"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote:

"Billy" wrote in message

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There are other arguments against "industrial" agriculture but this is
the first I came up with.


When General Mills decides to do a production run of
Coca Crispies cereal, they order the box printing by the
hundred thousand units, to get the cheapest price from the
printer, they order the plastic bag for the cereal by the
hundred thousand units, to get the cheapest price for the
bag, and they want to order the corn by the hundred
tons, because when their production line gets going they
are slamming those boxes out at a box a second at the
end of the assembly line, and they have to feed the
corn into the assembly line at a tremendous rate.

They do not want to go out and separately negotiate
orders of corn of this magnitude from 100 separate small
farmers who can each only supply a ton of corn.
You didn't read the chapter. Chem ferts kill top soil. The less top
soil, the more chem ferts, and more pollution of ground water and
fishing areas. Who pays to remediate the land and the water? The tax
payer does. It is called "privatize the profits and socialize
the costs". The price of the box is only part of the price.

You don't actually have to remediate the land and water, you
know. At one time we didn't. People would just use the
resources until they were all gone, then move to a new place.
However, nowadays people are valuing clean water and
clean land more than they used to. So now there is a cost
for those things that we didn't have before, which is now being
factored in. That is why you have to file environmental
impact statements nowadays when you want to build a factory.
They didn't require environmental impact statements when
those large farms were created years ago. So the real question
is, are we going to apply current laws retroactively?

Since it's illegal to smoke Marijuana today, is it right to
go to everyone in Alaska, including Sara Palin, and arrest them
today because they smoked it years ago when it was legal to do
so then?

If not, then how are you going to justify taking current
environmental requirements for creating a large farm and
apply it to large farms that were created years ago?

Grandfather clauses are an integral part of law, particularly
land-use law, today. Sure, you can argue that it might be
good to set them aside for these large farms. In which
case the suporters of those large farms might decide to
come after your own house that you live in which is in
violation of current insulation codes, and demand you
rip it apart and re-insulate it to current code, so that you
use less energy.


This is why the big agribusinesses thrive, it is the
presence of a market.
And the 34 billion dollars of advertising for products we don't need.
The American farmer produces 600 calories/consumer more than we need.

Great! It's something to sell overseas to other countries to help
balance our foreign trade.

Adverti$ing --- consumption --- over weight --- medical bills.

I am sure you think your a liberal but a real liberal believes in
people having the freedom to make their own decisions, that is
why real liberals are pro-life and are not in the crowd trying
to shut down Abortion clinics and take away more of our
rights in the process.

If people choose to listen to the advertising, and choose to follow it
and get the size of Porky Pig, then are you going to advocate the
Republican way of we just pass a law banning things? Hell why
not? Let's ban sex on TV, books, flag burning, and advertising
food on TV. After all, Big Brother knows best, you know.


If you want to get rid of large farms and go back to
a lot of small farms, you need to figure out an efficient
marketing and distribution system.
It is being done with no help from Washington. The 2008 Farm Bill
is same ol', same ol'.

Ted

Price of corn in a box of corn flakes: 4 cents
Price of a box of corn flakes: $4
**** 'em.

People can buy the bagged corn flakes in bulk, I have done so and
they taste the same as the $4 box. Enough people do so regularly
that the bulk cornflakes are readily available in any decently sized
city. As for the rest who are buying the cardboard box, if you are
so incensed about this, then I would suggest that you take one of
your Saturday afternoons, and buy a couple bags of the bulk
cornflakes, then about 100 sandwitch bags and make up 100
little "sampler" bags of the bulk cereal, and then stand there in
the parking lot of your local grocery store and hand out samples.
With any luck you will be able to give people who have never bought
the bulk cereal a taste test of it and they may just start buying
the bulk cereal as a result.

Ted