here is that from its formation, USDA has always had two separate fundamental missions. They are (expressed in my words) 1) to promote a healthful diet available to and consumed by all Americans, and 2) to promote the marketing, at home and abroad, of U.S. agricultural products. Not surprisingly, these missions are sometimes in unavoidable conflict with each other.
Three or four of the projects in which I participated were various aspects of the first-named mission, ranging from measuring the actual nutritional content of meals eaten in typical households in various American communities, to assessing the nutritional needs and actual consumption of the U.S. Army. As to mission number 2, you’ll have to ask someone else; all I can tell you is that it always appeared to me as if market promotion was the far better funded mission. And that was during the Bill Clinton years, so the problem here is not a partisan matter.
An actual farmer for USDA chief someday? Don’t hold your breath.
]]>Say,what?
President-elect Barack Obama’s swearing-in ceremony will feature big names like minister Rick Warren and legendary singer Aretha Franklin, the Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies announced Wednesday. Warren, the prominent evangelical and founder of the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, will deliver the ceremony’s invocation.
Right Wing Watch outlines many of the reasons why he should not have been asked to perform this function. I guess Obama doesn’t mind that Warren sandbagged him at the Saddleback Forum, (cone of silence) and Warren still gets the nod. PFAW have issued a statement.
‘Profoundly Disappointed’ that Rick Warren Will Give Invocation.
Duncan: Aside from the bigot part, Rick Warren is, you know, a liar.
We’ve covered many of Warren’s sins (Rick Warren is the new Jerry Falwell: ‘The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers.’) so why did Obama bring him on for this?
I’ve been very supportive of Obama so far, but I have to say that Obama’s decision on this one is highly insulting.
Though… There was this on the plus side (maybe):
Mary Shapiro to take over SEC
And so… It begins! 😉
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